Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Ecommerce good/bad? Showing product description on sub/category page?
-
Hi Mozers,
I have a ecommerce furniture website, and I have been wondering for some time if showing the product descriptions on the sub/category page helps the website.
If there is more content displayed on the subcategory, it should be more relevant, right?
OR does it not matter, as it is duplicate content from the product page.
I think showing the product descriptions on non-product pages is hurting my design/flow, but i worry that if I am to hide product content on sub/category pages my traffic will be hurt.
Despite my searches I have not found an answer yet.
Please take a look at my site and share your thoughts:
http://www.ecustomfinishes.com/
Chris
-
thank you everyone who contributed to this response, I found it very helpful. I will adjust my pages this morning, incase anyone checks back. If I see any dramatic SEO changes I will let you know.
Also this is my first time posting on SEOMOZ, loved it! What a cool feature.
-
Have a look at this Q&A which touches on similar points: http://www.seomoz.org/q/how-much-copy-should-there-be-on-a-category-page
I would get rid of the product descriptions on category pages - I think it is more an user-experience issues and I do think that having so much copy on the category pages it will weaken your category pages.
-
The category pages definitely don't look clean and professional right now, and that will impact conversion rate. You have enough copy on the category pages to establish relevancy, so I would be extremely surprised if your rankings went down after you stopped showing the product descriptions on the category pages.
If you're hesitant, would it be possible to test it both ways? Choose a couple of categories and pull the product descriptions off them. See what happens to their rankings and traffic.
-
I've only looked at a handful of pages / categories, but I am not sure that you are doing yourself too many favours.
In SEO terms I think that you are undermining your unique content pages. By repeating the unique content from the product pages on to the category pages you are effectively introducing duplicates. Yes, it is your own content, but spreading it across those pages is unlikely to do you many favours.
More importantly it's also pretty confusing in places. Some of those categories are quite off putting.
What would I do?
- Remove those descriptions from the cat pages
- Add category descriptions
- Try to flesh out the product descriptions with more unique content and keep an eye out for those that duplicate each other.
I hope that helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Review Microdata if the product does not have a review
We have many products that do not have reviews and are causing warnings in googles microdata. Is there anything you can do for products without a review so you don't get errors for aggregate review or review??
Algorithm Updates | | jforthofer0 -
Product pages - should the meta description match our product description?
Hi, I am currently adding new products to my website and was wondering, should I use our product description (which is keyword optimised) in the meta description for SEO purposes? Or would this be picked up by Google as duplicate content? Thanks in advance.
Algorithm Updates | | markjoyce1 -
A page will not be indexed if published without linking from anywhere?
Hi all, I have noticed one page from our competitors' website which has been hardly linked from one internal page. I just would like to know if the page not linked anywhere get indexed by Google or not? Will it be found by Google? What if a page not linked internally but go some backlinks from other websites? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
How long for google to de-index old pages on my site?
I launched my redesigned website 4 days ago. I submitted a new site map, as well as submitted it to index in search console (google webmasters). I see that when I google my site, My new open graph settings are coming up correct. Still, a lot of my old site pages are definitely still indexed within google. How long will it take for google to drop off or "de-index" my old pages? Due to the way I restructured my website, a lot of the items are no longer available on my site. This is on purpose. I'm a graphic designer, and with the new change, I removed many old portfolio items, as well as any references to web design since I will no longer offering that service. My site is the following:
Algorithm Updates | | rubennunez
http://studio35design.com0 -
Flat Structure URL vs Structured Sub-directory URL
We are finally taking our classifieds site forward and moving into a much improved URL structure, however, there is some disagreement over whether to go with a Flat URL structure or a structured sub-directory. I've browsed all of the posts and Q&A's for this going back to 2011, and still don't feel like I have a real answer. Has anyone tested this yet, or is there any consensus over ranking? I am in a disagreement with another SEO manager about this for our proposed URL structure redesign who is for it because it is what our competitors are doing. Our classifieds are geographically based, and we group by state, county, and city. Most of our traffic comes from state and county based searches. We also would like to integrate categories into the URL for some of the major search terms we see. The disagreement arises around how to structure the site. I prefer the logical sub-directory style: [sitename]/[category]/[state]/[county]/
Algorithm Updates | | newspore
mysite.com/for-sale/california/kern-county/
or
[sitename]/[category]/[county]-county-[stateabb]/
mysite.com/for-sale/kern-county-ca/ I don't mind the second, except for when you look at it in the context of the whole site: Geo Landing Pages:
mysite.com/california/
mysite.com/los-angeles-ca-90210/ Actual Search Pages:
mysite.com/for-sale/orange-ca/[filters] Detail Pages:
mysite.com/widget-type/cool-product-name/productid I want to make sure this flat structure performs better before sacrificing my analytics sanity (and ordered logic). Any case studies, tests or real data around this would be most helpful, someone at Moz must've tackled this by now!0 -
How much link juice does a sites homepage pass to inner pages and influence inner page rankings?
Hi, I have a question regarding the power of internal links and how much link juice they pass, and how they influence search engine ranking positions. If we take the example of an ecommerce store that sells kites. Scenario 1 It can be assumed that it is easier for the kite ecommerce store to earn links to its homepage from writing great content on its blog, as any blogger that will link to the content will likely use the site name, and homepage as anchor text. So if we follow this through, then it can be assumed that there will eventually be a large number of high quality backlinks pointing to the sites homepage from various high authority blogs that love the content being posted on the sites blog. The question is how much link juice does this homepage pass to the category pages, and from the category pages then to the product pages, and what influence does this have on rankings? I ask because I have seen strong ecommerce sites with very strong DA or domain PR but with no backlinks to the product page/category page that are being ranked in the top 10 of search results often, for the respective category and product pages. It therefore leads me to assume that internal links must have a strong determiner on search rankings... Could it therefore also be assumed that a site with a PR of 5 and no links to a specific product page, would rank higher than a site with a PR of 1 but with 100 links pointing to the specific product page? Assuming they were both trying to rank for the same product keyword, and all other factors were equal. Ie. neither of them built spammy links or over optimised anchor text? Scenario 2 Does internal linking work both ways? Whereas in my above example I spoke about the homepage carrying link juice downward to the inner category and product pages. Can a powerful inner page carry link juice upward to category pages and then the homepage. For example, say the blogger who liked the kite stores blog content piece linked directly to the blog content piece from his site and the kite store blog content piece was hosted on www.xxxxxxx.com/blog/blogcontentpiece As authority links are being built to this blog content piece page from other bloggers linking to it, will it then pass link juice up to the main blog category page, and then the kite sites main homepage? And if there is a link with relevant anchor text as part of the blog content piece will this cause the link juice flowing upwards to be stronger? I know the above is quite winded, but I couldn't find anywhere that explains the power of internal linking on SERP's... Look forward to your replies on this....
Algorithm Updates | | sanj50500 -
Dofollow Links on Press Releases: Good or Bad?
Hello, I know that Google says that you are supposed to make anchored text links nofollow on press releases, but what about just putting the site url itself (example.com) and making it dofollow? Is that okay?
Algorithm Updates | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Sub-Links of Organic SERP
I would like to know if you can modify (or suggest) the sub-links under an organic listing. For Example: Main Link/Title = COMPANY NAME - What We Do.... Sub-Links (popular pages within site) currently include links like: Locations / Catalog Request / Bestsellers Is it possible to suggest other pages as sub-links or do the search engines determine these? Please advise, and thanks in advance....
Algorithm Updates | | WhiteCap0