20-30% of our ecommerce categories contain no extra content, could this be a problem
-
Hello,
About 20-30% of our ecommerce categories have no content beyond the products that are in them. Could this be a problem with Panda?
Thanks!
-
It's not an exact science in regard to any one signal, however yes, the more you can reinforce the ability to strengthen topical focus, the less likely Panda would find category pages to be weak.
-
No worries Bob. Ignore my original suggestion then.
Alan has some good suggestions for you to follow
-Andy
-
Thanks Alan, this is perfect.
So if we had at least a couple of good paragraphs on every category page, and a few extra very appropriate internal links pointing to each of those category pages then we would be in good shape as far as Panda and category strength. Correct?
-
Hi Andy,
Sorry for the confusion. This is an ecommerce site. I edited the original question to be clear.
-
I'm assuming that this is a Wordpress site (more info would be useful) and a common issue is category pages causing problems due to them showing the same excerpts over and over. No indexing them gets around this.
if I have misread the type of issue this is, then of course, this doesn't apply. With this being posted in blogging and content, this was my assumption.
A URL to look at would I'm sure confirm more of the problem.
-Andy
-
Andy,
why would you noindex/follow category pages? Thats like saying "hey - we have X products for this category - so it's really a high value and important page we deserve ranking for. Except hey - we don't have the willingness to boost the trust signals on the category page itself, so don't bother."
That in turn negatively impacts the site's ability to gain maximum ranking signals for any products in those categories (at least in highly competitive fields).
So I'm curious why you'd take that path.
-
It could be Bob. I always advise that category pages are noindex / follow to avoid issues.
if you are using Wordpress and Yoast, this is just a setting.
-Andy
-
If a category page has almost no content (other than photos and product names), then that's a potential "thin content" issue, though the way your question is worded, I'm not confident my interpretation is actually what you meant by "no content beyond".
If product names don't reference the category name, and if there's a lack of any descriptive content on the category page, that's likely even more of a problem - thin content and lack of topical reinforcement of the category itself.
A general rule (barring other issues or considerations) is to have at least a couple paragraphs of unique, descriptive paragraph based text that reinforces the topical focus of each category page. There are numerous ways to split that content out across a category page, and in highly competitive categories, more content may be needed if not enough products exist in the category.
Other factors that can help mitigate this to a certain degree include (but aren't necessarily limited to):
- hierarchical URL structure (nested URLs so product detail pages are seen at the URL as being "beneath" their category
- Proper nested breadcrumbs to reinforce that hierarchical structure
- Strong internal linking a) within categories this would include pagination code (rel-next/rel-prev). b) outside a category this would include links and highly refined relevant content elsewhere on the page linking to the category page.
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
-
Impact of wiping content on a subdomain
Hi, I've been asked to look at the impact of bulk deleting content on a blog subdomain and how it could impact the SEO of a linked www subdomain. Can deleting content on one subdomain have a negative impact on other linked subdomains? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | think-web0 -
Do content copycats (plagiarism) hurt original website rankings?
Hi all, Found some websites stolen our content and using the same sentences in their website pages. Does this content hurt our website rankings? Their DA is low, still we are worried about the damage about this plagiarism. Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Duplicate content - multiple sites hosted on same server with same IP address
We have three sites hosted on the same server with the same IP address. For SEO (to avoid duplicate content) reasons we need to redirect the IP address to the site - but there are three different sites. If we use the "rel canonical" code on the websites, these codes will be duplicates too, as the websites are mirrored versions of the sites with IP address, e.g. www.domainname.com/product-page and 23.34.45.99/product-page. What's the best ways to solve these duplicate content issues in this case? Many thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Jade0 -
Canonical tags being direct to "page=all" pages for an Ecommerce website
I find it alarming that my client has canonical tags pointing to "page=all" product gallery pages. Some of these product gallery pages have over 100 products and I think this could effect load time, especially for mobile. I would like to get some insight from the community on this, thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JMSCC0 -
Redirecting 86'd Brand Product Category Page
What would be the approach if my website is no longer selling products for a brand that is driving top organic traffic? Where should I redirect the traffic on the page? I'm trying to decide between the homepage or another similar brand product page.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JMSCC0 -
Dublicated content
I have someone to write new pages for my site. How do I know the pages she is writing is not duplicated from other other website. is there any website or software to do this? What is the best way to check? Thank you
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SinaKashani0 -
Noindexing Thin Content Pages: Good or Bad?
If you have massive pages with super thin content (such as pagination pages) and you noindex them, once they are removed from googles index (and if these pages aren't viewable to the user and/or don't get any traffic) is it smart to completely remove them (404?) or is there any valid reason that they should be kept? If you noindex them, should you keep all URLs in the sitemap so that google will recrawl and notice the noindex tag? If you noindex them, and then remove the sitemap, can Google still recrawl and recognize the noindex tag on their own?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Showing pre-loaded content cloaking?
Hi everyone, another quick question. We have a number of different resources available for our users that load dynamically as the user scrolls down the page (like Facebook's Timeline) with the aim of improving page load time. Would it be considered cloaking if we had Google bot index a version of the page with all available content that would load for the user if he/she scrolled down to the bottom?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CuriosityMedia0