Duplicate page titles and Content in Woocommerce
-
Hi Guys,
I'm new to Moz and really liking it so far!
I run a eCommerce site on Wordpress + WooCommerce and ofcourse use Yoast for SEO optimalisationI've got a question about my first Crawl report which showed over 600 issues! I've read that this is something that happens more often (http://moz.com/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success).
Most of them are categorized under:
1. Duplicate Page Titles or;
2. Duplicate Page Content.Duplicate Page Titles:
These are almost only: product category pages and product tags. Is this problem beeing solved by giving them the right SEO SERP? I see that a lot of categories don't have a proper SEO SERP set up in yoast! Do I need to add this to clear this issue, or do I need to change the actual Title? And how about the Product tags?Another point (bit more off-topic) I've read here: http://moz.com/community/q/yoast-seo-plugin-to-index-or-not-to-index-categories that it's advised to noindex/follow Categories and Tags but isn't that a wierd idea to do for a eCommerce site?!
Duplicate Page Content:
Same goes here almost only Product Categories and product tags that are displayed as duplicate Page content! When I check the results I can click on a blue button for example "+ 17 duplicates" and that shows me (in this case 17 URLS) but they are not related to the fist in any way so not sure where to start here?Thanks for taking the time to help out!
Joost -
Hi Dan,
Thanks for the great answer! Really helpfull.
Best,Joost
-
Hi Joost - I'll try to tackle each of the questions one by one:
- About categories, I'm not sure of the specifics, but you'll definitely want to find a category variable that just pulls in the category name for you. What that variable is, I am not sure off the top of my head.
- The way I'd look at it - you don't want to end up with a "category" that's so deep or specific it only have a couple products in it. You may as well rank a product page instead. So long as your categories have maybe 5+ products which makes it useful for the user, you'd be fine I think.
- I wouldn't worry about duplicate content. The "duplicate content" scare from years back is only a penalty if you are scraping content from other sites and building a whole website off of other people's content. I would just judge each page individually and aim for it being as helpful to the user as possible - in terms of trying to predict their questions, fears, doubts, etc in terms of actually purchasing the product
-
Thanks Ryan, clear as a bell!
-
There was a nice discussion here on tags: http://moz.com/community/q/wordpress-tag-pages-noindex that still applies. In general they tend to eliminate duplicate content issues when noindexed.
-
Hey Dan!
Thanks for taking the time to write back.
I found your article very helpfull! But I wasn't sure if I coud use your tips because you expressly stated that you were talking about a normal wordpress blog and not eCommerce. So really nice you took the time to look in to this matter.
It think the problem with my duplicate page titles has started when I set a template for the product categories because it's not working. I've used the template: %%ct_product_cat%% | %%sitename%% but I see a lot of product categories return: (empty) | %%sitename %%. And all of these don't have an individual SEO title set by myself. The ones that have an individual SEO title will return that one.
Just to make clear, I've done this because %%category%% is also not an option to use as template. I followed this link http://zendenwebdesign.com/woocommerce-product-category-taxonomy-with-wordpress-seo-by-yoast/
About the deepness of indexing:
With your last bulletpoint you mean that: If I have a category and within that category products for let's say sunglasses (and I target the same keyword for the category and the article as well) it depends on which will rank better (category or ind. product) for the highest index?For my individual product pages I use tabs (theme shortcodes that output tabs on frontend) I use 4:
- About (product info content optimized around keyword)
- Brand (brand info)
- Sizing
- Shipping
The Brand info and shipping tab are on a lot of product pages the same. I've got multiple products from a brand and the shipping is for every product (+300) the same. Although Yoast returns a Good SEO score (so does Scribe) do you think this can be seen as duplicate content? Is it better to load this kind of information directly in to the product page template? For less duplicate content issues? (not sure if it even will be seens as duplicate).
Best.Joost
-
Hi Joost
Dan here (I wrote that Setting Up WordPress article )
Without seeing your site, it's tough to be 100% sure, but here's what I would make sure you're doing:
- Noindex subpages of archives
- Index categories
- Noindex tags
- Set up title templates for categories so maybe they say "Browse Category Name - Sitename" (something call to action like for eCommerce)
The key with how "deep" you index categories may depend on:
- search volume
- how many extra pages per level that causes to get indexed etc
- where it starts competing with actual products that could rank instead
I find it's good to hit that sweet spot where you don't get a ridiculous amount of pages indexed, but are deep enough in the categories with search volume to not miss out on any traffic.
-
Ok very clear. I will determine per category if I want to index them or not. And keep in mind the uniqueness and potential rank.
I indeed don't have to be way too focused on the results from the crawl. But our categories rank really
Bad (so then the first guess is; maybe because of duplicate content moz is telling me).Or because they are actually "empty" pages with products that are categorized in it. But that goes for every ecommerce site, right? Maybe I need to write a short description per category and style it with HTML to make it more attractive and give it more content.
How are your thoughts on tags?
-
Right. It's kind of a combination of categories you want to rank for and ones that are populated and active enough to rank. Brand C Shirts would be fine, but Brand C Short Sleeve shirts could be too diluted. You're on the right track.
Also, there are some instances where the Moz tool just doesn't align with what you would not consider duplicate content and in those cases feel free to ignore it, especially if those pages are ranking well and performing well in terms of conversion / funnel. Cheers!
-
Hi Ryan,
Thanks for clearing this out for me! Sounds like a good appraoch! With top level you mean the parents categories? Or categories that I want to rank for?
For example we have a webstore and sell clothing from Scandinavian cloting brands. If I should index only the parents I get: tshits/pants/sweaters/jackets etc (these are to general imo). But the sub-categories which display the brands are much better to rank because they get a lot more search volume for example.
This is the structure we use:
Shirts:- Brand A (url is /product-category/shirts/branda-shirts) <- these are keywords that our target audience use when they search for shirts from that brand! high potential for us
- Brand B (url is /product-category/shirts/brandb-shirts)
- Brand C (url is /product-category/shirts/brandc-shirts)
Let me know what your thoughts are.Joost
-
Hi Joost. The reasoning behind noindexing category and tag pages is because they have a high tendency to show up as duplicate content--as you've just experienced. People like to keep them as part of their site due to user friendliness but often these pages on their own are a reshuffling of content and can be highly repetitive from a search engine perspective. Ideally you keep your top level categories that are unique within the index and noindex the rest. Feel free to keep links within your site as followed. Cheers!
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
-
Unsolved Duplicate Contents in Order Pages of Multiple Products
Hi, I have a website containing 30 software products. Each product has an order page. The problem is that the layout and content of these 30 order pages are very similar, except for the product name, for example: https://www.datanumen.com/access-repair-order/
On-Page Optimization | | ccw
https://www.datanumen.com/outlook-repair-order/
https://www.datanumen.com/word-repair-order/ Siteliner has reports these pages as duplicate contents. I am thinking of noindex these pages. However, in such a case, if a user search for "DataNumen Outlook Repair order page", then he will not be able to see the order page of our product, which drives the revenue go away. So, how to deal with such a case? Thank you.1 -
How dangerous are duplicate page titles
We ran a SEO crawl and on our report it flag up duplicate pages titles, we investigate further and found that these were page titles from the same product line that had more than one page, e.g 1-50 (products) 51-100 (products) with a next button to move to the following 50 products. These where flagged as duplicate page titles ".../range-1/page-1" and ".../range-1/page-2" These titles are obviously being read as duplicates but because they are the same range we do not know what the best course of action is. We want to know how detrimental these page titles will be to our SEO if at all. If anyone could shed some light on this issue it would be a massive help. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | SimonDixon0 -
Page Title
Hi All, I am wondering if you could help me please. I am getting the following result after I run my On-Page Analysis Avoid Multiple Page Title Elements _Easy fix _ <dl style="font-style: normal;"> <dt>Page titles</dt> <dd>"Aquashowers-Shower Repairs Dublin -" and "Aquashowers - Shower Repairs Dublin"</dd> <dt>Explanation</dt> <dd>Web pages are meant to have a single title, and for both accessibility and search engine optimization reasons, we strongly recommend following this practice.</dd> <dt>Recommendation</dt> <dd>Remove all but a single page title element.</dd> </dl> Does this mean that i have 2 pages that are nearly identical or i should only name a page with one word? The reason i ask is because i have 1 page called "Aquashowers-Shower Repairs Dublin" and another called "Aquashowers-Dublin Shower Repair" I don't have a page called "Aquashowers - Shower Repairs Dublin" (with the space inbetween the words and the hyphen) Any help would be great. Thanks again Aidan
On-Page Optimization | | aidanlawlor0 -
Duplicate content
crawler shows following links as duplicate http://www.mysite.com http://mysite.com http://www.mysite.com/ http://mysite.com. http://mysite.com/index.html How can i solve this issue?
On-Page Optimization | | bhanu22170 -
How do I get rid of duplicate page titles when using a php site?
Hi. I have an e-commerce site that sells a list of products. The list is divided into categories and then those categories for the various pages on the site. An example of a page title. would be given root/products.php?c=40 another page would be given root/products.php?c=41 Is there a way to structure the site with SEO in mind?
On-Page Optimization | | curtisgibbsiii0 -
Page without content
Hey Everyone, I've started an SEO On Page analysis for a web site and I've found a lot of duplicate content and useless pages. What do I have to do? Delete this useless page, redirect or do canonical tag? If I have to delete what is the best way to do? Should I use GWT to delete? or just delete from the server? This URL for example: http://www.sexshopone.com.br/?1.2.44.0,0,1,13,0,0,aneis-evolved-boss-cock's.html [admin note: NSFW page} There is no content and it is duplicate in reference of this: http://www.sexshopone.com.br/?1.2.44.0,0,1,12,0,0,aneis-evolved-boss-cock's.html [admin note: NSFW page} and the correct page of the product is: http://www.sexshopone.com.br/?1.2.44.0,423,anel-peniano-evolved-boss-cock's-pleasure-rings-collar-white-reutilizavel-e-a-prova-d'agua-colecao-evolved.html [admin note: NSFW page} What is happening is that we have 8.000 pages like this. Useless and without any content. How do I proceed? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | luf07090 -
Duplicate Content using templates
Hi, Our web site is designed using a template, which means the header and footer is consistent across all pages. Only the body content is unique on each page. Is the google bot able to see that the header and footer content is defined by the common template? Will this have any impact in terms of duplicate content? For example, we have a two line text in the footer that summarize the services we provide. Because the same text is in the footer of all pages, i am concerned about creating duplicate content. Finally, does it make sense to include keywords in header and footer of the template? Will it have any positive or negative SEO impact?
On-Page Optimization | | petersen0 -
The SEO and CRO Value of an Image Next to Page Content
If given the choice to add an attractive stock photo to a conversion focused page, do the pros out number the cons in terms of SEO and CRO. Some pros are that you can include the keyword in the image filename and image alt tag. It can also increase user experience by making the page more attractive. Some cons might be that it increases page load time which can have a negative impact on SEO and user expereience. Also the visitor might get distracted away from the lead form button.
On-Page Optimization | | SparkplugDigital0