Too many articles within ecommerce site?
-
So recently purchased an ecommerce site to work on with lots of potential. The site was effected by Penguin update and now I am trying to fix up some issues.
One of the problems I think may be the articles that he had written within the site. The site is an ecommerce site but has lots of articles like how to's and tips.
A lot of these articles are not very fluent but seems to be written for SEO. Should I just remove them entirely or should I just stuff them in the back somewhere.
-
Willny
In general there is no such thing as too much content. But you mentioned that some of the articles seem not fluent.. that could be another way of saying they are spammy. If this is the case simply go through the articles and make them sound natural.
Subdomain vs directories. In most all cases you want to go with directories or pages, as sub-domains can be viewed as separate websites completely.
If the site was hit by Penguin / Panda then the previous owner probably did some un-natural stuff to try and rank. This may explain why his articles seem spammy it may also indicate a bigger problem like buying links / exchanging links / and blantant spamming on forums / blogs / social media. Make sure you look at the backlink structure of the site before you go killing pages.
Hope that helps
-
I am writing articles that focus on the use of individual products. They are about 500 to 1500 words and usually have 3 to 8 photos. Some have a video. I started working on them in November and now some of those articles rank in the top three positions of google for the product and my product page ranks immediately below or above them.
When a visitor lands on one of the article pages there are links in the article to the sales page and also some "house ads" on the article page for related products.
Some of the videos are now ranking in the top three positions of youtube search for the product or a related query. Some of these also appear in the google search results.
I don't do linkbuilding but these articles have gotten some natural links from dremel and other how-to-do-it sites.
These articles are all on dreamweaver pages or in a /blog/ folder (wordpress). I use "buy buttons" on dreamweaver pages rather than an ecommerce platform.
-
Are you using the articles as a subdomain/subfolder? Or within the ecommerce platform?
For me, each category has their own dedicated description 200-300 words.
-
Articles on an ecommerce site can be a great thing. I have been spending most of my time recently blogging and writing articles for ecommerce.
Those articles can pull traffic, they speak to the expertise of your staff, they show that you care about customers using your products properly, they help customers select your products and if they are superbly written and extremely informative then can help you get links that improve your rankings.
But, if those article suck then they could be damaging to your business.
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
-
Tool to identify duplicated content on other sites
Hi does anyone know of a tool that could be used to identify if a site is using our content without permission? Thanks
Content Development | | turismodevino10 -
Breaking a Big Website into Multiple Unrelated Sites
I have a big cluttered website that I want to simplify. There is content for patients, researchers, therapists who are looking for grants, etc.. Would it be a bad ideas to turn these into 3 or more, completely different sites with each focused on their specific demographic? Or should I just figure out how to organize the one site better? Thanks for your help!!!
Content Development | | bosleypalmer0 -
Does using Articlebase articles on your site push your rank down?
Hello All, I launched a website (www.hrpayrollsystems.net) last year. I'm very new to the SEO world so I'm still seeing what works and what doesn't. We recently republished some articles from articlebase.com that I think may have hurt us in SEO. Does Google see our site as having duplicate content and then penalize us? Our top keyword isn't even ranking anymore when I put it in the sites that tell you where you show up. Help!
Content Development | | HRISGuy0 -
Will a comment section on my site help with seo
I have never been a fan of comment pages such as the sun http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/4783642/bruce-willis-appears-on-the-one-show-in-awkward-interview.html but i was told the other day that not only is it good for the reader but it is also good for seo and increase the number of times that google would visit the page and i would like to know if that is true. if you have added a comment section to your articles i would like to know if you have noticed any change.
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Setting up a Blog for an e-commerce site
Hi All, I need some pointers on setting up a blog for our new e-commerce site. The new site uses magento and is going live in a month or so. This is a bit of a learning experience for me as I have never set a company blog up before I am not sure of the do's and dont's. Any ideas will be very appreciated. Cheers Nic
Content Development | | nicc19760 -
Google Site Search
Hi, I was just wondering if anyone had used Google Site Search before and what they thought of it? http://www.google.com/sitesearch/ It seems quite expensive for just returning your own pages but would be interested to find out more. Thanks
Content Development | | ASOS0 -
How does google react to duplicate shops on ecommerce sites
Surely shopping cart sites are going to have a lot of duplicate content? Does google recognise this? Is there anything I can do let google know?
Content Development | | borderbound0 -
4 sites - 4 keyword sets?
Hi, I have 4 domains and 4 keyword sets i.e. penny stocks mutual funds stocks day trading My question is: what is the better approach: Have each site around one set e.g. everything about "penny stocks" Site A - penny stocks Site B - mutual funds Site C - stocks Site D - day trading Create 4 categories in each website about each set of keywords? Site A - penny stocks | mutual funds | stocks | day trading and the same.. Thank you, Alex
Content Development | | pwpaneuro0