Category pages
-
I am a very basic question on managing categories in WordPress. We have an Android website, and we cover news, rumors, tips and tricks about new devices. We have been creating categories for the new devices or at least for the popular ones which are launched every year, and link to them internally with the hope that it would improve the page authority and ranking.
For example, we have a category page for Moto X, another one for Moto X (2014) and one more for Moto X (2015).
One of the reasons for creating a category was to ensure that it is easier for readers to get information about a particular device rather than going to a category page that has information about all the models.
However, the problem with their strategy we're now realizing is that it means we have to build page authority for the new category page from scratch, which can take time.
So we are thinking of reusing the same category for multiple models. So reuse the Moto X category page for Moto X (2016).
However, we are not sure if it would be right approach as we would be linking to the same category page with different anchor texts. So while it would be good to reuse a page rather than rebuild the page authority from scratch, would we be diluting the authority for the main keyword by using it for different models.
I would love to hear your thoughts on how we should be handling categories and internal links in this case.
-
Yeah, I think we need to mess around with the template files to make it look better.
Btw, the website in question is AndroidBeat.com. I will look into the schema markups, though the structure of the site is quite flat, so not sure if breadcrumbs would be useful.
When your website has to depend on advertising for revenues, page speed is difficult to optimize. I keep getting told that the page load cannot be improved further because of the ads on the website. So it is important to strike the right balance. If you know someone who can help with improving page load times then please let me know. I am happy to get a second opinion.
Thanks again for the suggestions. Any thoughts on this point:
How about internally linking to the same page with multiple anchor text. Wouldn't we end up confusing the bots. We have seen category pages doing well in some cases. So wouldn't this approach affect the ranking for such category pages that are doing well.
-
Thanks Martijn for the suggestions. We are going to try roll it out as soon as possible.
-
Implement AMP if the website has a blog.
Refer to https://www.ampproject.org/ for more information. Martijn is right though AMP took me 2 full days to implement from a cold start on one site. However using the wordpress plug in less than an hour for the second. So need to review in order of priority.On schema the easiest thing to implement would be breadcrumbs on each page. Schema is especially useful for websites with a blog, events, recipes or other dynamic content.
Again I hate to overreach with suggestions when I am not 100% familiar with a site and understand objectives and priorities. 95% of the time I end up starting with page loading speed... it has such a massive impact on every kpi if it is not optimized. tools.pingdom.com - so if page loading speed is on the agenda that is where I nearly always start.
Hope that assists.
-
AMP can be a lot of work when you really want to make sure that the pages look good and support everything that is related to the set-up itself. I recommend using the AMP Plugin that is available for WordPress and creating your own template files to support them afterwards so you can tweak whatever you want.
-
Thanks Clayton for the suggestions and the quick response. Rand's WBF was the one that got me to rethink our current approach. We have also realized that it is not helping with the rankings either. But had a few questions.
How about internally linking to the same page with multiple anchor text. Wouldn't we end up confusing the bots. We have seen category pages doing well in some cases. So wouldn't this approach affect the ranking for such category pages that are doing well.
Can you also point me to a resource for Schema markups?
We are also not able to get a good look and feel for AMP optimized pages. Any recommendations would be welcome.
-
The latter approach you have identified is the approach to adopt. The first approach is old school seo ie 1 keyword query = 1 page. This is no longer recommended. See Rand's WBF on the topic. https://mza.bundledseo.com/blog/8-old-school-seo-practices-not-effective-whiteboard-friday
Schema markups and if on a news post use AMP.
All the best hope that assists.
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
-
When serving a 410 for page gone, should I serve an error page?
I'm removing a bunch of old & rubbish pages and was going to serve 410 to tell google they're gone (my understanding is it'll get them out of the index a bit quicker than a 404). I should still serve an error page though, right? Similar to a 404. That doesn't muddy the "gone" message that I'm giving Google? There's no need to 410 and die?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HSDOnline0 -
JSON-LD schema markup for a category landing page
I'm working on some schema for a client and have a question regarding the use of schema for a high-level category page. This page is merely the main lander for Categories. For example: https://www.examples.com/pages/categories And all it does is list links to the three main categories (Men's, Women's, Kid's) - it's a clothing store. This is the code I have right now. In short, simply using type @Itemlist and an array that uses @ListItem. Structured Data Testing Tool returns no errors with it, but my main question is this: Is this the _correct _way to do a page like this, or are there better options? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alces0 -
How should I deal with this page?
Hey Mozzers, I was looking for a little guidance and advice regarding a couple of pages on my website. I have used 'shoes' for this example. I have the current structure Parent Category - Shoes Sub Categories - Blue Shoes
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ATP
Hard Shoes
Soft Shoes
Big Shoes etc Supporting Article - Different Types of Shoe and Their Uses There are about 12 subcategories in total - each one links back to the Parent Category with the keyword "Shoes". Every sub category has gone from ranking 50+ to 10-30th for its main keyword which is a good start and as I release supporting articles im sure each one will climb. I am happy with this. The Article ranks no1 for about 20 longtails terms around "different shoes". This page attracts around 60% of my websites traffic but we know this traffic will not convert as most are people and children looking for information only for educational purposes and are not looking to buy. Many are also looking for a type of product we dont sell. My issue is ranking for the primary category "Shoes" keyword. When i first made the changes we went from ranking nowhere to around 28th on the parent category page targeted at "Shoes". Whilst not fantastic this was good as gave us something to work off. However a few weeks later, the article page ranked 40th for this term and the main page dropped off the scale. Then another week some of the sub category pages ranked for it. And now none of my pages rank in the top 50 for it. I am fairly sure this is due to some cannibalisation - simply because of various pages ranking for it at different times.
I also think that additional content added by products on the sub category pages is giving them more content and making them rank better. The Page Itself
The Shoes page itself contains 400 good unique words, with the keyword mentioned 8 times including headings. There is an image at the top of the page with its title and alt text targeted towards the keyword. The 12 sub categories are linked to on the left navigation bar, and then again below the 400 words of content via a picture and text link. This added the keyword to the page another 18 or so times in the form of links to longtail subcaterogies. This could introduce a spam problem i guess but its in the form of nav bars or navigation tables and i understood this to be a necessary evil on eCommerce websites. There are no actual products linked from this page. - a problem? With all the basic SEO covered. All sub pages linking back to the parent category, the only solution I can think of is to add more content by Adding all shoes products to the shoe page as it currently only links out the the sub categories Merging the "Different Type of Shoe and Their Uses" article into the shoe page to make a super page and make the article pages less like to produce cannibalistic problems. However, by doing solution 2, I remove a page bringing in a lot of traffic. The traffic it brings in however is of very little use and inflates the bounce rate and lowers the conversion rate of my whole site by significant figures. It also distorts other useful reports to track my other progress. I hope i have explained well enough, thanks for sticking with me this far, i havn't posted links due to a reluctance by the company so hopefully my example will suffice. As always thanks for any input.0 -
Redirecting thin content city pages to the state page, 404s or 301s?
I have a large number of thin content city-level pages (possibly 20,000+) that I recently removed from a site. Currently, I have it set up to send a 404 header when any of these removed city-level pages are accessed. But I'm not sending the visitor (or search engine) to a site-wide 404 page. Instead, I'm using PHP to redirect the visitor to the corresponding state-level page for that removed city-level page. Something like: if (this city page should be removed) { header("HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found");
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rriot
header("Location:http://example.com/state-level-page")
exit();
} Is it problematic to send a 404 header and still redirect to a category-level page like this? By doing this, I'm sending any visitors to removed pages to the next most relevant page. Does it make more sense to 301 all the removed city-level pages to the state-level page? Also, these removed city-level pages collectively have very little to none inbound links from other sites. I suspect that any inbound links to these removed pages are from low quality scraper-type sites anyway. Thanks in advance!2 -
Content per page?
We used to have an articles worth of content in a scroll box created by our previous SEO, the problem was that it was very much keyword stuffed, link stuffed and complete crap. We then removed this and added more content above the fold, the problem I have is that we are only able to add 150 - 250 words above the fold and a bit of that is repetition across the pages. Would we benefit from putting an article at the bottom of each of our product pages, and when I say article I mean high quality in depth content that will go into a lot more detail about the product, history and more. Would this help our SEO (give the page more uniqueness and authority rather than 200 - 250 word pages). If I could see one problem it would be would an articles worth of content be ok at the bottom of the page and at that in a div tab or scroll box.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Why Is This Page Not Ranking?
Hi Mozzers, I can't rank (the page is nowhere on the Google grid that I can find) and I've not been able to move the needle at all on it. The page is http://www.lumber2.com/Western-Saddle-Pads-s/98.htm for keyword "western saddle pads." I'm inclined to think I'm cannabalizing the category with the products so I removed the word saddle from the majority of the product names on page. However, saddle pad or saddle pads is in the meta title for most if not all of the products. Do you think I'm cannabalizing with the product titles or is there something else going on? Thanks for any help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AWCthreads0 -
Why my own page is not indexed for that keyword?
hi, I recently recreated the page www.zenucchi.it /ITA/poltrona-frau-brescia.html on the third level domain poltronafraubrescia.zenucchi.it by putting it on the home page. The first page is still indexed for the keyword poltrona frau brescia . But the new page is no indexed for that keyword and i don't know why ( even if the page is indexed in google ) .. I state that the new domain has the same autorithy and that i put a 301 redirect to pass his authority to the new one that has many more incoming links that did not have previous .. i hope you'll help me thanks a lot
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | guidoboem0 -
To land page or not to land page
Hey all, I wish to increase my sites rankings on a variety of keywords within sub categories but I'm unsure where to be spending the time in SEO. Here's an example of the website page structure: General Home Page > Sub Category 1 Home Page
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DPSSeomonkey
> Searching / Results pages
- Sub Category 1
- Sub Category 2
- Sub Category 3
- Sub Category 4 > Sub Category 2 Home Page
> Searching / Results pages
- Sub Category 1
- Sub Category 2
- Sub Category 3
- Sub Category 4 We've newly introduced the Sub Category Home Pages and I was wondering if SEO is best performed on these pages or should landing pages be built, one for each of the 4 sub categories in each section. Those landing pages would have links to the "Searching / Results pages" for that sub category. Thanks!0