Canonicalising a product with multiple variants
-
I am working with an ecommerce site and have encountered an issue I haven't come across before and would appreciate some advice on how to proceed.
There are multiple variation products with one master product and then up to 20 or 30 variant products, the variation could be colour, size or both. The site has been set up to canonicalise all the variations to the master variant product, which I understand to be best practice. But, this is where the issue occurs, the master variant product URL 302 redirects to one of the variant product URLs. Example below. My question is, is this harmful to our SEO efforts? Would be be best to canonicalise to a preferred colour or size variation?
EXAMPLE:
Master variant product: www.example.co.uk/primary-category/product-123
Seeing this product on the page and clicking will 302 redirect to www.example/co.uk/primiary-category/product-123/colour-456
On page www.example/co.uk/primiary-category/product-123/colour-456 the canonical tag is www.example.co.uk/primary-category/product-123
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
-
Hi Nick,
Thanks for your response. At the moment we have around 2000 products and some of the canonical pages do rank, others don't so it does seem the search engine in confused.
The article on SiteBulb is really interesting and I agree with your reasoning to canonicalise to either the most vanilla or popular product variant.
Many thanks,
Simon
-
Hi Simon,
Quick question which I think I can guess the answer, does the current canonical page rank for anything at all?
Can't the developers make the canonical a static page (which currently redirects) default to the most popular and or a vanilla combination of product attributes?
That would of course be the best option, failing that you would have to just canonicalise to the most popular product variation and do so in a way that doesn't create a redirect chain.
I literally just referenced SiteBulb in another post, and I don't want to come across like a shill but there's a great explanation of it your issue here: https://sitebulb.com/hints/indexability/canonical-hints/canonical-points-to-a-redirecting-url/
Easier said than done for sure with some CMS and E-Commerce sites, but as the aforementioned link says...it's generally dealt with on a case by case basis.
Appreciate this is isn't a definitive answer but I hope it helps!
Nick
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
-
With generic product like screws, for example what is best practice when writing descriptions? It's tough writing unique content for something when the only difference is lengths
With generic product like screws, for example what is best practice when writing descriptions? It's tough writing unique content for something when the only difference is lengths
On-Page Optimization | | Jacksons_Fencing1 -
Duplicate products - is this fix acceptable?
Hey Mozzers, Questions around this have been asked time and time again. But i have a specific example I would like some advice on. I have 2 products, Product 1: https://goo.gl/Gzo1WC
On-Page Optimization | | ATP
Product 2: https://goo.gl/VbrHQJ As you can see, the products are almost identical bar some technical specifications. The owner of the business wants them listing as 2 products, combining them into a single listing with configurable options is not an option. As such I have simply made one a canonical of the other. Whilst not ideal this seems to be the best "SEO" fix. Option 2: My second option is to rewrite the descriptions to they are different - not too hard on this product and a future options when i have more time, however.... I am presented with a similar problem for another product where there are 23 versions of the same product, i cannot rewrite the same info this many times. They are different sizes, ranges, capacities, resolutions and accuracies and must be listed separately but contain all the same features and basic product information. The basic info is too important not to talk about, and talking about all the technical specs would be too much and teaching the customers likely to buy them to suck eggs. As such I have taken the 23 products and broken them down into 5 similar groups of 2 to 6 products. I have then picked 1 product from each group and written a unique description and changed all similar products in its group to match choosing 1product in each group as the canonical for all the others. So 23 same products become 5 unique products with 18 duplicated products pointing to them as canonicals. Any product pointing to another only differs in technical info, 95% of the page is the same. Whilst obviously not ideal, Is this an acceptable use of canonicals?0 -
No product descriptions
Hi all, Wondering if I could get the opinions from other Moz user's on this issue please... A client is building a new online store, it is in the flooring niche, using the drop shipping model. The plan is to launch the site with about 1,000 products and then add more as we go. All good so far (the site is magento based) However, the issue we are facing is down to product descriptions. The client needs to get the site up and running asap to start generating sales but the wholesaler has not provided any product description information for the products - save the size, shape and colour. Can anyone foresee a major issue in launching the website with no product descriptions, from a seo point of view, and then adding the descriptions as we go. Have been trying to establish what Google defines as being a thin site and all the information on the topic is suggesting it is more due to duplicate content where, for example, retailers are all still using the default manufacturer description or have spun the content. I cannot find much which would suggest that product pages missing a description would classify as thing. I am happy to be corrected though. I accept that it would be easier to rank with a good product description but the client is a two person business and it is pretty hard to find things to say about 1,000 different kinds of rugs! Any thoughts would be most welcome please. Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | daedriccarl0 -
Rich snippets for multiple breadcrumbs
Hey there,
On-Page Optimization | | Supertramp
I have been playing around with rich snippets for multiple breadcrumbs for quite a bit now - without any success. It would be great if someone could point me to an example where this has been implemented correctly. I followed the Google recommendation but it doesn't seem to work for me. See also: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2335753/Matt-Cutts-If-You-Have-Multiple-Breadcrumbs-Google-Picks-the-First-One Thanks for your help. Cheers,
Jochen0 -
How to Manage Comparison products website
Hi Mozzers I have been Working on a Comparison Website ; Where We are comparing Single products to many other Products with same specs. E.G : Product A vs Product B and Product A vs Product C ? How We can manage it So that WE donot have duplicate Content issues. Remember: Products are digital so cannot change much Content in there.
On-Page Optimization | | Asjad0 -
How to Structure URL's for Multiple Locations
We are currently undergoing a site redesign and are trying to figure out the best way to structure the URL's and breadcrumbs for our many locations. We currently have 60 locations nationwide and our URL structure is as follows: www.mydomain.com/locations/{location} Where {location} is the specific street the location is on or the neighborhood the location is in. (i.e. www.mydomain.com/locations/waterford-lakes) The issue is, {location} is usually too specific and is not a broad enough keyword. The location "Waterford-Lakes" is in Orlando and "Orlando" is the important keyword, not " Waterford Lakes". To address this, we want to introduce state and city pages. Each state and city page would link to each location within that state or city (i.e. an Orlando page with links to "Waterford Lakes", "Lake Nona", "South Orlando", etc.). The question is how to structure this. Option 1 Use the our existing URL and breadcrumb structure (www.mydomain.com/locations/{location}) and add state and city pages outside the URL path: www.mydomain.com/{area} www.mydomain.com/{state} Option 2 Build the city and state pages into the URL and breadcrumb path: www.mydomain.com/locations/{state}/{area}/{location} (i.e www.mydomain.com/locations/fl/orlando/waterford-lakes) Any insight is much appreciated. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | uBreakiFix0 -
Ideal product descriptions. What instructions to give to copywriter?
I plan to hire a copywriter to write high quality unique product descriptions for luxury products in one of our ecommerce sites. Apart from being well written and unique, any suggestions on what specifications to give to copywriter?
On-Page Optimization | | lcourse
E.g. length of text per product, obviously no keyword stuffing, but any instructions regarding keywords? Any good posts or specifications you can refer me to on the topic? thanks0 -
Attributes vs. Separate Products?
I carry a line of products that come in 4 sizes and 15 colors. Is it better to have separate products for each combination (Red Large, Blue Small, etc), or a product for each size with attributes for the color, or something else? Also, should I put the brand name in each product name, or only put it in the category that contains that brand? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | teatable0