Question on Breadcrumb and Canonical
-
Hi SEOmozers,
I have another question. =] Thanks in advance.
First question: How important is the breadcrumb for SEO? I know that breadcrumb makes better UX because it shows how the visitor landed on this page and the breadcrumb may show up in the search engine. But other than that, how important is it?
Second Question:
If I have a page that can be found via 2 locations, how should I handle this in regards to breadcrumb?
For example, I have page A. You can access page A via Category A and Category B. Therefore, what I did was list Page A under Category A and when someone visit Category B and click on Page A, it will redirect to the page A that was found via Category A.
The problem is on page A, the breadcrumb is Home > Category A > Page A. So if someone visit Category B and click on Page A, it redirects and the breadcrumb shows Home > Category A > Page A.
What should I do with the breadcrumb for Category B > Page A?
Should I create another page A and just use canonical on it?
Should I create another page A but do not index it?
or leave it as is? 1 Page A, can be access via 2 categories.
Please advise.
Thank you!
-
You are spot on on the question.
I was thinking along the same line as your answer. So now you just confirmed it.
Thank you very much!
-
Hi Tommy,
Not exactly. I think I misunderstood your original question. I thought you had two pages with the same content, and they were accessible via two different categories.
But I think you're saying you have one page, but you can access that one page via the two different categories, but the breadcrumbs are the same no matter which route they took, whether through A or B, they show category A breadcrumbs.
I wouldn't worry so much about the breadcrumbs, I would worry more about duplicate content and urls.
Let's say you're selling a flashlight, and you just have one flashlight product page. But, because of the content of your site, you listed it under two different categories. Let's just say the categories are tools and gadgets.
So if you had two urls:
http://www.site.com/tools/flashlight and http://www.site.com/gadgets/flashlight
but they were technically the same page (same content and everything just different url), this would be bad.
The fix for this would be to pick the url you want to rank, then put that url as the canonical for the other, so when google crawls it, they know you prefer the other url.
However if it were the same url, no matter which category they came from, there is no problem, because there is no duplication.
Now back to the beginning
If you really want the breadcrumbs to reflect which category they came from, instead of just redirecting to category A, then create another page for category B, make it identical to the page for category A. But on the new page, put the url of page A as the canonical on the new page for B.
So users get the same product page (content speaking) with the breadcrumb that reflects their path, but Google will only count one url no matter which one they crawl.
-
Hi Ryan,
Thanks for replying. So you are saying I should create a new Page A and have it list under Category B and use the canonical tag on the one I want to be indexed. So in the end I will have 1 Page A in Google's eye and 2 Page A in users' eye.
-
Breadcrumbs are more for UX like you say, however they do help search engines crawl your site's pages better as well, especially if they're not in main navigation.
I think the canonical issue is the more important one rather than what links appear in the breadcrumb. I would select which page you would prefer to rank, then put that url in the canonical tag of the other page.
So the canonical would be for Google, and the breadcrumb would be for user.
Also, who knows, maybe having the different breadcrumb is better for the user, because they came from a different path to that product in the first place. But Google would count both pages as the same.
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
-
Thinking about redesigning site to reduce bounce rate - have a couple of questions
BACKGROUND Im looking at redesigning the website for a creative consultancy to improve the user experience. The website is mainly an image portfolio along with “press”, “our services”, “about us”, “contact” pages. I originally designed the website a few years ago and when we did, we wanted to make the image portfolio the most important feature. So we made it a full screen JS image slider with lazy loading of images, so that there are about 40 full screen images on the homepage that rotate. From a users point of view i still feel this is the best system as it very quickly allows them to browse the portfolio, which we looking for a creative consultancy is their UPS (unique selling point). The site has a very strong backlink profile compared to its competitors in the SERPS it has about 20-25% increase in PA and DA. But our site has been slipping down the rankings in recent years / months. From spot 1-2 to about spot 5-7. MY HYPOTHESIS I think that the reason the site may be dropping back in the SERP is that although its a very usable site, all its portfolio information is “too easy to find / view” and results in a user coming to our site, seeing everything they need to see, then bouncing back to the SERP. Our site has a bounce rate of 40-60%. Where as on competitors sites, their “portfolio” is a separate page off the homepage, so a users has to click through to a separate page, and even if they don't like the design content of the portfolio it doesn't get logged as a bounce. MY QUESTION Does bounce rate affect SERP ranking ? Could the sites SERP performance be improved by redesigning the site to put the portfolio on a separate page so a user would have to click through to it, if that would get the bounce rate down, would the site see a benefit even if people still clicked back to the SERP results eventually after seeing our portfolio, even though it wasn't a true 1 page bounce ? Dose time on site affect SERP ranking ? Is there a way i can see a competitor's bounce rate ? Would welcome any other thoughts inputs on this matter.
Web Design | | sl_pa0 -
Questioning people that left the website?
If we have a pop up on our site and new customers have subscribed to get 5% off (which i believe shows intent) and they do not purchase would you contact them and find out why they have not purchased to get a better understanding of issues with the website, If so I believe it needs to be more than the standard email of further discount (for example receive an extra 10% discount) or standard do you need help email (we need to either talk direct with them or offer something for there help such as 50% off) Any help would be appreciate in finding our pain points on the site www.fastprint.co.uk.
Web Design | | BobAnderson1 -
To Genesis or not to Genesis that is the question
Hi everyone, i know this subject has been raised few times in the past, but i wanted to reach out to the community and find out what is your take on the advantages and disadvantage (if any) for using the Genesis Framework when building a new websites for Clients. I know for fact that many developers are complaining that they find it harder to manage the Genesis Framework, which i do appreciate has a bit more of comparability issues when it comes to plugins and modifications, but i always looked at it as a positive rather then a negative. My personal opinion is that Genesis framework is more of a stable Skeleton that is better read by Search Engine (from a technical SEO point view) and is harder for hackers to penetrate. Would have love to hear the community experts opinion pros and cons. Cheers. Dan
Web Design | | artdivision0 -
Breadcrumbs show for some section and dont come for some. What could be the issue
Hello, We have implemented breadcrumbs - which comes up nicely for Blog and Forum in Google Search However, when we look at our 2 other section - New Car Product and Latest News - it does not comes up, is there any issue which can foresee Sample URL of New Car - http://www.mycarhelpline.com/index.php?option=com_newcar&view=product&Itemid=2&id=8&vid=188 Sample URL of News - http://www.mycarhelpline.com/index.php?option=com_latestnews&view=detail&n_id=474&Itemid=10 Its been over 1 month - since breadcrumbs been introduced in both New Car and News. is there any issue like in them as why is is not showing in search. Any recommendations Many Thanks !!
Web Design | | Modi0 -
Simple Wordpress Question regarding Footer Link
I have a client with a site that has the company that built their website's link in the footer. How can I remove this? I am pretty proficient with Wordpress but I am drawing a blank. The site is www.northatlantacleaning.com Thanks and I do extend the courtesy of awarding 'Best Answer' and thumbs up etc to good responses.
Web Design | | Atlanta-SMO0 -
Homepage Title Question? Multi-Keywords or All Encompassing Keyword
Okay so I am currently redesigning my company's webpage. I am making it responsive and giving it a more up to date look with newer features, etc. A facelift, basically. While updating the site i'm also doing some on-page optimization here and there, and am curious about the page title for my homepage. My company offers video production, web development & design, and web marketing. While we do offer each service individually, we are really trying to sell the combination of all three services to our clients and show them how they can work together effectively. Now my question is, in my homepage title, should i list each service offering keyword (which is what i do now) like this : "Video Production - Web Design - Web Marketing • Company Name" Or, should i try to find one keyword that kind of sums up what we do, like this: "Magic All-Encompassing Keyword • Company Name" I'm thinking that since three sort of unrelated keywords are in the page title, it may be viewed as over-optimizing and we won't see as good of results as just focusing on one keyword, which leads me to think that i should try to sum all of our services into one "all-encompassing" keyword such as "media production", which isn't the best choice, i'm just throwing it out there for the sake of this discussion. Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Web Design | | RenderPerfect0 -
Multidimensional breadcrumbs
Hi everyone, I've been planing to implement breadcrumbs to client's website. However products are under multiple categories, so simple one dimensional breadcrumb isn't quite right for the job. I've been experimenting with several implementations, but sadly I wasn't satisfied with their look and feel. Which multidimensional breadcrumbs would you recommend? Thanks Bojan
Web Design | | Yanbo0 -
This is not a question but a comment
My website www.kids-iq-tests.com is mainly focused on articles; however, I have noticed that after adding a few images of celebrities, I have gained a lot of traffic from image searches from Google. My point is that by adding images of popular celebrities to an article, you can gain a substantial amount of traffic. give it a try and see if you can gain traffic from image searches.
Web Design | | dougster620