Paginated Categorical Merchandising & SEO - Avoiding Duplicate Content

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Unauthorized use or disclosure is prohibited.

SMX East, 9/19/2011

Paginated

Categorical

Merchandising &

SEO

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://danielwoods.us/wp-content/uploads/the-northface-logo.jpg&imgrefurl=http://danielwoods.us/?page_id=78&h=1890&w=1890&sz=232&tbnid=eNYDHqAFg0dZiM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=150&prev=/images?q=the+north+face+logo&usg=__HBMBkSWk8f7E2KD8M0Pj65bdZwg=&ei=ela_S92UKoT6lwf06-DeBg&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=3&ct=image&ved=0CBAQ9QEwAg





Agenda

• About PM Digital

• Why Merchandise in Multiple Categories?

• Technical Challenges

• Solutions

– Overall Best Practices

• Build It Right The First Time

• Working With Existing Infrastructure

• Key Takeaways

• Appendix

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About PM Digital

• Digital Agency servicing clients in

retail, financial services, non-profit,

CPG and more

• Primary service offerings: SEO,

SEM, Email Marketing, Social Media

and Creative

• Clients include The North Face, The

Sportsman’s Guide, dELiA’s, Paul

Fredrick and many more

• 20 clients in the Internet Retailer Top

500

• Based in New York with offices in

Minneapolis, Columbia, SC and

Scottsdale, AZ

3




Why

Merchandise in

Multiple

Categories?






Why Merchandise in Multiple Categories?

• Merchandising products in multiple

categories enables a retailer to provide

solutions for a variety of consumer

needs (e.g. search queries) based on

the products they carry

• This enables a retailer to create valuable

entry points to capture new customers

from a variety of searches in multiple

stages of the consumer decision

process.

• It is also necessary to merchandise

products in a manner that is compelling

and doesn’t overwhelm consumers and

maintains optimal page-load speed,

hence the need for category pagination.

5




Proof is in the Data

6

General Interest

Investigation Phase

Narrowing Phase

Conversion Phase

Consumer Decision Process

Eye Care4,400 (SV*)

* Source: Google Adwords data average monthly search demand, exact-match, local

Goal: Gain visibility for

each level of the

Consumer Decision

Process

• Capture more visits at

all stages

• Create greater brand

awareness

• Increase overall

competitive share of

voice

Anti-Aging Cream2,900 (SV*)

Dark Circles3,600 (SV*)

Eye Cream3,600 (SV*)

sea results deep sleep recovery serum, 0

(SV*)




Technical

Challenges






Technical Challenges

1. While multiple category options do create

good solutions from a merchandising

standpoint, there are many instances where

the product URL path changes from each

category creating duplicate content for

the product URLs– Example:

• /new-arrivals/product-name

• /seasonal/product-name

• /sale/product-name

• /products/product-name

2. To compound this even further, pagination

for each merchandising option can

multiply duplicate content by each

category resulting in loss of visibility and in

some instances page removal (e.g. Panda)

8

Dresses

Dresses on Sale




Technical Challenges In-Action

9

Manufacturer/retailer selling their products on their own site and several other online retailers

Challenge:URLs for the same product change when accessed from different categories

Keywords reviewed:10 product keywords, merchandised in multiple categories:Loose Leaf Tea (primary), Sale, Gifts, Top sellers, High caffeine




Solutions






Build It Right The First Time1. The ideal scenario is to store all products in a single database that assigns one

unique URL to each product no matter where the product is called

2. The navigation paths from categories (primary category, needs-based, new arrivals,

sale, etc.) should not append to URLs

3. Pagination at the category-level: point all category canonical directives to the start

page (pg. 1) for pages 2-n

4. Include product URLs in XML sitemap feed

5. Internal Link Optimization: include breadcrumb links

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Eye Care (Category) http://www.h2oplus.com/category/skin+care/eye+care.do

Anti-Aging (Sub Category) http://www.h2oplus.com/category/skin+care/anti-aging.do

Dark Circles (Sub Category) http://www.h2oplus.com/category/skin+care/dark+circles.

do

Sensitive Skin (Sub Category) http://www.h2oplus.com/category/skin+care/sensitive+ski

n.do

Sea Results Eye Defense Fortifying Serum (Product)

http://www.h2oplus.com/product/sea+results+eye+defens

e+fortifying+serum.do

Best Uses:

Sight builds / rebuilds

eCommerce Platforms:

MarketLive, GSI (latest SEO

extension), Websphere (with

slight modifications)




Single Database In-Action

12

Cosmetic / skincare retailer / manufacturer selling their products on their own site and several other online retailers

Challenge:Products are merchandised in multiple categories, with one unique URL for each product

Keywords reviewed:12 product keywords, merchandised in multiple categories:Eye care, Anti-aging, Dark circles, Sensitive skin




Single Database In-Action

13

Women’s clothing retailer / manufacturer selling their products on their own site and several other online retailers

Challenge:Products are merchandised in multiple categories, with one unique URL for each product

Keywords reviewed:10 product keywords, merchandised in multiple categories:Dresses, New Arrival Dresses, Dresses on Sale, Casual Dresses




Working With Existing Infrastructure

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Category names append to URL when accessed from different categories

1. Rel=“canonical”: Assign the canonical directive to an assigned primary product

category (canonical) for all product URLs (products, primary category)

2. XML Sitemap Feeds: only add product URLs assigned to primary / canonical

folder

3. Pagination at the category-level: point all category canonical directives to the

start page of the category (pg. 1) for pages 2-n

4. Internal Link Optimization: include breadcrumb links

Eye Care (Category) http://www.h2oplus.com/category/skin+care/eye+care.do

Anti-Aging (Sub Category) http://www.h2oplus.com/category/skin+care/anti-aging.do

Dark Circles (Sub Category) http://www.h2oplus.com/category/skin+care/dark+circles.

do

Sensitive Skin (Sub Category) http://www.h2oplus.com/category/skin+care/sensitive+ski

n.do

Sea Results Eye Defense Fortifying Serum (Canonical

Product URL) http://www.h2oplus.com/product/sea+results+eye+defense+fortif

ying+serum.do

Eye Care (Appended Product URL)

http://www.h2oplus.com/category/skin+care/eye+care/sea+results+eye+defense+fortif

ying+serum.do

Anti-Aging (Appended Product URL)

http://www.h2oplus.com/category/skin+care/anti-

aging/sea+results+eye+defense+fortifying+serum.do

Dark Circles (Appended Product URL)

http://www.h2oplus.com/category/skin+care/dark+circles/sea+results+eye+defense+fort

ifying+serum.do

Sensitive Skin (Appended Product URL)

http://www.h2oplus.com/category/skin+care/sensitive+skin/sea+results+eye+defense+f

ortifying+serum.do

Rel=“canonical” to

Canonical Product

URL

Rel=“canonical” to

Canonical Product

URL




Canonical Directives In-Action

15

Shoe retailer / manufacturer selling their products on their own site and several other online retailers

Challenge:Products are merchandised in multiple categories, canonicals direct to product URL in primary category

Keywords reviewed:10 product keywords, merchandised in multiple categories:Sale, Special selections, New styles, Primary category (pumps, sandals, boots)




Working With Existing InfrastructureAJAX Pagination

1. Assign the canonical directive to an assigned primary product category

(canonical) for all product URLs (products, primary category)

2. Add all product URLs to XML sitemap feed– Ensure product URLs are the canonical versions only

3. Modify AJAX with Google Web Tool Kit to enable crawling of category pages 2-n

4. Pagination at the category-level: point all category canonical directives to the

start page of the category (pg. 1) for pages 2-n

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AJAX Pagination In-Action

17

Clothing retailer / manufacturer selling their products on their own site and several other online retailers

Challenge:Products are merchandised in categories with pagination accessible via AJAX

Keywords reviewed:10 product keywords, merchandised via AJAX pagination on pages 2-n in multiple categories




Key Takeaways






Key Takeaways• While there are indeed challenges from merchandising in multiple

categories, the benefits are many. The ability to promote products by

season, sales, new arrivals, and the like enable a retailer to create new

entry points and better align their brand with the consumer decision

process.

• The ideal scenario is to store all products in a single database that assigns

one unique URL to each product no matter where the product is called

typically yields the best results

– Build it right the first time!

• With existing infrastructure it is recommended to direct canonical to product

URLs assigned to a primary / canonical folders (products, primary category)

• Pagination at the category-level: point all category canonical directives to

the start page (pg. 1) for pages 2-n

– Alleviates compounding of duplicate content

• Only include product URLs assigned to the canonical version in XML

sitemap feeds

• Test, Test, Test – Measure, Measure, Measure

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Appendix






Product Canonical Auto-Deployment (How To)

1. Examine your product pages URL and extract the base URL from it, the part

from the ‘http’ to the last part that remains constant for all products (i.e.

http://www.domain.com/storefront/”).

2. Determine how and where you get the URL-friendly category name and

product name. This might be the database, the request URL or as a global or

local variable.

3. Determine which page/class in your code is responsible for rendering the

headers for all products pages.

4. Modify the code to fetch the category name and product name.

5. Recompile and test the automatic canonical META tags functionality.

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See appendix for code sample




Product Canonical Auto-Deployment (.NET sample)

The method discussed here assumes site uses a .NET-

based shopping cart, the URL for any given product

consists of a base URL, which is the domain name and any

static folder structure, such as ‘/shop/’ or ‘/cart/’, a primary

category name and a product name.

The latter two are assumed to be properly URL encoded,

(e.g. do not contain any spaces or special characters). A

fully rendered canonical product URL would appear as:

http://www.domain.com/category-name/product-name

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Product Canonical Auto-Deployment (.NET sample)

The code sample below would be used on the product page (or product specific header or master

page. A URL-friendly category name and product name are then being pulled from the database,

concatenated with the base URL and then rendered as the href attribute of the canonical META tag.

using System;

using System.Web.UI;

using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;

public partial class Products : Page

{

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

string strCategoryString, strProductString, strCanonicalUrl,

strBaseUrl;

[insert code here to retrieve category and product name strings from DB]

strBaseUrl = "http://www.domain.com/";

strCanonicalUrl = strBaseUrl + strCategoryString + "/" +

strProductString

HtmlLink canonicalTag = new HtmlLink();

canonicalTag.Href = strCanonicalUrl;

canonicalTag.Attributes["rel"] = "canonical";

Page.Header.Controls.Add(canonicalTag);

}

}

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Richard Chavez

Sr. Director, SEO

PM Digital

[email protected]

http://www.PMDigital.com

Blog: http://blog.PMDigital.com/

Twitter: @PMDigital, @richardachavez

Thank You



mailto:[email protected]

http://www.pmdigital.com/

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