seo question (duplicate content?)

Atlas_IRL

HI I posed this question to my web company and am wondering what you guys think.

Hi this is more of an seo question that i have than a technical query.

I was asked would our products look better if we had all the colours up as opposed to just one and then choose the colour in the one style so I done a test here (http://www.fitzpatricksshoes.com/women-c2/heels-c11 Its the first three, the carrie model.

My question is does it affect seo if I do it this way with multiple products listed with the same seo descriptions or is this perfectly fine?

Any other workaround if not? The site looks like it has more products the other way.

Atlas_IRL

From reading around on google it says that I may get penalised for having duplicate meta tags as I am just essentially copying the product in the cms and adding the colour at the end, I have the seo meta tags titles and description as the same.

blue4ever

It’s a perennial question this. Here would be my take on it and I’ll pick one product just to focus on it – and this advice is specific to your own site. Let’s take the first product here “Carrie High Heel Court” which is available in three variations Black, Black Patent, Black Suede.
Now, I’d be of the opinion that these are three separate products. Styled the same but very much a distinctive product – but that’s a question for the company to answer. You might be inclined to see how people are searching: “Black Patent Shoe” search volume is 30 a month - Black Suede is 40 (low volumes). So there is a distinction being made.
If you are concerned you can have Google defer to a ‘master product’ in this case let’s say the standard black and have a Canonical tag added to the other two products telling google that the ‘black’ is the one to index. Equally you can use your robots file to disallow crawling on the other two products.
It’s a matter of how the site is setup that would guide you on that (ie the backend and how that’s configured)
You are being crawled on the three products (drop that into the search bar)
site:http://www.fitzpatricksshoes.com/ inurl:CARRIE
In this case google is giving the url
http://www.fitzpatricksshoes.com/women-c2/heels-c11/fitzpatricks-shoes-carrie-high-heel-court-p1017 a preference and “hiding” the other two.
Sometimes, if the URL parameter changes then you can use webmaster tools to inform the search engine that the parameter is changing only and the page is essentially the same, but in your case there is no parameter appended and it’s a very different url altogether – therefore its doesn’t apply here (I dropped the domain form the url as its easier to see

women-c2/heels-c11/fitzpatricks-shoes-carrie-high-heel-court-p1017
women-c2/heels-c11/fitzpatricks-shoes-carrie-high-heel-court-black-suede-p1139
women-c2/heels-c11/fitzpatricks-shoes-carrie-high-heel-court-black-patent-p1138

If it were me… is the 64k question. I’d be inclined to believe that they (in this specific case) are different products and not variations on the theme. However the gods may not see it that way. If the backend could allow it I would use the Canonical tag in the derivative products pointing to a ‘master’ product if you can.

Ps whats the backend?

Atlas_IRL

The backend is the web companies own platform, it's a good cms but i dont have access to any code this way.

The Carrie model is one product actually but i have 3 colours and thought by 'copying it' it may look like the site has more products but when doing this even though the title tags are different (separated by the colour) everything else is the same, inc all meta info.

blue4ever

It a view you have to take, again this is fairly subjective. I a patent leather shoe different to a suede one - i'd argue yea in that its a particular style.
Can you dynamically inject the style into the description? that would further indicate a separate product

PaulPinnacle

In general, simplifying things a little here, you have 3 real choices.

Option 1: Create a completely unique page and URL for each variation (colour, style, material, etc.) and let them all compete against each other for rankings.

Pros: You can get better results for specific long tail searches and have pages tailored and crafted to exactly that specific product.
Cons: You dilute your link equity (far more product pages for you to be spreading your authority around) and impact your crawl efficiency (more pages for the search engines to spider), you are a little less competitive for the high volume head terms (by spreading your link equity your rankings can drop) while cannibalising your results and you need to invest more time and effort creating unique pages for each variation of the product (if you're simply copy pasting content and not crafting unique content then this shouldn't even be/isn't an option).

This option is very good for new stores, who would struggle to compete outside of long tail searches regardless. Extra work on content generation can lead to a big increase in SERPs and visitors, so the question then becomes if the assumed/guesstimated increases in traffic/ranking are enough to justify the extra work on content generation. If the content is crafted well, it can also provide a great opportunity to increase conversion rates as it is specifically tailored for a very specific product (right down to the individual colour). It also works well for technical products where the market searches for extremely specific details on products. It does require a lot of work manually producing unique content on what are basically identical products though, which is slow and frustrating at the best of times.


Option 2: Create a page and URL for each variation (colour, style, material, etc.) but canonicalise them back to a 'single' URL/page for the search engines.

Pros: Some users like being able to share a specific page (i.e. the red version of the small size of the specific shoe) and makes navigation potentially more intuitive if the site architecture and URL structure are handled well. You remove the concerns over duplicate content issues while retaining some of the benefits of the unique page(s).
Cons: You're creating a lot of redirects and 'dummy' URLs that can make a site a little bit harder to manage (or at least make it easier for things to go wrong in the long run).

There are some potential benefits from this option, but it's personally not one I'm a big fan of. You're not gaining the increased traffic you'd get from genuinely unique pages, nor are you getting the streamlined simplicity (and crawl efficiency) you'd get from a 'single' URL. It's certainly an option worth considering, but it has some minor risks and potential issues that make it one I personally tend not to favour.

Option 3: Create a single page and URL and have each variation (colour, style, material, etc.) included within this page.

Pros: Easier to manage site, potentially easier to navigate site, greater crawl efficiency and link equity consolidated onto correct product page.
Cons: Slight UX hit in terms of sharing products ("Here's the link, but it's the brown one I like not the black one") and (potential) hit in terms of long tail traffic (can be mitigated with creative and hard work in content generation).

Personally, having glanced at the site and the products you're carrying, this is the way I'd go. As it happens, it's also the way you're currently going... so I guess that's good news. It's not ideal for every situation, but given your target market and the number/range of products you're offering it would be in keeping with the expectations of your customers (it's not always positive to be different, sometimes users just want a simple and easy experience to reach their goal) and the easiest/most cost effective for you/your team to manage. There are a variety of ways it could be implemented slightly differently to how it currently is, whether it's using Ajax/JS/CSS, but the end result would be very similar to the existing setup regardless so I'd personally leave it as is (at least until such time that you were looking at a total site overhaul and then possibly changing how it's implemented, if you see something preferable or have a new idea to improve the experience).



I would invest some time into (greatly) expanding the copy on each page. At the moment the product detail and description for products is very lacking (and is missing out on a lot of traffic as a result) and for category level pages the content is non existent (each is just a page of links). Category level pages are great for keyword rich text and as important gateway pages to the products it's a great opportunity to clearly explain to both users and search engines what will be contained in the product pages below (i.e. from a glance I couldn't be sure what the difference would be between your casual range and your flat range? [It's not a huge problem for your users/visitors as it would be for other sites, but it's still a missed opportunity for some great keyword rich relevant content on the site]).