Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Who is correct - please help!
-
I have a website with a lot of product pages - often thousands of pages.
As each of these pages is for a specific lease car they are often only fractionally different from other pages.
The urls are too long, the H1 is often too long and the Title is often too long for "SEO best practice". And they do create duplication issues according to MOZ.
Some people tell me to change them to noindex/nofollow whilst others tell me to leave them as they are as best not to hide from google crawler.
Any advice will be gratefully received.
Thanks for listening.
-
@jlhitch
Managing a website with thousands of product pages can indeed present challenges, especially when it comes to optimizing for SEO while avoiding duplicate content issues. Here are some considerations and potential strategies:-
URL Optimization:
- Shorten URLs to make them more concise and user-friendly.
- Include relevant keywords in the URL, but avoid keyword stuffing.
- Consider organizing URLs hierarchically based on product categories and attributes.
-
H1 Optimization:
- Ensure that each H1 tag accurately reflects the content of the page.
- Keep H1 titles concise and relevant to the page's main topic.
- Avoid duplicating H1 titles across multiple pages, as this can confuse search engines and users.
-
Title Tag Optimization:
- Craft unique and descriptive title tags for each product page.
- Include primary keywords near the beginning of the title tag.
- Keep title tags within the recommended character limit to ensure they display properly in search engine results.
-
Content Differentiation:
- Identify areas of content overlap or duplication among similar product pages.
- Make meaningful distinctions between pages by highlighting unique features, specifications, or benefits.
- Utilize canonical tags to consolidate duplicate content and signal to search engines which version of the page is the preferred one.
-
Indexing Strategy:
- Consider the purpose and value of each product page when deciding whether to index or noindex/nofollow.
- Pages with unique content, high traffic potential, or conversion opportunities should typically be indexed.
- Pages with thin or duplicate content may benefit from being noindexed to avoid diluting the site's overall quality and relevance in search results.
-
Monitoring and Analysis:
- Regularly monitor site performance, rankings, and crawl errors using tools like Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, and third-party SEO platforms.
- Analyze data to identify patterns, trends, and areas for improvement in SEO optimization efforts.
-
Consult with SEO Experts:
- Seek advice from experienced SEO professionals or agencies who can provide personalized recommendations based on your specific website and goals.
- Consider conducting an SEO audit to assess the current state of your website and identify opportunities for optimization.
Ultimately, the decision to index or noindex/nofollow certain pages should be based on a careful evaluation of their quality, relevance, and impact on overall SEO performance. Balancing SEO best practices with the practical considerations of managing a large website can help ensure long-term success in search engine rankings and user engagement.
-
-
It sounds like you're dealing with significant SEO issues due to duplicate content and non-optimal URL, title, and header lengths. Instead of noindexing, consider consolidating similar pages or using canonical tags to point to preferred pages. This can reduce duplication and focus SEO efforts on key pages.
-
So, we would on a huge e-commerce website, thousands of products, always changing. Its massively time consuming, but every bit of text, must be written in a white hat way. unique, high quality, meets the guidance set out in Google E-EAT. Plus, so too must the meta titles, meta descriptions, its only way to enhance the SEO for each page. Duplicated text, or "content thin" text, and this will dilulte the power of the organic SEO across the whole website. does this help? We have more help on our Cardiff SEO website.
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
-
Good to use disallow or noindex for these?
Hello everyone, I am reaching out to seek your expert advice on a few technical SEO aspects related to my website. I highly value your expertise in this field and would greatly appreciate your insights.
Technical SEO | | williamhuynh
Below are the specific areas I would like to discuss: a. Double and Triple filter pages: I have identified certain URLs on my website that have a canonical tag pointing to the main /quick-ship page. These URLs are as follows: https://www.interiorsecrets.com.au/collections/lounge-chairs/quick-ship+black
https://www.interiorsecrets.com.au/collections/lounge-chairs/quick-ship+black+fabric Considering the need to optimize my crawl budget, I would like to seek your advice on whether it would be advisable to disallow or noindex these pages. My understanding is that by disallowing or noindexing these URLs, search engines can avoid wasting resources on crawling and indexing duplicate or filtered content. I would greatly appreciate your guidance on this matter. b. Page URLs with parameters: I have noticed that some of my page URLs include parameters such as ?variant and ?limit. Although these URLs already have canonical tags in place, I would like to understand whether it is still recommended to disallow or noindex them to further conserve crawl budget. My understanding is that by doing so, search engines can prevent the unnecessary expenditure of resources on indexing redundant variations of the same content. I would be grateful for your expert opinion on this matter. Additionally, I would be delighted if you could provide any suggestions regarding internal linking strategies tailored to my website's structure and content. Any insights or recommendations you can offer would be highly valuable to me. Thank you in advance for your time and expertise in addressing these concerns. I genuinely appreciate your assistance. If you require any further information or clarification, please let me know. I look forward to hearing from you. Cheers!0 -
How to rank a website in different countries
I have a website which I want to rank in UK, NZ and AU and I want to keep my domain as .com in all the countries. I have specified the lang=en now what needs to be done to rank one website in 3 different English countries without changing the domain extension i.e. .com.au or .com.nz
SEO Tactics | | Ravi_Rana0 -
Getting high priority issue for our xxx.com and xxx.com/home as duplicate pages and duplicate page titles can't seem to find anything that needs to be corrected, what might I be missing?
I am getting high priority issue for our xxx.com and xxx.com/home as reporting both duplicate pages and duplicate page titles on crawl results, I can't seem to find anything that needs to be corrected, what am I be missing? Has anyone else had a similar issue, how was it corrected?
Technical SEO | | tgwebmaster0 -
Title tag not showing on google? Please Help!
I've read the FAQs and searched the help center. My URL is: http://www.webygeeks.comI have updated title tags of my client's website 10-15 days ago, still the title on google is coming as the company name 😞 Why so??Description is correct but title is incorrect, can you please recommend me something guys?Also, i am wondering why the google cache is showing date of september 5 and we have changed the titles around 10 - 15 days before that http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:P45GOiHRaIUJ:www.webygeeks.com/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk Really appreciate your suggestion.
Technical SEO | | lvp11380 -
Someone is building anchor text links with child porn keywords..help :-(
Hey Everyone; I recently found that there are tons of links to my url (30+) from several sites with the anchor text "download child porn, kiddie porn, and the likes". Although the sites linking to us where the person built the links do not have this content (thank god) it is just my url + the horrible anchor text someone is putting. [added image] Obviously I would not do that to my own site especially since I was ranked for over 15 keywords in the top 5 spots on Google and Bing. I am guessing its a competitor and I am wondering that is there any way I can remove them? Is this negative seo? Also could this be the reason my site has dropped off google page 1 last month for all my positions? I am consistently trying to rebuild but my positions are flying all over the place. Im going from ranking #12 one week to #198 the next; then to #60 and finally not even on google or bing anymore; then back to #50, etc for the past month and a half... Its very aggravating and it has hurt a few of my websites; im at a total loss on how to recover now if this is the case...It seems they have started to build these links in January from what I can find on the postings.. Thank you SEOMOZ im so happy im a member now. Any suggestions on how i can get these links off or if it is why my site has lost its original rankings.. Should I just can my website and start all over with a different URL? How can I watch out for this in the future? Any help would be so so so greatly appreciated and valued 🙂 xpVjMw8
Technical SEO | | Circa0 -
Error: Missing Meta Description Tag on pages I can't find in order to correct
This seems silly, but I have errors on blog URLs in our WordPress site that I don't know how to access because they are not in our Dashboard. We are using All in One SEO. The errors are for blog archive dates, authors and just simply 'blog'. Here are samples: http://www.fateyes.com/2012/10/
Technical SEO | | gfiedel
http://www.fateyes.com/author/gina-fiedel/
http://www.fateyes.com/blog/ Does anyone know how to input descriptions for pages like these?
Thanks!!0 -
My site keeps losing positions, Please help!!
Hello, This is the first time I post on this forum but have been a Pro Member for about 11 months. Im going crazy the more I do the more it drop positions. My problem is that one of the sites that Im working is has not been on the top 50 of any of the keywords. There were many issues but I have reduce the number. Im not sure if I can post the link here or via PM. My market is very competitive and Im using word press. One of my target keywords is: web design miami I would like for a member to give me an opinion of my site and may tell me what Im doing wrong. Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | ogdcorp0 -
HELP: Wrong domain showing up in Google Search
So i have this domain (1)devicelock.com and i also had this other domain (2)ntutility.com, the 2nd domain was an old domain and it is not in use anymore. But when i search for devicelock on Google, the homepage devicelock.com does not exist. Only ntutility.com comes up. I asked one of the developer how the redirect is happening from the old domain to the new one and he told me its through a DNS forward. And there is no way to have an .htacess file to set up a 301 instead. Please help!
Technical SEO | | Devicelock0