Is Having One Product Page With Multiple Products Bad for SEO?

Today’s Ask an search engine optimization query comes from Cassidy in San Diego, who asks:

“Is it higher or worse for search engine optimization to have one product web page to assist a number of merchandise throughout the identical household (merchandise which have completely different options and every mannequin has shade variations)? You may name it a dimension distinction, however these are electronics relatively than garments, so the ‘dimension’ comes with further function advantages.”

Great query, Cassidy!  And that is extra widespread than chances are you’ll suppose.

There are two points right here, having to do with single merchandise versus classes of merchandise.

Let’s check out the search engine optimization affect utilizing t-shirts as our instance product.

Single Product

Use a single product page and canonical hyperlinks when:

• Shoppers don’t want particular person variant pages akin to dimension, materials, and shade;
• And there isn’t any precise profit to the end-user for the particular variant as a result of they nonetheless must take an motion (for instance, the client must choose dimension or shade anyway).

If your retailer carries one t-shirt and can by no means carry any others, you’ll want to have one product web page and set canonical hyperlinks to level again to it.

The canonical hyperlinks shall be utilized to all variants and parameters.

Sizes, in nearly all circumstances, don’t have sufficient uniqueness to justify particular person product pages.

Colors, alternatively, can. Maybe somebody solely needs to see pink baseball t-shirts or black crew-neck t-shirts.

You solely carry one product, however having a devoted web page for the particular shade has advantages to the end-user and you’ll describe printing choices, styling choices, and distinction/mixing choices based mostly on the colour.

Then, all dimension variants would have a canonical again to the unique shade choice.

There are exceptions to the rule, significantly when you’ve gotten a signature product that will get tons of press protection about particular shade choices.

Consider a model like Tesla, with a brand new door design choice however on the identical car.

You may do a canonical hyperlink from the variant, and each autos could possibly be on the identical web page. But as a result of it’s iconic and can achieve press protection naturally, it could be value having its personal web page.

The McRib from McDonald’s, Apple’s iPhone, and different signature merchandise can get away with this.

The final thing to contemplate is whether or not that is the ultimate model of the product.

If you might be by no means going to hold, manufacture, improve and launch new variations, then and solely then would you wish to attempt to optimize distinctive pages for variants.

If you determine to go that route, you’re going to wish to construct a strong web site construction and fine-tune your copy so it’s 100% distinctive for every model.

Category

Use a novel class web page for every of the variants when:

• The product is a part of a class – like a V-neck t-shirt, the place you additionally carry crew neck and sleeveless – and you intend on increasing the product line so you’ve gotten ten or twenty shade choices of every;
• And every of the variants has no less than 1,000 searches per 30 days (if it’s a big-ticket merchandise with solely 200 searches every month, this might justify it, too).

If you start constructing particular person shade pages for on every product within the class, you now must do the identical for every related product as you add them.

This creates a big quantity of comparable content material and a possible cannibalization drawback.

By doing a class web page as an alternative, you may proceed increasing your product strains and feed related product pages into it relatively than utilizing distinctive product pages for each model of each product within the assortment.

There are at all times going to be exceptions, so use your greatest judgment when going with distinctive product pages or setting canonicals on all variants.

The rule of thumb for me is that this: If there isn’t any client want for particular person variant pages and no precise profit to the end-user, use a single web page and apply canonical hyperlinks to the variants.

Great query, and I hope my reply helps!

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Editor’s word: Ask an search engine optimization is a weekly search engine optimization recommendation column written by among the business’s high search engine optimization consultants, who’ve been hand-picked by Search Engine Journal. Got a query about search engine optimization? Fill out our form. You may see your reply within the subsequent #AskanSEO put up!