4 replies to this topic

[chilluk]

We are moving our back office system which had every variation of item listed under it's own product code, to one that supports product variants.

This will reduce our current inventory from over 65,000 items by at least half I should think.

Our current site has a product page per variant (as they exist as separate products currently), but the new version of the site that ties into the new system has one product page per main item, with the variants being selected by multiple linked drop downs. There are 3 drop downs, and the number of variants is effectively limitless but we do have a lot of items with 50 or more variations.

However although this will be great for customers, we are worried about the impact on search engine results.

So we might list a Widget that comes in 10mm, 15mm and 20mm. It might also come in Chrome and Stainless. When a customer searches for it they will know what they want and so will punch in "10mm Chrome Widget" into Google. The long tail search terms will be used - we know that for sure.

Our on site search works fine, but without a natural landing page how will the SEs know we carry the specific items?

I guess I can create individual product landing pages for each variant, but then there will be zero internal links (save perhaps our own sitemap) so will the SEs even rank them? Also what about dupe content etc - the page titles etc can be different but we'd only have one main item description to share amongst all variants.

Not quite sure what is the best way forward with this one. All suggestions gratefully received.

[Jill]

If I'm understanding you correctly what you're doing sounds perfect for both people and search engines. Search engines aren't interested in low quality near duplicate pages that simply list a different size or color of a particular product.

You have nothing to worry about.

[chilluk]

Thanks Jill

So are you saying don't bother creating pages for the variants at all?

So our main product is just listed as "BrandX Widget", and the page title reflects just this value. Then we have a drop down within that page containing "10mm", "20mm", "50mm", and another containing "Chrome" and "Stainless", if someone types a long tail type search term in of "BrandX 10mm Chrome Widget" you think our single main page would get found?

We shouldn't include the text of all the variants somewhere in the page body as well? A table of sizes on a tab or something? Or are the spiders going to include stuff they find in our drop downs as well so you think?

[chrishirst]

if someone types a long tail type search term in of "BrandX 10mm Chrome Widget" you think our single main page would get found?

There's no reason why it shouldn't, and if you include a list of "Also available in/as [insert details]" it will help it along the way.

[Jill]

Yes they see info in drop downs as a list.