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.
URL structure for same product in multiple categories?
-
Hello everyone !
I am building an ecom store using wordpress.
I have assigned multiple categories to the same product. What should be the URL structure when users are navigating with different product categories?
Categories Assigned: tshirt, blue, striped
Product Name: blue-striped-tshirtOption 01:
Matching site navigation breadcrumb to product url
URL - ecomstore.com/tshirt/blue-striped-tshirt
Breadcrumb - home/tshirt/blue-striped-tshirtURL - ecomstore.com/blue/blue-striped-tshirt (canonical to 1 product page)
Breadcrumb - home/color/blue/blue-striped-tshirtURL - ecomstore.com/striped/blue-striped-tshirt (canonical to 1 product page)
Breadcrumb - home/type/striped/blue-striped-tshirtOption 02:
Same product urls and different breadcrumbs based on user site navigation
URL - ecomstore.com/tshirt/blue-striped-tshirt
Breadcrumb - home/tshirt/blue-striped-tshirtURL - ecomstore.com/tshirt/blue-striped-tshirt (url same as 1 product page)
Breadcrumb - home/color/blue/blue-striped-tshirtURL - ecomstore.com/tshirt/blue-striped-tshirt (url same as 1 product page)
Breadcrumb - home/type/striped/blue-striped-tshirtI have decided to got with Option 01 so that the product in each category can be ranked according to each category keyword.
Which option is the best according to your experience or is there any other best practice?
-
From an SEO perspective, it is generally recommended to have a single URL for a product to avoid issues with duplicate content. This means that option 1 would be the better choice.
Having multiple URLs for the same product can lead to confusion for search engines and potentially lower your search engine rankings. By having a canonical URL (in this case, the URL with the "t-shirt" category), you are indicating to search engines that this is the preferred URL for the product.
Additionally, having the product URL match the site navigation breadcrumb can help users navigate your site more easily and improve their user experience.
I would recommend going with Option 1 for the best SEO and user experience benefits.
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
-
Should I split long form content?
I have quite a long content on my site. By length I mean around 8000-9000 words. I optimized it to cover almost all searches related to a topic. But this length makes me uneasy for some reason. I do not think that users will find what they are looking for in such a long content. However, I don't want to neglect the SEO aspect of the content. I can talk about something like this without sharing the keywords completely: Title + for girls Title + for boys Title + for kids Title + for girlfriend Title + for boyfriend Title + for students As I said, in the current situation, these are all sub-headings (H2) of 8000-9000-word content. When I make a separate content for each of them, I can bring them all closer to 1500-2000 words. However, I am undecided whether this is the right step in terms of SEO and content optimization. What are your views?
SEO Tactics | | mozasea0 -
Does Google consider breadcrumbs to be duplicate titles?
Moz has been flagging a lot of our articles for duplicate titles. I noticed that the website was automatically generating the same words that were used for the titles above the articles and main images. But those are bread crumbs. Does anyone know if Google also considers those duplicate titles? I'm not sure if the screenshot I'm uploading will appear, but this is one of the blog posts the extra wording was showing up on: https://hometowneautorepairandtireofwoodbridge.com/blog/when-why-replace-spark-plugs/
Content Development | | ifixcars1 -
How to Incorporate Awkward Keyword Phrases
Certain keywords are good choices for my website (high CTR, low difficulty, high volume), but they would be very awkward to use in my website content. For example, "therapist near me" is a popular search term, but it would be very strange for me to use those words in that order in my content (I am a therapist). Any thoughts about this are welcome.
On-Page Optimization | | LPantell0 -
Problems with WooCommerce Product Attribute Filter URL's
I am running a WordPress/WooCommerce site for a client, and Moz is picking up some issues with URL's generated from WooCommerce product attribute filters. For example: ..co.uk/womens-prescription-glasses/?filter_gender=mens&filter_style=full-rim&filter_shape=oval How do I get Google to ignore these filters?
Technical SEO | | SushiUK
I am running Yoast Premium, but not sure if this can solve the issue? Product categories are canonicalised to the root category URL. Any suggestions very gratefully appreciated. Thanks Bob0 -
Category URL Pagination where URLs don't change between pages
Hello, I am working on an e-commerce site where there are categories with multiple pages. In order to avoid pagination issues I was thinking of using rel=next and rel=prev and cannonical tags. I noticed a site where the URL doesn't change between pages, so whether you're on page 1,2, or 3 of the same category, the URL doesn't change. Would this be a cleaner way of dealing with pagination?
Technical SEO | | whiteonlySEO0 -
Multiple H1 Tags on Page
Can having multiple H1 tags on a webpage be detrimental to its rankings?
Technical SEO | | AubbiefromAubenRealty0 -
Old URL redirect to New URL
Alright I did something dumb a year a go and I'm still paying for it. I changed my hyphenated URL to the non-hyphenated version when I redesigned my website. I say it was dumb because I lost most of my link juice even though I did 301 redirects (via the htaccess file) for almost all of the pages I could find in Google's index. Here's my problem. My new site took a huge hit in traffic (down 60%) when I made the change and even though I've done thousands of redirects my old site is still showing up in the SERPS and send much if not most of my traffic. I don't want to take the old site down in fear it will kill all of my traffic. What should I do? Is there a better method I should explore then 301 redirects? Could the other site be affecting my current rank since it's still there? (FYI...both sites are built on the WP platform). Any help or ideas are greatly appreciated. Thank you! Joe
Technical SEO | | kaje0 -
Products with discrete URLs for each color
here is the issue. i have an ecommerce site that on a category page, shows each individual color for each product sold. and there is a distinct URL for each color. each product page shares the same content, with the only potentially differentiating factor being customer reviews (not nearly enough of these to differentiate anything). so we have URLs like: www.domain.com/product-green www.domain.com/product-yellow www.domain.com/product-red and so on. i am looking for a way to consolidate these URL while still showing all colors on the category page. the first solution i am considering is using the hash tag. so we would create www.domain.com/product#green, www.domain.com/product#yellow, www.domain.com/product#red. if possible, i would set the canonical tag as www.domain.com/product. the second solution would be to use the canonical tag and keep the URLs as is. the issue i see here is that we would need to create www.domain.com/product and show that page somewhere. www.domain.com/product would the URL that the above color URLs would canonicalize to. what would be the preferred solution? or is there something else?
Technical SEO | | rakesh_patel0
