Duplication, Aggregation, Syndication, Affiliates, Scraping And Information Architecture It’s more fun than it sounds, I promise…
Duplication, Aggregation, Syndication, Affiliates, Scraping and Information Architecture - iCrossing - SMX West 2012
Sep 14, 2014
As presented by Nick Roshon, SEO Strategist, iCrossing, at SMX West on on Tuesday, Feb 28, 2012.
About the presentation:
We’ll sort through the bewildering world of near duplication due to issues such as manufacturer feeds into your site, syndication to other sites, international sites, aggregation of data sources, boilerplate content, and pagination. How can a well-planned information architecture minimize the search obstacles and how can you best handle unavoidable duplication to avoid PageRank dilution, being classified as “thin affiliate”, “thin content” or low quality site by search engines? What’s the best way to implement complex, paginated sites for effective indexing and ranking? We’ll talk through all the options, including rel=canonical, rel=next/prev, noindex, nofollow, faceted navigation, and URL parameters.
About the presentation:
We’ll sort through the bewildering world of near duplication due to issues such as manufacturer feeds into your site, syndication to other sites, international sites, aggregation of data sources, boilerplate content, and pagination. How can a well-planned information architecture minimize the search obstacles and how can you best handle unavoidable duplication to avoid PageRank dilution, being classified as “thin affiliate”, “thin content” or low quality site by search engines? What’s the best way to implement complex, paginated sites for effective indexing and ranking? We’ll talk through all the options, including rel=canonical, rel=next/prev, noindex, nofollow, faceted navigation, and URL parameters.
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Transcript
Duplication, Aggregation,
Syndication, Affiliates, Scraping And
Information Architecture
It’s more fun than it sounds, I promise…
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 2
About iCrossing
• We are a unit of Hearst Corporation
• Full-service digital agency
• 750 professionals world-wide
• 40+ Fortune 500 clients
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 3
MANAGING THOUSANDS OF
PRODUCT PAGES IS TOUGH;
MAKING THEM UNIQUE ISN’T
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 4
First: Why Bother?
Query Deserves Freshness (QDF):
stale product descriptions won’t cut it
Query Deserves Diversity (QDD): be
different or be invisible
Beating the Competition: You can’t
beat the competition by publishing the
exact same content The Fresh Prince of the SERPs
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 5
Ideal Solution: Write Your OWN Content
• Using boilerplate language is lazy
• Your website is one of, if not the most important piece of
written content you own
• Writing your own content can pay huge dividends in rankings &
traffic
• It’s also an opportunity to express your brand (think of
Groupon, Woot.com, etc)
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 6
If that’s not possible, then drown out boilerplate
text with unique content
NOT
BOILERPLATE
NOT
BOILERPLATE
BOILERPLATE
NOT
BOILERPLATE
SOME
BOILERPLATE
** Example Pictured: http://www.amazon.com/Plex-Google-Thinks-Works-Shapes/dp/1416596585
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 7
Reviews
• Reviews are a no-brainer to expand upon boilerplate content
• Make sure they are displayed on the product page itself, and
not in an iFrame or on a subdomain (especially if you use
Bazaarvoice)
• Highlight select ones in static text boxes (particularly if from
notable users/internet celebrities) as testimonials
** Example Pictured: http://www.zagg.com/audio/smart-buds.php
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 8
Go Social
• Recent Tweets (Twitter search)
• RSS of blog posts with related Category/Tag
• Facebook Comments plug-in
• Social sharing buttons
• Forum or Q&A discussion
** Example Pictured: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/17/avalanche-danger-in-color_n_1285495.html
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 9
Related Products
• Customers Also Bought…
• Accessories That Fit This Device Include…
• Things You Might Also Be Interested In…
• Other Products from This Brand…
• Most Popular…
** Example Pictured: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Acer-Mesh-Gray-15.6-Aspire-AS5349-2635-Laptop-PC-with-
Intel-Celeron-B815-Processor-and-Windows-7-Home-Premium/19714381
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 10
Trust Builders
• Return policies
• Why you should buy from us
• About this brand
• Coupons, discounts & bundles
• Pricing policy (price-matching, etc.)
• Nearest stores (if in-store pickup is available)
• Email notifications (for discounts, in stock, etc.) ** Example Pictured: http://www.zappos.com/sperry-top-sider-authentic-original-ice?zlfid=111&recoName=zap_alp_pt_g
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 11
Photos, Videos & Other Assets
• Images – high quality & unique
– Crowd-source or out-source them if you
can’t take your own…
• Videos – huge potential for
incremental traffic
– Crowd-source or out-source them if you
can’t shoot your own…
• PDFs – owners manuals & other
related documents
– Technical documents – safety
information, ingredients, performance
stats, CAD drawings, etc.
** Example Pictured: http://www.goapr.com/products/stage3_b7_rs4.html
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 12
Template (Dynamic) Optimization
• Unique(!) page titles:
– Product Name |
Category |
YourName.com
• H1, H2, H3 headers
with product name in
headings
– iPhone Earbuds Product
Details
• Descriptive URLs
• Images with file name
& alt text = product
name
** Example Pictured: http://electronics.hsn.com/beats-solo-hd-product-red-special-edition-headphones_p-
6594459_xp.aspx
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 13
AVOIDING DUPLICATE URLS
FOR PRODUCT PAGES
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 14
Advice #1: Don’t Do It
• One product = One URL
– Different colors, sizes, etc. displayed on same URL
– Dynamically refresh content to display different pricing info and images
– Use drop downs & buttons to customize on page by size, color, etc.
** Example Pictured: http://shop.nordstrom.com/s/hart-schaffner-marx-madras-plaid-
trousers/3271739?origin=category&resultback=1800
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 15
Advice #2: But If You Have To Do It…
• Use consistent parameters (or better yet, subfolders) so you can block via robots.txt & Webmaster Tools if desired
– Example: Disallow &autoMake=*
• Use the canonical tag
• Add an HTML link to the canonical version of the page from the duplicate page
http://www.tirerack.com/brakes/brakes.jsp?make=StopTech&model=Street+Perfor
mance+Pads&group=Street+Performance+Pads&autoMake=Audi&autoModel=
S4+Sedan&autoYear=2006&autoModClar=With+TPMS
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 16
Advice #3: Watch for Pagination
• If you have too many products to
list on one page, use rel=“next”
and rel=“previous”
• Also offer option “View All on
One Page” if reasonable. Make
this the default view for search
engines.
• Can be used in conjunction with
rel=canonical
Hey Girl,
I could look at your
pages forever.
** More Info: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 17
GOING GLOBAL…
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 18
Don’t Do This
“Site Selector” splash pages are
a waste of homepage link equity
and create a poor user
experience…especially on
mobile.
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 19
Global Best Practices For Search Engines
• Use a ccTLD, sub-folder, or sub-domain per country/language
• Set Geo-targeting in Bing & Google Webmaster Tools
• Do localized link building
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 20
Global SEO - Continued
Use the “hreflang” tag to specify
alternate versions of content
Example:
<link rel=“alternate” hreflang=“es”
href=“canonicalversion.com” />
Can be used in tandom with
rel=canonical but be careful &
follow Google guidelines
** More Info: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077
Hey Girl,
Your website
speaks all the
right languages.
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 21
Global SEO & UX
• Put the country name in your Page Title
– Example: Product Name | Category Name | iCrossing Spain
• Include the country name in the header or footer of your site’s
template
– Bonus Points: country-specific phone number & address in site template
• Spell things “incorrectly” for the Brits and Canucks (e.g.
product catalogue)
** Example Pictured: http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/
COPYRIGHT ICROSSING / PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL 22
thank
you.
Nick Roshon
SEO Strategist, iCrossing [email protected]
@nickroshon
+Nick Roshon
NickRoshon.com
iCrossing.com
Special thanks to @dananotman for the Ryan Gosling infographics
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