ECommerce products duplicate content issues - is rel="canonical" the answer?

[Confections]

This post is deleted!

[Francisco_Meza]

That is going to depend on the software you are using. Magento Commerce is super easy, but your site looks like OS Commerce or something. You may want to ask the software developer.

What is the eCommerce software you are using?

[Keszi]

Hi Shara,

The problem with E-Commerce websites is that usually you can get to several products in several paths, which can cause duplicate content (because the path is different, but products are the same).

With canonicals it could be solved, but on large websites, with several products and categories, playing with canonicals can really give you a headache.

What I would do is to let Search Engines index only one version of the products, the others could have noindex, follow or canonical (but as I said, canonicals can cause headaches if you don't manage it wisely).

As Francisco said, the answer to this issue is also effected by the content management system of your e-commerce website. If you know on what kind of platform you are using, then maybe we can offer you ideas of plugins to use to easy your job.

Good luck, I hope this helped a littlebit,

Istvan

[Confections]

Thank you both for the answers.  The site is a Drupal site...I am unsure how that plays in.

Appreciate it,

Shara

[Francisco_Meza]

"I am unsure how that plays in" - because if it was Magento, I would have told you exactly how to do it.

Go to the Joomla extensions and see if there is anything that can work. I don't use Joomla so I can't help you much. You may need a plugin. BACK UP your site 1st!!!! Then install the plugin.

Try this one or others: http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/site-management/seo-a-metadata/5355

[Confections]

Thanks again!

[timhatton]

I don't think rel=canonical isn't going to help this really (as that's more to do with where you can get to the same 'page' through two different routes).

Unfortunately there isn't a way round this other than to produce unique content for each product page - have a look at something like firebox.com for inspiration on producing unique content description... though I suppose there's only so many times you can describe a phone case