Same product in Multiple categories ecommerce store, best way to avoid duplicate content?

[voipme]

Hello All,

Im building a magento store, with around 500 products.

One thing is that I am going to have some products in Multiple categories. Do you think the best solution is to remove any category name from the url structure or would this devalue SEO?

Also would the use of canonical links remove any duplicate content issues if the category name was left in.

So overall what would get better results

No category name in URL (e.g.phonename-model1.html)

V

category name in url (e.g. phones/phonename-model1.html  / videophones/phonename-model1.html +using canonical links

Any feedback or views would be great

[CarlosFernandes]

Hi David,

We have always had better results doing it the first way.

We still do use categorical directory structures - and use these for list views or category sectional pages -

For example:

domain.com/online-desserts/cheesecakes/chocolate-cheesecakes.html

could list all the Chocolate Cheesecakes that the eCommerce store has on offer. Say you have five of these tasty products - they would all then have links to their individual product detail pages from this list view category page.

domain.com/online-desserts/gifts/mothers-day-dessert-gifts.html

could list all the dessert ideas grouped together for Mothers Day for the same store.

But one product that was on both would then link to:

domain.com/online-desserts/store/mothers-day-choc-surprise-cheesecake.html or

domain.com/online-desserts/store/mothers-day-choc-surprise-cheesecake-xxxx.html depending on how you have your cart system setup. We try to do implementations where it doesn't need  a variable at all int he url - but that the individual product urls can be given by the admin and must be unique obviously.

I think your second option would work - just giving our opinion based on past projects in terms of what has worked best for us.  I think the second route may have more challenges also. Which would you make the canonical ref?  Would this then also have to be done each time by the admin. Would be automated or manual ? If manual using the back office on the product level - it may require the admin having more knowledge of SEO - so if it was you being the administrator then it may be ok.... but if you are building it for a client and for them to administer it - I think it will require more knowledge on their part.

Let me know David if this helps at all or if I didnt understand your question correctly.

Thanks,

Carlos