35 Categories + sub-categories for online store, can it hurt SEO?

[BigBlaze205]

this is my online store http://www.furnacefilterscanada.com

I experiencing new site architecture for better buyer experience. I found this solution for setting up categories:

http://filtration-montreal.mybigcommerce.com

I ask this questions many times about my site architecture, I find this solution, using around 35 categories and sub-categories.

Is it O.K. or it can hurt SEO to have to many categories.

See example on this trial version of BigCommerce:

http://filtration-montreal.mybigcommerce.com

I will use the top horizontal menu for the most popular furnace filters sizes.

Also, I want to use this cascading dropdown option in the header

http://www.asp.net/ajaxLibrary/AjaxControlToolkitSampleSite/CascadingDropDown/CascadingDropDown.aspx

where I wiil setup 3 options to select:

filter width

filter lenght

filter depth

What is your opinions, I'm I on the right path?

Thank you,

BigBlaze

[danatanseo]

Hi BigBlaze,

In general, I think the architecture I see on your sample site looks perfectly acceptable to me. It looks like you are only going down to one subcategory after that, which is a good thing. I think when too many categories becomes a problem is when the categories go 3 and 4 deep with subcats of subcats of subcats. Once your content or products get buried that deep, it's hard for search engine bots to keep crawling. I think if you can keep you architecture as flat as possible and still make it easy for people to find what they seek, you will do just fine. I think adding the filter width, length and depth as sorting options is good. Just remember that there is navigation and then there is sorting. Giving your visitors several clear and even redundant ways to find things is good.

Hope that helps!

Dana

[BigBlaze205]

Hi Dana,

Thank you for your precious help. I had many questions and you are always ready to help.

French is my native language, so I don't always get everything clear. For example, the Hub page was hard to figure out and I never really understand how I could creat one in BigCommerce.

Also, when talking about navigation and sorting, do you make reference to my Categories/Top menu ( navigation) and sorting ( DropDown menue)?

If you think you have any recommendation to give or positive advice on my online store, I will be happy to learn from you

Thank you,

BigBlaze

[danatanseo]

Ce n'est rien Jean.

I have a suggestion for you for a site to look at. I suggest it because they too have a lot of products to put online. Also, many of their products differ only by dimension. It might be helpful for you to study how they organize these thousands of products. This Website has one awards for marketing so it's a really good example of e-commerce marketing products that could be very boring, but they make them interesting:

http://www.newpig.com/pig/US

Dana