How do I handle duplicate content of the same product in Multiple product categories?

[Kelly_S]

I am building a BigCommerce store for selling framed art.  Many of the pieces of art will fall in more than one product category.

Let's say I have a framed print of a photograph of a western landscape.  This piece of art would fit into these categories;  "western", "landscape", and "photography".   I would have three pages with duplicate content for just this one framed print.

Will google give me less page rank due to this?  Can all the link juice be given to just one of the three categories by use of rel=canonical?  If so, does anyone know how to do this for a bigcommerce site?

I would appreciate any feedback.

Thanks,

Kelly

[CleverPhD]

You should separate your paginated product list pages from your product pages (as far as the URL structure) or only use main categories in the URLs for products.

Consider these example product list pages.  You have your main list of products

domain.com/category1/sub1/

Then you have pages 2-n that lets people browse products

domain.com/category1/sub1/page2-n

You could have other examples of this (your example would be)

domain.com/category1/sub2/

domain.com/category1/sub2/page2-n

In your example, you have a product that can go in sub1 or sub2 and so you dont want

domain.com/category1/sub1/product-abc

domain.com/category1/sub2/product-abc

as yes - these would be duplicates and cause issues.  Yes you could use the canonical to link to the main product, but what would work better is this

domain.com/category1/product-abc

If you get rid of the subcategory in the URLs you can take advantage of having the KW from the main category etc.  Likewise, if you had a product that could sit in multiple main categories, then it may be you need to use a the approach of

domain.com/products/products-abc

and just completely separate your product URLs from your category URLs.

It would seem that with the use of photographs you will need to always have multiple categories and so this may be your best approach.

You need to sit down with a big whiteboard and map all of this out as it will get complicated real quick.  Then run all your products through it and see if it makes sense.

[Kelly_S]

Hello,

Thank you for responding to my question.

I'm not sure what you mean by this....."completely separate your product URLs from your category URLs".  My level of knowledge isn't advanced.

[CleverPhD]

See the URL examples above.   Basically dont nest product pages under sub categories or category folders.

[danatanseo]

Hi Kelly,

I am much more familiar with Volusion and 3Dcart, but I imagine that Big Commerce might work in a similar way. Inside the admin panel, when you are building products and categories, it is very easy to assign one product to multiple categories.  As CleverPhd suggests, this is accomplished because the products aren't nested under category directories, they have their own.

Here is an example of one of the 3dcart stores I manage. This product: https://www.celebratecommunion.com/prefilled-communion-cups-with-wafers-box-of-500.html  actually belongs to 3 different categories: "Prefilled Communion Cups" "Communion Supplies" "Home Page Specials"   However, it retains the same URL across all categories. In both 3dcart and Volusion, when you are building a product you can customize the URL and then simply select with drop down boxes which categories you want that product to be applied to. I imagines Big Commerce would be quite similar, but having never used it I can't say for sure. As long as the URL for the product page doesn't change, you could put it in 100's of categories and it would never be considered duplicate content because it only has one unique URL.

I hope that helps a little. Let me know if my answer raises more questions than it answers

Dana

[Kelly_S]

Hello Dana,
BigCommerce does allow a person to assign a product to  multiple categories so it probably works the same way.   I was under the impression that when one product was assigned to multiple categories that a different URL would be used for each category.  If the same URL is used as with your store, my problem is solved.  I will check that out.

Thank you very much!

Kelly

[Kelly_S]

Thanks for your help!

[Kelly_S]

Hello Dana,

It works perfectly!  I entered one product under three different categories and the same URL showed for all three.

Thank You!

Kelly

[danatanseo]

Hey Kelly,

Awesome! I am so glad that relieved your worries. You are very welcome

Dana