Will Using Attributes For Landing Pages In Magento Dilute Page Rank?

[MozAddict]

Hello Mozzers!

We have an ecommerce site built on Magento. We would like to use attribute filters in our layered navigation for landing page purposes. Each page will have a unique URL, Meta Title and Meta Description. For example:

URL: domain.com/art/abstract (category is Art, attribute is Abstract)

Title: Abstract Art For Sale

Meta: Blah Blah Blah

Currently these attribute pages are not being indexed by google as they are set in google parameters.

We would like to edit google parameters to start indexing some of the attribute filters that users search for, so they can be used as landing pages.

Does anyone have experience with this? Is this a good idea? What are the consequences? Will this dilute Page Rank? Could this destroy the world?

Cheers!

MozAddict

[mosquitohawk]

Hello!  Great question; I've worked with Magento quite a bit and layered navigation can definitely be a bit tricky from an SEO perspective.

The most important thing to opening up some or all of these pages to Google for consideration, is having unique content on the page.  This is not something Magento themes typically include by default but will be 100% necessary to get most if not all of these pages to rank well.

Most typically we add a static block to the top or bottom of the page to add uniqueness.  Without it, all of the content on these types of pages are almost always 100% non-unique and from my experience Google ignores.

If your layered nav pages also use pagination, you'll need to make sure you follow best practices for using canonical and/or rel prev/next/view all to make sure Google isn't looking at your paginated pages as extra duplicated content.

And as a final reply, I think it can be a great idea with limited consequences as long as you follow the above advice regarding unique content and pagination.  Additionally there's no worry regarding Pagerank or destroying the world.  

[MozAddict]

Thank you for your fantastic input!

I think your point on adding unique content to pages is great advise. This is something we aim to do, although it will not be possible on all the pages that will be generated, since the combinations will probably be in the thousands.

We are currently using rel prev next and rel canonical on the filtered pages for the purpose of using them as landing pages

Another potential route could be to robot.txt the layered navigation and create attribute splash pages as landing pages for important keywords. These pages would be manually created and contain custom meta titles/descriptions and on page content. These pages are not a part of the main catalogue search page, instead are separate pages. For example the URL for such a page would be domain.com/abstract-art instead of domain.com/art/abstract

What are your thoughts on this route? Which option is better in your opinion?

[mosquitohawk]

I think it is possible to add 1000s of pages of unique content over time.  

Excluding (I assume that's what you mean) the layered nav pages in robots.txt won't necessarily keep Google from indexing those pages, only crawling them.  So you end up with something like this in the SERP - http://screencast.com/t/SPKDV09SM9 (Note the meta description.)

If you didn't want them in the SERP you'd need to add a meta noindex to the of the page as well.

I don't really like splash/doorway/gateway pages like those from a usability perspective.  If I'm going to drive traffic to a page on my client's e-commerce site, I want that page to have active product on it.  I realize you can do some Magento hoodoo and get product on static pages but it's not worth the effort in my opinion.  You're better off focusing on conversions from your layered nav pages with unique content.

[MozAddict]

Thanks for the heads up on robots.txt. I also think the attribute landing pages will not provide the same user experience as the layered navigation pages. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on the matter.

Cheers!