SEO impact of AJAX category on Magento website?

[bearpaw]

I am designing a new category for my website. Instead of a grid or list view there is an additional (default) view that implements Owl Carousel.

What this means for SEO is that there is going to be a lot of dynamically loaded content and I am not quite sure how to handle that. By default all the user (and Google) will see is product images. Once the product image is clicked more details are shown about the product.

Are there any articles that any of you can refer me to on Googles recommendation for handling dynamic content?

My initial thought was that with a decent site map and the other available views this wouldn't be a big deal, especially since my categories tend to bog down SEO with links and repetitive terms in the product name (i.e. Flavored This, Flavored That, Flavored Other Term) as well as I'm unsure if I need the "juice" passed through my category product links.. but I'll leave it to the community to confirm that.

[Ray-pp]

Hi Tyler - Dynamic content is in a state of flux right now. First off, you'll want to use the Fetch as Google Bot tool to see which content is being loaded and viewed by the Google Bot.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6066467?hl=en

If you're seeing all the content that you consider necessary, then you may stop right there. However, if you see that important content is missing from the fetch, you may need to consider adjusting the UI of your website.

Recently, Google has informed the community that content that is not originally visible to the user can be 'discounted' and not carry as much weight for ranking. If you're seeing that much of your valuable ranking content is not immediately visible to the user, then you may again need to reconsider your UI design. This change has caused many SEOs to reconsider their web page design - especially around Ecommerce products (I fall into this category).

Link: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-hidden-tab-content-seo-19489.html

In the situation where the dynamic content is content that belongs to a more important page, i.e. your home page loads dynamic product content that is also available on a unique product page, then this may not be much of an issue for you at all. Just make sure that you have the important, quality ranking content immediately and highly visible as needed on your home page and Google will use that content to rank your site as desired.

[bearpaw]

In your experience, do categories carry much ranking power in terms of internal links? This is the only page that concerns me in terms of SEO. My products will scrollable horizontally causing much of the listed information and image to be hidden. To me, it seems that all that Google can take away from a category page in terms of SEO is that it is where a particular product falls under - but can't my breadcrumbs do the same (my canonical URLs do not include category).

[bearpaw]

Hi Ray,

Your response is very helpful and insightful. Will you take a look at my other comment and offer additional insight? I'm hoping that product category page SEO is negligible enough that I can squeeze by without it impacting my design.

[Ray-pp]

Well, that depends on the structure of your website and how you want to use category pages. For example, I manage an ecommerce website that sells Widgets. I have a high ranking XYZ Widgets product page. It sells amazing and since my price is so awesome, people link to it from their blogs and such. However, XYZ widgets just became discontinued. When the product page disappears, it creates a 301 to my main Widgets Category.

My Widgets Category page isn't going anywhere (not being removed from the site anytime soon) and ranks high in the SERPs. All those 301'ed product pages help improve its authority and allows me to rank high for a broad industry term - it also acts an efficient landing page.

That's just one store setup though, it could be that your category pages do not add value and you use a different page for that type of use. If you're not using your category pages to rank in the SERPs, then I would find which broad pages you do want to rank and have the product pages 301'd to those pages (to save any authority gained).

In terms of Internal linking, since I want my category pages to rank, a clear internal link structure helps that case. It also ends up that my category pages have a higher internal link count because of the structure I have in place. That all contributes to the category pages ranking higher for broader terms and allows my product pages to rank higher for the specific terms.