How to deal with duplicated content on product pages?

[Digital-DMG]

Hi,

I have a webshop with products with different sizes and colours. For each item I have a different URL, with almost the same content (title tag, product descriptions, etc). In order to prevent duplicated content I'am wondering what is the best way to solve this problem, keeping in mind:

-Impossible to create one page/URL for each product with filters on colour and size

-Impossible to rewrite the product descriptions in order to be unique

I'm considering the option to canonicolize the rest of de colours/size variations, but the disadvantage is that in case the product is not in stock it disappears from the website.

Looking forward to your opinions and solutions.

Jeroen

[Hutch42]

If the products are all but the same besides color, would you be able to implement something like amazon has, where each product is only one page and you select the color/size option within the the product framework?  This way instead of having a bunch of pages that are basically the same product, all of your effort can go to one page per product.

[MonicaOConnor]

Adding product options is usually best practice, like Hutch said.

Using canonical tags would be the next best thing. If you have Product A that has 6 colors and subsequently you have 6 pages for product A, I would create one page with a product description and product reviews. I would make that the canonical page. For the 6 subsequent pages I would create them to mirror the first page, but only have details specific to the color on that page. Then, add the Rel = Canonical tags to those 6 pages. All of the link juice and page authority will be pointed to the main product page.

The second thing I would do is add links to the specific pages with different colors to the content on the main page. This will help users find it easier and help with overall user experience.

So, it would look something like this:

Product A - Description, Reviews, Links to all versions of product A. Fully optimized page for Product A

Product A Colors 1 - 6, Add REL=Canonical tags with Product A as the Canonical. Include descriptions specific to the individual colors.  Using the canonical tags will tell the engines that your preferred page is Product A, which will help you control the negative effects of the duplicate content.

[LauraSultan]

I agree with Monica and Hutch. One product with product options is the best practice, but you stated that this was impossible with your current shopping cart. If most of your products have different sizes and colors, it may be worth it to switch to a different ecommerce solution. It may be costly in the short term, but you'll have greater success over the long term.

[MonicaOConnor]

I agree with Laura, Big Commerce, OpenCart, OSCommerce, these would all be great solutions. I think Big Commerce is the best hosted platform on the market right now. OpenCart and OSCommerce are not hosted solutions, and they are both open source so you would have to have some coding experience to get them set up.