Looks like keyword stuffing, but it isn't

[AspenFasteners]

(There was a similar older question on the forum, but it wasn't really answered so please forgive me if this looks like a repeated question)

Looks like keyword stuffing, but it isn't

We have a massive web store with 80k "commodity products" (and this amount will only increase) which aren't sold the same way normal products are sold (i.e. by brand and model). Commodity products are sold by specification, therefore their product names are actually descriptions of the product. In our case, industrial fasteners (nuts, bolts, washers, screws, etc) sold in bulk.

If you click on the link below, you will see that our catalog involves a tremendous amount of repetition, where the products all appear the same, but are varying by dimensions and/or package quantities. The solutions the web store software offers to solve this problem cause issues for us (i.e. displaying the dimensions and quantities ONLY under a common header) but more importantly, we are concerned that search engines are seeing this as keyword stuffing and penalizing the pages.

http://www.aspenfasteners.com/Step-Bolts-Inch-Standard-s/407.htm

If we can't change the presentation of the page, should we be concerned and if so, how do we let a search engine know that the repetition is legitimate?

[Hurf]

I did a quick search for 'step bolts". This was the number one, organic result (in Google UK) - but it's a US store.

https://www.fastenal.com/products/step-bolts?term=step+bolts&r=%20~|categoryl1:%2 2600000%20Fasteners%22|~%20~|categoryl2:%22600001%20Bolts%22|~%20~|categoryl3:%22600033%20Step%20Bolts%22|~

The first thing I note (without considering structural differences) is that they present only 12 products per page, whereas you present a maximum of **500. **

**More products on the category page equals more repetition of the same keywords. **

If you are concerned about keyword stuffing, this would be the very first change I'd make, not least to reduce the time it takes for the site to return the results - especially where you have more products present. Reducing the results shown to 12, for example, will greatly reduce the number of references to the category page while still delivering the right results to potential buyers. When you've got them on site, they can see that the page is aligned with their search and navigate through the results page as required.

I've used On-Page Grader on their site (as above) and they get a B grade:

It shows 31 references to the keyphrase 'Step Bolts' with 15 of those in the body text.

Your category page shows 49 overall, with 45 in the body alone (you haven't used them in ALT tags).

So, both of you have been flagged (by Moz's grader) to have used keyword stuffing. However, they still rank number one organically for this phrase. I guess your competitors aren't overly concerned with the results of the Moz On-Page Grader. Perhaps, if you, make the adjustment to the number of results you return on your category page, you wouldn't need to concern yourself with it too much either?

I hope that helps.

Good Luck!

[AspenFasteners]

Thanks, Hurf. Thanks for the excellent reply. Unfortunately, with Volusion as our web-store we don't have the option of displaying anything but the full product name on listings by category unless we engage a Volusion partner to modify our store or we migrate 80K products to a different and more complex product/option structuring model.

For the sake of the clients, 12-products-per-page would be maddening. Text search is very ineffective when it comes to parsing product dimensions, so we produce long listings, sorted by size so the user can quickly locate their product.

In the short term, I think it makes most sense to pay for custom programming to reduce the product description to just the dimension and quantity when displayed on a category page.