Removing Duplicate Content Issues in an Ecommerce Store

[ChriSEOcouk]

Hi All

OK i have an ecommerce store and there is a load of duplicate content which is pretty much the norm with ecommerce store setups

e.g. this is my problem

http://www.mystoreexample.com/product1.html
http://www.mystoreexample.com/brandname/product1.html
http://www.mystoreexample.com/appliancetype/product1.html
http://www.mystoreexample.com/brandname/appliancetype/product1.html
http://www.mystoreexample.com/appliancetype/brandname/product1.html

so all the above lead to the same product
I also want to keep the breadcrumb path to the product

Here's my plan

Add a canonical URL to the product page
e.g. http://www.mystoreexample.com/product1.html
This way i have a short product URL

Noindex all duplicate pages but do follow the internal links so the pages are spidered

What are the other options available and recommended?

Does that make sense?
Is this what most people are doing to remove duplicate content pages?

thanks

[Tompt]

That makes sense and it sounds like you're going about things the right way, but do you really need to noindex the items?

Could you not add the canonical URL to all of the pages? So add http://www.mystoreexample.com/brand/product1.html to any page that features the content? That way you preserve your links and keep your site more open to the spiders?

That would be my only suggestion.

[ChriSEOcouk]

thanks Tompt i appreciate you taking time to reply

do you think its best i keep a short URL as the preferred option or follow a breadcrumb and use that option

e.g. URL.com/brand/appliancetype/product1.html

or have the canonical URL as URL.com/product1.html

if i dont noindex the pages but do provide a canonical link on the page will this remove my duplicate content headache?  

[Tompt]

Happy to reply, it might be sad but I quite enjoy it.

If it was a smaller site I would say pick your best performing page and use that, but given how many pages I imagine you have that's going to be pretty much impossible. I would go with domain/brand/product (provided that the brand is a keyword and the total isn't too long) that way if people link using just the URL you get another keyword into the mix.

If appliance type makes better sense go with that, just don't make it too long.

EDIT: and yes if you provide a canonical link to the page you want credited you won't have to worry about the noindexing (sorry forgot that bit).

[Dan-Petrovic]

Recently we had the same situation which was resolved nicely with rel canonical alone.