Canonicalization Issue | E-commerce

[JesusD]

Hey everyone! How are you doing?

I spent this week trying to solve some technical issues on my website. However i am having trouble with Duplicate Content. I came to the conclusion that canonicalization is a great solution to this problem, however, i am having trouble implementing it.

The duplicate problem arises from the fact that for each product i have several colors or different attributes.

For example. I have the category "Construction Clips" and then links to "Color" in which the user can choose White or Sandstone. The content is almost identical for both of them, the only thing that changes is the color. This scenarios repeats many times throughout my webcommerce site. And is throwing me off many Duplicate Content errors.

I cannot use the canonicalization in the White or Sandstone page, because is a product page, it doesnt let me add or change anything on the header. http://aceromart.com/Clip-Glamet-Blanco.aspx 

I dont intend to rank well on most product pages, my priority is that i dont want duplicate errors on my website. What is the best solution for this conundrum?

Regards!!!

In advance, i thank you for your opinions!

[danrawk]

One way to handle this is to change the content between the pages (the descriptions, titles, etc.) enough that you are no longer seeing the duplicate content problem.

Another option would be to pull the products (white, sandstone) into ONE product page that has a dropdown or menu selector to choose color. This would probably be less work than changing tons of descriptions, but it also may depend on your ecommerce platform. most platforms have a "variant" selector on product pages as this is a common problem (think: tshirts, clothing, shoe sizes, etc.).

Hope that's of some help!

[MikeRoberts]

Strange that you can't update the header to add canonicals. Personally I'd say you should then add some written content about the products to differentiate them. Otherwise that's a pretty bare looking page to me except for all the links. Or, if you don't care about them ranking & don't want to invest in copy, NoIndex them and just let people find them through site navigation instead of search. But i'd go with the expanded copy.

[danrawk]

Also, should you do option #2 and your content system appends the URL with the "variant" (ex. ?product.php&whitestone), make sure the system is updated to post a concantation URL in the header.

[JesusD]

I am analyzing of noindexing them because they are webpages that only show the price of that particular combination of products.

I cannot change the platform for ecommerce because it would require a heavy investment both in time and capital.

I will try to write some content in order to differentiate them enough. Although i dont exactly know how much of a content is considered a duplicate.

Do you know a guideline for this topic?

Regards,

Thanks!