Number of Items As a Google Ranking Factor??

[EGOL]

If I search for "hiking boots" and scan down the SERPs I see the following...

1. Google reports "483 items" for the Zappos.com page.

2. Google reports "Results 1 - 36 of 85" for the Shoebuy.com page (and that does not appear in their code).

So, Google is obviously paying attention to the depth of your information or the number of items that you are showing.   If they think that is important enough to count and report in the SERPs, might they also be using that information as a ranking factor??

PRACTICAL APPLICATION FOR SEO:  If google is using this information, perhaps people should list all of their color, size, etc variants on a single page.  For example if you sell widgets in five colors, instead of making one page for each color, list all five on the same page.

[twnSEO]

I quite wouldn't say # of items be the right approach, but rather 'average customer rating' as a combination of # of items would be useful. Mere item-count is easily inflatable by publishers/eCommerce to get its ranking up.

My 2 cents.

[Everett]

EGOL,

Great question / observation. I'm curious about this too, but do not know how a test could be designed that would rule out other factors. Glancing at the SERPs, I don't see any indication in terms of placement that this is a major factor since results #2, #3 #5-#7 don't have that data, but that isn't exactly scientific. On the other hand, those that do have it seem to be ranked in order of the total amount of items (i.e. 578 Amazon, 484 Zappos, 85 Shoebuy).

Regardless, nine times out of ten I recommend having a single product page with variables as something the user can choose from a drop down, as opposed to different pages. With this approach, in light of your question, it might be worth considering the option of having all of the variables listed as individual product pages on a category page, and using a rel canonical tag on the product pages to canonicalize them all to a single product page. This way you inflate your count on category pages, while avoiding the issues inherent with having separate pages for each variant.

[EGOL]

Thank you, Everett.   Interesting ideas.

When I have a product that is available in several colors of styles I include all of them on one page but have separate, descriptions, product photos and buy buttons.  I am doing this with the hope that it will make it easy for customers to see all options at once but also to make a much richer-appearing page for Google.

[Everett]

I like that idea in theory and in practice for some sites. But in practice for most of the sites I deal with I have enough trouble trying to get buy-off for custom copy on each product page, let alone five or ten totally unique, separate descriptions that don't all sound boilerplate.

I'd love to see a few examples though if you don't mind sharing. You can PM me if you like.

Cheers,

Everett

[AWCthreads]

If OZ sends you a pm with these unique descriptions, would you please blog about it in 90 days?

[EGOL]

You can place a general description at the top of the page under a large detail photo.  Then down below - beside each color photo example you can talk about the pretty turquoise blue color of this item and how it is great paired with tan slacks (don't give a specific item there because it be discontinued, but you can link to search results or a color category page).