20-30% of our ecommerce categories contain no extra content, could this be a problem

[BobGW]

Hello,

About 20-30% of our ecommerce categories have no content beyond the products that are in them. Could this be a problem with Panda?

Thanks!

[AlanBleiweiss]

If a category page has almost no content (other than photos and product names), then that's a potential "thin content" issue, though the way your question is worded, I'm not confident my interpretation is actually what you meant by "no content beyond".

If product names don't reference the category name, and if there's a lack of any descriptive content on the category page, that's likely even more of a problem - thin content and lack of topical reinforcement of the category itself.

A general rule (barring other issues or considerations) is to have at least a couple paragraphs of unique, descriptive paragraph based text that reinforces the topical focus of each category page.   There are numerous ways to split that content out across a category page, and in highly competitive categories, more content may be needed if not enough products exist in the category.

Other factors that can help mitigate this to a certain degree include (but aren't necessarily limited to):

• hierarchical URL structure (nested URLs so product detail pages are seen at the URL as being "beneath" their category
• Proper nested breadcrumbs to reinforce that hierarchical structure
• Strong internal linking a) within categories this would include pagination code (rel-next/rel-prev).  b) outside a category this would include links and highly refined relevant content elsewhere on the page linking to the category page.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

It could be Bob. I always advise that category pages are noindex / follow to avoid issues.

if you are using Wordpress and Yoast, this is just a setting.

-Andy

[AlanBleiweiss]

Andy,

why would you noindex/follow category pages?  Thats like saying "hey - we have X products for this category - so it's really a high value and important page we deserve ranking for.  Except hey - we don't have the willingness to boost the trust signals on the category page itself, so don't bother."

That in turn negatively impacts the site's ability to gain maximum ranking signals for any products in those categories (at least in highly competitive fields).

So I'm curious why you'd take that path.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

I'm assuming that this is a Wordpress site (more info would be useful) and a common issue is category pages causing problems due to them showing the same excerpts over and over. No indexing them gets around this.

if I have misread the type of issue this is, then of course, this doesn't apply. With this being posted in blogging and content, this was my assumption.

A URL to look at would I'm sure confirm more of the problem.

-Andy

[BobGW]

Hi Andy,

Sorry for the confusion. This is an ecommerce site. I edited the original question to be clear.

[BobGW]

Thanks Alan, this is perfect.

So if we had at least a couple of good paragraphs on every category page, and a few extra very appropriate internal links pointing to each of those category pages then we would be in good shape as far as Panda and category strength. Correct?

[Andy.Drinkwater]

No worries Bob. Ignore my original suggestion then.

Alan has some good suggestions for you to follow

-Andy

[AlanBleiweiss]

It's not an exact science in regard to any one signal, however yes, the more you can reinforce the ability to strengthen topical focus, the less likely Panda would find category pages to be weak.