Sale page ranking for "[blank] for sale" keywords

[Scoleman]

My company's Ecommerce site has a sale category that is currently out performing some of our normal categories in the SERPs for "[blank] for sale" keywords. For example the sale category landing page is ranking for the keyword "vegetable seeds for sale" rather than the vegetable seed category. Has anyone ever dealt with a similar situation to this? or does anyone have general advice for optimizing (or weakening) sale pages?

[Nigel_Carr]

Hi Sam

Sale pages are always a problem in ECommerce stores. At the very least, during Sale periods their content can be identical to a category or brand and that can cause problems with duplication.

There are a few ways of overcoming this:

1. Canonicalise all Sale pages back to the preferred brand or category - that way they do not show up independently in search and don't interfere with the ranking of your major pages.

2. Call it clearance and don't mention the word 'sale' at all - It can be your promotions, discounts, end of season clearance page - keep the term 'sale' on the main brand or category and provide a link to the 'clearance page.

Make sure you write 3-500 words on each page to support this strategy and everything will be peachy!

Regards

Nigel