shags38
Top Contributor
I originally submitted this in the SEO Forum at ZenCart as a couple of my sites are ZenCart eCommerce sites. References to Product Info pages means the page that contains the product details coming from categories menu/category/sub-category/product list/product info page.
I see relevance in some of these queries for any site, eCommerce or not, and I look forward to any comments.
I for one have been a victim of Penguin and even possibly the most recent Panda refresh/upgrade. I am doing what I can to rectify some SEO over optimization (not black hat - and seemingly common and current SEO practice) and some overzealous link building (linking between a large number sites I own - didn't think it would be seen as link farming seeing as I am the common owner but I guess I was wrong)
So I am looking for some opinions / guidance / advice on a few things to assist me, (and possibly others who may read this thread), to have a clean site in respect to being as Google Friendly as possible, abiding by the principals of Panda and Penguin in particular. The message has finally hit home with me that I need to make my site for Humans and not for Robots
1. Content Duplication: example - site sells widgets which come in all shapes, sizes and colours but at the end of the day they are widgets - it has 200 widgets in a product category "widgets" - there is not enough of a difference for justifying sub-categories. So on Product Info Pages aside from nominating the size, shape and colour of the particular widget there is not a lot that can be described to satisfy "unique content" so there is content on the page that describes widgets in a "general sense", that content being common on every product info page for widgets as well as
Meta Tag Headers are "Widget #27", "widget #28" and so on - Meta Description is a common description except for item number, i.e. 27 or 28 etc as is the Alt_Text for images.
Q. does this (all or some aspects) constitute duplicate content in the eyes of the crawlers ?? If so then what is the answer to overcoming this without reducing content to purely size, shape and colour stats or writing absolute unique, irrelevant "waffle" for each info page? Should this common content "have a heading "general information", is the algorithm smart enough to know that this general information is necessary even though it is duplicated?
2. Keyword Density: Having unique content on any page is important and probably none so than the home page. In trying to achieve a minimum of 500 words content on the home page and keep keyword density down to less than 6% (even this figure is arguable) can be pretty difficult for some product sites so key words are substituted by it, they etc. So home page keyword density of say 5% is achieved the at a given point in time the crawler takes a snapshot of the page that shows items on special, featured items, e-z pages, bestsellers etc etc ALL with the keyword (or keyword phrase) repeated taking the keyword density well into double figures!! At another time the items on special or featured etc may not contain the sites (page) main keyword(s).
Q. does Google actually see this as "over optimization" post Penguin ?? (I cannot get clarification by reading other forums) - if so How can this be overcome?
3. Internal Links: Q is putting an internal links list to either ALL other pages, or selected other pages on the site on the bottom of product info pages or e-z pages "over optimization" post Penguin?? Would limiting the links to just /sitemap (internal sitemap) be better or is it (a) superfluous, (b) not Penguin compliant??
4. Unique Content: I have more than one website with the same product type - widgets, some widgets are the same on each site, some are not. I write some unique content about widgets and I put that unique content on more than one site that I own. It may be that I load that content on the same day or I may develop an additional site months later and add that unique content that I wrote.
Q. Is that unique content classed as unique on all sites or is it in fact date stamped as read first on x site and therefore if read on any other sites in as "skimmed" content - is it counter productive to use the same unique content on more than one site? (unique to a site vs unique to an author??)
5. Affiliate sites: reference combination of the above, 4. and 1. Q. Does content on affiliate sites being the same content as on the prime site get classed as duplicate content. Does GoogleBot say "wait a minute, I have seen the exact same content on another site(s) and then class it as duplicate? Let's assume the marketing reasons are valid and make strategic sense, if I duplicate my site under a different domain, so in essence become an affiliate to myself, does either site get penalized for duplicate content? Does GoogleBot go as deep Whois data when it crawls and reads same owner and then penalize or dilute index juice if same owner is detected but if not same owner assumes it is an affiliate site??
6. Articles from Free Articles sites: Q. Are articles from free article sites like ArticleCity.com, EzineArticles.com, About.com etc classed as "skimmed content".
thanks for reading this and I look forward to comments.
cheers,
Mike
sites referred to are http://[URL="http://www.jewelleryonlinestore.com.au"]www.jewelleryonlinestore.com.au[/URL] and http://[URL="http://www.harmonyballpendants.com"]www.harmonyballpendants.com [/URL]
I see relevance in some of these queries for any site, eCommerce or not, and I look forward to any comments.
I for one have been a victim of Penguin and even possibly the most recent Panda refresh/upgrade. I am doing what I can to rectify some SEO over optimization (not black hat - and seemingly common and current SEO practice) and some overzealous link building (linking between a large number sites I own - didn't think it would be seen as link farming seeing as I am the common owner but I guess I was wrong)
So I am looking for some opinions / guidance / advice on a few things to assist me, (and possibly others who may read this thread), to have a clean site in respect to being as Google Friendly as possible, abiding by the principals of Panda and Penguin in particular. The message has finally hit home with me that I need to make my site for Humans and not for Robots
1. Content Duplication: example - site sells widgets which come in all shapes, sizes and colours but at the end of the day they are widgets - it has 200 widgets in a product category "widgets" - there is not enough of a difference for justifying sub-categories. So on Product Info Pages aside from nominating the size, shape and colour of the particular widget there is not a lot that can be described to satisfy "unique content" so there is content on the page that describes widgets in a "general sense", that content being common on every product info page for widgets as well as
Meta Tag Headers are "Widget #27", "widget #28" and so on - Meta Description is a common description except for item number, i.e. 27 or 28 etc as is the Alt_Text for images.
Q. does this (all or some aspects) constitute duplicate content in the eyes of the crawlers ?? If so then what is the answer to overcoming this without reducing content to purely size, shape and colour stats or writing absolute unique, irrelevant "waffle" for each info page? Should this common content "have a heading "general information", is the algorithm smart enough to know that this general information is necessary even though it is duplicated?
2. Keyword Density: Having unique content on any page is important and probably none so than the home page. In trying to achieve a minimum of 500 words content on the home page and keep keyword density down to less than 6% (even this figure is arguable) can be pretty difficult for some product sites so key words are substituted by it, they etc. So home page keyword density of say 5% is achieved the at a given point in time the crawler takes a snapshot of the page that shows items on special, featured items, e-z pages, bestsellers etc etc ALL with the keyword (or keyword phrase) repeated taking the keyword density well into double figures!! At another time the items on special or featured etc may not contain the sites (page) main keyword(s).
Q. does Google actually see this as "over optimization" post Penguin ?? (I cannot get clarification by reading other forums) - if so How can this be overcome?
3. Internal Links: Q is putting an internal links list to either ALL other pages, or selected other pages on the site on the bottom of product info pages or e-z pages "over optimization" post Penguin?? Would limiting the links to just /sitemap (internal sitemap) be better or is it (a) superfluous, (b) not Penguin compliant??
4. Unique Content: I have more than one website with the same product type - widgets, some widgets are the same on each site, some are not. I write some unique content about widgets and I put that unique content on more than one site that I own. It may be that I load that content on the same day or I may develop an additional site months later and add that unique content that I wrote.
Q. Is that unique content classed as unique on all sites or is it in fact date stamped as read first on x site and therefore if read on any other sites in as "skimmed" content - is it counter productive to use the same unique content on more than one site? (unique to a site vs unique to an author??)
5. Affiliate sites: reference combination of the above, 4. and 1. Q. Does content on affiliate sites being the same content as on the prime site get classed as duplicate content. Does GoogleBot say "wait a minute, I have seen the exact same content on another site(s) and then class it as duplicate? Let's assume the marketing reasons are valid and make strategic sense, if I duplicate my site under a different domain, so in essence become an affiliate to myself, does either site get penalized for duplicate content? Does GoogleBot go as deep Whois data when it crawls and reads same owner and then penalize or dilute index juice if same owner is detected but if not same owner assumes it is an affiliate site??
6. Articles from Free Articles sites: Q. Are articles from free article sites like ArticleCity.com, EzineArticles.com, About.com etc classed as "skimmed content".
thanks for reading this and I look forward to comments.
cheers,
Mike
sites referred to are http://[URL="http://www.jewelleryonlinestore.com.au"]www.jewelleryonlinestore.com.au[/URL] and http://[URL="http://www.harmonyballpendants.com"]www.harmonyballpendants.com [/URL]
