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There is no better way to create an infinite amount of duplicate content on your site than to force session IDs onto each visitor. Typically, session IDs are used for tracking a single visitor’s navigation path through the site, including the adding or removing products from the shopping cart. They are great for tracking purposes, but really, really bad for search engines and inbound linking.
Ok, first of all, that’s a bad URL shown above, but aside from that, tacked on at the end there is the session ID. Both URLs pull the same page pulled open via a different browsing session. The bad stuff happens if the session IDs also get attached when the search engines come for a visit.
Search engine spiders can be very forgiving with a lot of duplicate content issues. I’ve found that, given enough time, the engines learn when two websites or web pages are complete duplicates of the other. Once they figure that out then they basically understand that a link to one is a link to the other, etc. One version will ultimately be dropped from the index in favor of the other.
There are two basic problems with this. First, it all takes time. Until the search engines figure out which dupes should be “merged” you’re essentially splitting link flow. Two inbound links, one to each version, produce only have the power than two links both pointing to a single version.
Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of sites where the designers were a bit lazy on the coding of the visual elements. Especially when it comes to creating new styles for the style sheet. In CSS, it’s pretty easy to develop a style that allows you to have certain portions of text display exactly how you want. But apparently, coming up with a unique style and name is just. too. difficult. So instead of naming a new style, the developers just style an Hx tag and then plaster it throughout the site.
One site that we’ve been working with has just come from a fresh re-design. Once we started digging into the code, we’ve found that the designers have taken some pretty extreme liberties with the Hx tags.
Like a sound site architecture and directory structure, product categorization can play a significant role in how both search engines and users are able to access your products. There are two important things to consider when determining how to categorize your products. 1) Is each product assigned to the most appropriate category or categories? and 2) is multiple categorization creating duplicate content? The first issue frustrates your users and the second the search engines.
Looking for examples of both of these I found exactly what I was looking for on The Home Depot website.
There are two kinds of duplicate content: content that is duplicated on multiple websites sites and content that is duplicated on multiple pages of a single site. I believe the search engines treat each differently and, of course, there may be different standards applied duplicate content within each of these two main differentiations, depending on the cause and instance.
Please note that I’ve not done any in-depth testing of this issue so everything I’m presenting here are my own theories. But I think as far as untested theories go, it’s pretty solid.
Performing a complete website review is rarely easy. I’ve found that you can start a site analysis intending to spend just a few minutes looking over it only to find that it quickly spirals into a multi-hour marathon of research. Complete website reviews can be time consuming and often produce many more hours of work beyond that.
Forget about the details of setting up an AdWords, Search Marketing or adCenter campaign. — You aren’t going to find those instructions here. At least not today anyway. If you’re looking for that kind of information, each vendor has a pretty extensive step-by-step process they’ll walk you through. (Although tips on those instructions are always good - that is another post.)
What you will find here is a basic question that you need to ask yourself. Before even considering how to compose your ad text or create the keyword list, what is the FIRST question that needs asked? Is it about the budget? No. How about the CPC bids? No, that’s not the first either.
Sites that are designed to sell products and/or services must go the extra mile to enhance the visitor’s engagement with the website. Shopping cart abandonment (shoppers abandoning their carts before deciding to pay for the “items” they’ve added to their cart) can result in a significant loss in potential sales. But much of that can be reduced when the shopping process is streamlined and geared for shopper satisfaction.
Since the âpurchaseâ is the ultimate conversion, it is imperative that you remove as many obstacles from the customer’s research-to-buy cycle as possible. Providing your visitors the key ingredients in their shopping experience creates a smooth and worry-free transaction process. The easier it is to shop and buy the more customers will overcome the natural hesitations that many feel before they commit by hitting the final “complete order” button.
Search functionality
If possible, create an extremely robust and accurate search function for the website. A good search function should be able to provide visitors the information they are seeking even if products are misspelled in the search box or search products are not offered at all. Be careful, as anything less than a perfect search function only serves to frustrate rather than help visitors.
Hire Stoney deGeyter or the rest of the Pole Position Marketing team for your in-house training, conference or other search marketing events. Contact us for more information.
There are two kinds of duplicate content: content that is duplicated on multiple websites sites and content that is duplicated on multiple pages of a single site. I believe the search engines treat each differently and, of course, there may be different standards applied duplicate content within each of these two main differentiations, depending on the cause and instance.
Sites that are designed to sell products and/or services must go the extra mile to enhance the visitor’s engagement with the website. Shopping cart abandonment (shoppers abandoning their carts before deciding to pay for the “items” they’ve added to their cart) can result in a significant loss in potential sales. But much of that can be reduced when the shopping process is streamlined and geared for shopper satisfaction.
