Unique Meta And Title Tags?

[SPC]

I have an e commerce site and I have hundreds of products which are the same and it is impossible to have unique metas and titles for each one.

Will this affect anything? Does G frown upon this?

[SPC]

bumping this post

[indihow]

Originally Posted by SPC

I have an e commerce site and I have hundreds of products which are the same and it is impossible to have unique metas and titles for each one.

Will this affect anything? Does G frown upon this?

Though I've had decent results with duplicate tags, unique meta tags really jack up your SERP rankings. I usually automate the process by using the page title as the meta description.

[SPC]

Originally Posted by indihow

Though I've had decent results with duplicate tags, unique meta tags really jack up your SERP rankings. I usually automate the process by using the page title as the meta description.

Thanks for the response. I heard the same thing, but I am a little confused. I thought google does not take into effect the meta tag?

[masterjani]

Originally Posted by SPC

Thanks for the response. I heard the same thing, but I am a little confused. I thought google does not take into effect the meta tag?

You are using a unique tag for the each products inner page and generic keywords for the top page this helps.

[SPC]

Originally Posted by masterjani

You are using a unique tag for the each products inner page and generic keywords for the top page this helps.

I'm sorry, can you explain this a little better?

[samual james]

Meta Tag is most important aspect in getting good Search engine ranking position, if you create different meta for each page then definitely you will get some fantastic results.

[SPC]

Originally Posted by samual james

Meta Tag is most important aspect in getting good Search engine ranking position, if you create different meta for each page then definitely you will get some fantastic results.

I believe you are wrong. Google does not look at Meta Tags anymore, right? Can anyone else chime in that has more experience

[Johnletton]

Originally Posted by samual james

Meta Tag is most important aspect in getting good Search engine ranking position, if you create different meta for each page then definitely you will get some fantastic results.

Agree with you because without Metas website cannot be searched out.

[indihow]

Look I can't say about SERP ranking for sure, as none other than a Google rep can!

However, I've observed good results by including the page's title as the meta description on certain blogs.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by SPC

I have an e commerce site and I have hundreds of products which are the same and it is impossible to have unique metas and titles for each one.

Will this affect anything? Does G frown upon this?

I find it hard to believe that you can't create detailed descriptions for each item.

If they are exactly the same item you would only have a single sales page.

I can give a detailed description of a simple metal bolt (fastener).

[example]
1) Bolt length
2) Bolt diam.
3) Thread pitch
4) Left or right thread angle
5) Fine or course threads
6) Socket Cap head
7) Socket cap size (allen bolt size)
8) Metal grade (automotive, etc...)

If I can get that detailed on a simple bolt, I find it hard to believe your products details can't be broke down like the example above.

BTW, I was a machinist for 9 years.

[SPC]

Originally Posted by yukon

I find it hard to believe that you can't create detailed descriptions for each item.

If they are exactly the same item you would only have a single sales page.

I can give a detailed description of a simple metal bolt (fastener).

[example]
1) Bolt length
2) Bolt diam.
3) Thread pitch
4) Left or right thread angle
5) Fine or course threads
6) Socket Cap head
7) Socket cap size (allen bolt size)
8) Metal grade (automotive, etc...)

If I can get that detailed on a simple bolt, I find it hard to believe your products details can't be broke down like the example above.

BTW, I was a machinist for 9 years.

So, lets say you have a hundred bolts. Are you going to write a unique description for each bolt? I find that hard to believe that you could creat a UNIQUE description for each one.

[Carl Brown]

Originally Posted by SPC

Thanks for the response. I heard the same thing, but I am a little confused. I thought google does not take into effect the meta tag?

They don't use the keyword tag. The description tag is something you'll want to include. If a page has a description tag google will use that in the results. You'll want to use your keyword there. If you omit the description tag, google will use some portion of the visible text on that page in its results. The title tag must also be unique

[yukon]

Originally Posted by SPC

So, lets say you have a hundred bolts. Are you going to write a unique description for each bolt? I find that hard to believe that you could creat a UNIQUE description for each one.

If my business is selling bolts online, you bet they would get a unique & detailed description for every single unique bolt.

Would you go to an offline hardware store & tell the clerk "I need a bolt", buy the bolt, get home, & try & put a 3/4" diam. bolt in a 1/4" diam. hole. Wouldn't do you much good since you didn't give the clerk at the hardware store a detailed description. Would you blame the clerk because you said "I need a bolt" & left it at that?

Whats so difficult about your products description?

If you have 100 unique products, then create 100 pages & 100 unique descriptions, done!

Originally Posted by SPC

I have hundreds of products which are the same

Like I said before, If all your products are exactly the same, then you have it made! Create a single page & one description.

[yukon]

BTW, I run a few download sites similar to image galleries. If you think you have it rough trying to create unique titles/descriptions, try creating the same for hundreds of pages over multiple sites (all by hand). You'll get very detailed + creative after a while.

[wmguild]

Originally Posted by SPC

I believe you are wrong. Google does not look at Meta Tags anymore, right? Can anyone else chime in that has more experience

If you google "Clarinda Web Design" you'll see that the number 2 site, Chapman Solutions" does not have the word "Clarinda" anywhere on their visible page. It is, however, in a meta tag, so Google must be looking at that in some way or form. Surprised me too!

[SPC]

Originally Posted by yukon

If my business is selling bolts online, you bet they would get a unique & detailed description for every single unique bolt.

Would you go to an offline hardware store & tell the clerk "I need a bolt", buy the bolt, get home, & try & put a 3/4" diam. bolt in a 1/4" diam. hole. Wouldn't do you much good since you didn't give the clerk at the hardware store a detailed description. Would you blame the clerk because you said "I need a bolt" & left it at that?

Whats so difficult about your products description?

If you have 100 unique products, then create 100 pages & 100 unique descriptions, done!



Like I said before, If all your products are exactly the same, then you have it made! Create a single page & one description.

Very true. Just how unique are we talking. My products are all somewhat unique, but they do also have the same sharacteristics because they are made of the same stuff and do the same thing. How unique do you try and write yous?

[yukon]

Originally Posted by SPC

Very true. Just how unique are we talking. My products are all somewhat unique, but they do also have the same sharacteristics because they are made of the same stuff and do the same thing. How unique do you try and write yous?

Be as unique as possible.

The main things I target on-page are:

• Page title
• URL (same as page title, example:hxxp://domain.com/category-name/my-page-title-goes-here/)
• Meta description tag
• Unique canonical tag

The above things should get all your pages indexed & listed in Google SERPs.
If you have product numbers that might also help, to keep the page unique.

[RevSEO]

You've gotta have unique titles without a doubt!

You've also gotta have a unique description for each product if you don't want to get Google slapped at some point.

At my old company we saw several ecommerce sites lose DRASTIC rankings as a result of having very thin ecommerce websites. We had warned those clients for close to a year that they needed to change the way they had their websites. Tons of dynamically driven keywords within the same bodies of text found throughout the site. Little to no customer reviews, which are a great way to get unique content!

Needless to say, until they began adding new content and actually making a worthwhile ecommerce site they didn't regain their rankings. After FINALLY taking our advice most rankings all came back.

You know what the main reason for why they didn't want to create unique descriptions? It costs too much money, it takes too much time.

I can assure you that the overall lose in revenue from NOT doing it was far greater than taking the time or spending the money to do it right the first time.

[Logo Design]

Originally Posted by SPC

I have an e commerce site and I have hundreds of products which are the same and it is impossible to have unique metas and titles for each one.

Will this affect anything? Does G frown upon this?

You used the SEO plugin.Which automatic add the meta tag in every pages.

[juniorich]

Originally Posted by SPC

Thanks for the response. I heard the same thing, but I am a little confused. I thought google does not take into effect the meta tag?

The meta description is not important, it does not affect your search engine ranking! In fact, search engines will automatically generate a description for your pages if they don't find meta description!

[intelinside]

Which CMS you are using for your site?

The reason to have a unique title/description is to avoid getting into Google's supplemented results.

One of my client is facing the same problem where his website has 1,870 indexed in Google but after 900 results, Google shows the message of supplement results which is due to duplicate desc/title.

[paulgl]

I have several sites that are done using php, making all headers,
footers, sidebars, title, the same. It's not a problem and makes adding
oodles of pages of content quite easy.

Now I don't have hundreds of products. What you need is an ecommerce
management system. Your SEO will be done mainly on the index page,
and maybe main category pages. Opencart is free, I believe.

Paul

[redlegrich]

I should note that meta data is data about data, in other words the meta tags describe the data on the page. Meta data includes the keyword tags (reputed to be worthless), the title, description, Alt tags and so forth. Unique optimization of all these tags can only help your site rankings. I know it is hard to provide unique titles, descriptions and so forth and I am guilty of not doing this when I get lazy. You will however benefit from it over time, especially if the content on each page is in sync with that meta info.

In regards to the description it may not help in SEO, but it helps in generating a click on your link. A well written description can get someone to click when they hear a good overview of the page content. Yes, on occasions Google simply ignores what you have and picks what they think is best. And sometimes it makes no sense! My theory on this issue is to make sure your description is well done right from the start. If your page is indexed without a description I think it's hard for a new one to take it's place. No hard data, just an observation.

Bottom line, if you don't think your content and pages are unique by using the same meta info on each page then neither will Google.

[inaword]

RevSEO and Redlegrich make excellent points.
I specialize in writing product copy for ecommerce websites. I offer both Meta title and Meta descriptions with the product descriptions because after years of SEO writing I know that taking the time to do them right from the start is vital in terms of search results and potential sales.
The Meta title is the title you see across the top of your website page. If you look up on this page you’ll see the title of your post, which is “Unique meta and title tags?” It came up in my search because it’s relevant to my search terms: ecommerce product descriptions.
Let’s say your product is a “Nightmare Skull Lighter”. You could just put the name of the lighter as a Mega title or you can add a “salesy” touch like: “Charm him with a new Nightmare Skull Lighter today.” Your Meta title should be 12 words or less to fit across the page without getting cut off.
The Meta Description is a great chance to include keywords/key phrases. If possible I often use a version of the term twice, in 2 separate sentences. (More than that is considered stuffing.)
Using the same lighter as an example, I would write something like: “Nightmare Skull Lighters are made by xyzcompany and come with a lifetime guarantee. Buy a Nightmare Lighter for your favorite Jack Skellington fan.” I keep these 24 words or less so that the whole description fits on the page, otherwise it will get cut off and have “…” at the end of it. As mentioned, if you don’t supply a Meta description Google will just put random content there, which doesn’t always make sense.
Now, if you’re searching for a lighter and a list of website choices comes up…which site are you likely to choose? One with a description that corresponds with your search phrase that makes an effort to show you that they want you for a customer or one that has strange looking content under the title? Hint: One looks professional and offers something to a potential customer, one doesn’t!
Hope this helps.

[Kurt]

IMO, you're much better off not having any meta description tags than to have duplicate descripton tags.

Google doesn't use the descrption tag in ranking, only for (sometimes) displaying in the SERPs.

IMO, instead of worrying about creating 100s of description tags, spend that time getting links.

[Kurt]

Originally Posted by redlegrich

I should note that meta data is data about data, in other words the meta tags describe the data on the page. Meta data includes the keyword tags (reputed to be worthless), the title, description, Alt tags and so forth. Unique optimization of all these tags can only help your site rankings. I know it is hard to provide unique titles, descriptions and so forth and I am guilty of not doing this when I get lazy. You will however benefit from it over time, especially if the content on each page is in sync with that meta info.

In regards to the description it may not help in SEO, but it helps in generating a click on your link. A well written description can get someone to click when they hear a good overview of the page content. Yes, on occasions Google simply ignores what you have and picks what they think is best. And sometimes it makes no sense! My theory on this issue is to make sure your description is well done right from the start. If your page is indexed without a description I think it's hard for a new one to take it's place. No hard data, just an observation.

Bottom line, if you don't think your content and pages are unique by using the same meta info on each page then neither will Google.

If the keywords/search query used in contained in your meta description, Google will usually use your description tag.

However, if folks use other keywords and your page is in the SERPs, Google will extract a description from your page, and highlight the keywords in bold. This can also increase clickthroughs, as searchers see their keywords in bold.

And if you don't have meta description tags, Google will do the same thing, creating a description from content on the page, with keywords in bold.

So, a good description can help if it contains the same keywords as the search query, but if it doesn't you're better off having no meta description IMO.

[seoservicesaustralia]

Unique Meta and title tags it is very high effect SERP.

[elrascal]

Originally Posted by SPC

I believe you are wrong. Google does not look at Meta Tags anymore, right? Can anyone else chime in that has more experience

They don't look at meta keyword tags.

It has been suggested that they may not pay attention to meta title and meta description tags as a ranking factor but I haven't seen any data to back that up yet.

Originally Posted by wmguild

If you google "Clarinda Web Design" you'll see that the number 2 site, Chapman Solutions" does not have the word "Clarinda" anywhere on their visible page. It is, however, in a meta tag, so Google must be looking at that in some way or form. Surprised me too!

This may or may not be the case. but check google's cache of the site and it says "These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: clarinda design"
So therefore it is safe to say it is ranking high for this search term because of the anchor text in the links pointing back to the site.

[C Rebecca]

As long as your description and titles are relevant to your products, you can proceed. But do not try to fool search engines, else Google webmaster tools will show you errors of duplicate tags.

[Zara Marie]

Originally Posted by SPC

I believe you are wrong. Google does not look at Meta Tags anymore, right? Can anyone else chime in that has more experience

I think you are referring to meta keywords. Google does consider meta tags like meta tag description, alt attributes of images, etc. For your original query about

hundreds of products which are the same and it is impossible to have unique metas and titles for each one. Will this affect anything? Does G frown upon this?

what do you mean by hundred products that are the same? In case you have hundred similar products, maybe there is single difference among them like color , size, etc. Could you post your website URL so we could check? If it's possible, try to differentiate the tags using specific or unique identities of your product like "red two-door cars", "yellow two-door cars" - both are cars with two doors but they differ in color. In case you use one title and description for all your products, then all of them will compete with each other or Google may consider them duplicate content.

[Egrove Systems]

Now Google consider the Meta tags and title. For example if you have a keyword rich title and meta tag description, if the result will be displayed in first page, Otherwise it will be 2 or third pages even you have Good backlinks