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Number of categories and sub-categories: effect on SEO?

by rmnnet
5 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Suppose I want to review clothes and accessories. Obviously I would want at least the following categories:


Clothes
Shoes
Wallets
Sunglasses




However, for a better user experience, I would probably also want to do

Clothes
-Shirts
-Jackets
-Pants


Shoes
-Dress Shoes
-Running Shoes
-Hiking Boots


Wallets

-Etc




My question is: does the number of categories affect SEO in a positive/negative way?


Is there an SEO bias towards more or less post categories?
#categories #effect #number #seo #subcategories
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  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    Yes and no. Search engine spiders are a lot like real people. It takes them longer to get to (and index) pages that are deeper in the navigation structure. Additionally, in simple terms, the overall authority of a domain gets spread to its pages. The authority that is spread gets weakened each level down the navigation chain.

    All that said, it really doesn't seem to hurt Amazon, Walmart, eBay or any of the other major internet sites. I'd concentrate on making your navigation the best it can be to help actual human beings get to what they want in as few clicks as possible. Including filters that help them narrow things down by brand, size, color, etc. is also a great idea. Do that, and you're on the right track for search engines, too.
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  • Profile picture of the author expmrb
    Dave pretty much nailed.


    Whatever you do just make sure that your category and divisions are use friendly. And your site must have a proper navigation for all the structures.
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  • Profile picture of the author AlbertDavid
    Agreed. You can find lots of ecommerce sites out there with so many product categories and yet in No.1 position. The number of categories is irrelevant in this case. Just make sure that the description of each product is unique and consists of all keywords that you are trying to target. First of all, make sure there's a description. I feel bad for all those products which don't have a description. Not sure how they expect the crawlers to find the product.
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    • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
      Originally Posted by AlbertDavid View Post

      ... make sure there's a description. I feel bad for all those products which don't have a description. Not sure how they expect the crawlers to find the product.
      Well, the crawlers are going to find the products because of internal links to those product pages or direct backlinks to them from other websites, which has nothing at all to do with optimizing those pages. The most optimized page in the world is never going to be found if it is never linked to anywhere. Optimizing it only helps with whether or not it will be indexed and where it might rank AFTER it has been discovered (via a link).
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    • Profile picture of the author expmrb
      Originally Posted by AlbertDavid View Post

      Agreed. You can find lots of ecommerce sites out there with so many product categories and yet in No.1 position. The number of categories is irrelevant in this case. Just make sure that the description of each product is unique and consists of all keywords that you are trying to target. First of all, make sure there's a description. I feel bad for all those products which don't have a description. Not sure how they expect the crawlers to find the product.

      Optimizing the page is more like getting your mobile a screen cover.


      Which has nothing to do with its mobile network connection which are the links.
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