Questions about ideal site structure

[zap995]

Suppose you have a site that consists of a) news articles on the main page and b) a number of pages with details and pricing on a variety of products in this industry.

Which would make the most sense:

1) A list of manufacturer names at the top of the content area with links to pages for each brand, with each page having a list of products made by that company.
2) A single "widgets" link that brings users to a page with a list of all the products from every company on one page, with manufacturer headings.
3) An AJAX-based system where users first click "widgets," are then presented with a list of manufacturers and upon clicking a company name are presented with a product list -- all on the main page without any reloads.

#3 sounds like it would offer the most page rank since the front page would directly link to each product page. But are there problems with this? For example, by putting so much content at the top of the page (albeit hidden by ajax), would it lessen google ranks the content below it (i.e. news articles)?

#2 would help conserve page rank (?) but would having so many names and links devalue the content and make google think it's off-topic?

#1 is what we have now

[The_Hat]

I think the structure would depend upon what is more searched for... for instance.. if people more apt to search for "company name" then I would have that at a shallower click depth from the index page.. if they are more apt to search for "product type" then I would have that at a shallower click depth from the home page..

The more specific the possible request is the deeper into the site that page can be.. It will most likely be lower page rank but also the more specific term it is likely there will be less competition for that search term in the engines..

As far as ajax goes in theory it sounds like a good thing but I am way leery about anything that is scripted or is in anyway other than static code.

[londrum]

i would scrap all the links by company name. you've got to think what will help the customer the most. imagine if amazon.com listed all the books by publisher, or all the cds by record label. it wouldn't help anyone at all.
it is better to list stuff by product type first of all, and then narrow it down after that.

if i wanted to buy a camera, for example, i would go to a camera site and see links like 'film cameras', 'digital cameras' and 'camcorders'
i'd choose the product i wanted, and then maybe it will give me come more specific options that narrowed it down further. and whatever camera comes up is the one i buy. people people generally don't care what company it is, as long as it does what they want and the price is okay.

[tedster]

you've got to think what will help the customer the most

An excellent point. Not just in site structure but also in vocabulary choices, the most common error I see is a website thinking the way a company does internally, instead of looking at what the customer wants, from their point of view.

For example, in B2B businesses, the industry jargon often leads the marketplace by several months, if not a year or two. And still people organize and label their sites with the latest buzzwords, and only with the latest buzzwords.

The Cluetrain Manifesto set it out plain - markets are conversations. Step #1 is learning the market's real language, and from there, its needs. And your site's organization dictates your terms for the conversation, you know?

For some markets the manufacturer may be the key, and in others the product name and number, or the product type. So what matters most here is learning the market you hope to serve. In doing this you may find less coimpetitive search terms that are still more fruitful for traffic that converts.

[zap995]

Well let's pretend it's a site about computers (it isn't). And the categories would be Apple, Dell, HP, etc. The industry I'm in is even more company-oriented than computers, so I think that type of categorization makes sense.

That said, if link depth is an issue, does it make more sense to list all products on one page? For the computers example, it would be a page that looked liek this.

Apple
>iMac
>MacBook Pro
>Mac Pro
>MacBook

Dell
> Dimension
> XPS
> Inspiron

HP
> dc7700
> nc8430
> blah

Now, this may work in the above situation, but what if you have 20 companies and 10 products each? Does it still make sense to put everything on one page?

[abbeyvet]

I know that is just an example, but it wouldn't be how - as a user - I would look for computers.

If I was in the market for, say, a laptop I would be looking for a certain spec and/or laptops within a certain price range. I'd want to see all laptops that were on offer within those parameters. I would not want to browse by company name and have to root though a whole heap of other products form that company in which I have absolutely no interest, then go back and do the same for each company.

In this case all, or most, of the companies have comparable products. That won't always be the case, but if it is then it is almost always much more useful, and less bother for the user, to have an easy route to similar products, which will obviously include brand information, than to navigate by brand.

The thing with product catalogs is that users come at them with so many different ideas in their heads, so the more alternative routes you offer the better.

Honestly none of your suggested options sounds viable for anything more than a few dozen products. After that, you need to offer options from the start, "Browse by Brand", "Browse by Product type", "Browse by Price" and things like that, repeated thoughout the site.

I understand that you are asking the question about what is best for search engines, not users. But honestly that is secondary. Have a link to a sitemap that lists them all whatever way you like, but the main concentration with any product catelog is getting users where they want to go.