Google Ecom Best Practice Questions

[robert76]

These questions concern looking at an ecom site in a lynx browser for Google SEO purposes.

1) If I look at ecom sites in a lynx browser, I see some have their co. name/title and top nav first and others have the title and nav below the unique content/description.

What is the best practice for Google SEO? Also by having co. name/title and nav first, does that increase my site's authority? Or by having unique content first, does that increase my site's authority?

2) Does having more than one link to a product on page cause a problem? For instance, if you have an item on a category page, you can click on the photo to get to the product which is 1 link, then you can click on the view product link which is another link, and sometimes depending on the circumstances for an item there could be a 3rd or 4th link.

I think I read once that Google will only read the link one time so is there any danger in having multiple links to the item? Most ecom sites I have looked at have 2 or 3.

[Planet13]

I think I read once that Google will only read the link one time so is there any danger in having multiple links to the item? Most ecom sites I have looked at have 2 or 3.

I can't answer your other questions, but all I can suggest is that there comes a point where you have to be concerned about what is best for your visitor (and for your SALES) more than what is best for google.

(Also, you could try using both a thumbnail image AND a text link in the same href tag to the product, so that you would only have one link to that product.)

Hopefully others will chime in.

[netmeg]

#1 - Don't overthink it.

Some sites are designed such that the most important stuff (products / content) loads first, and the lesser stuff loads last, which is why you might see it this way in your lynx browser. You might get a benefit from doing this, but it'll be pretty small all by itself. However, if it gets your content in front of your user faster, then by all means do it. Just don't expect that there will be any noticeable effect from a search engine standpoint.

It's certainly not going to increase your authority. Your authority comes from being perceived as being the best resource, the best result for the query, and the best at what you do, not minor tweaks like this.

And having a text and an image link for products is pretty common; I'm sure Google and Bing know how to handle that. If you had ten or twenty links to the same page, now that might raise a red flag. One to three probably won't.

[seoskunk]

Nothing to worry about here at all