Landing page or products list?

[NVentouris]

Hi all,

I am trying to canonical the urls of a 100.000 daily users eCommerce site.

Lets say I want o optimise for the keyword "plasma TVs"
I have 2 possible page which I can keep. The first one is a beautiful landing page with banners and deals etc.
The second one is the products list with all plasma TVs in it.

Which should I keep and which should I canonical ?

Thank you all,

[aristotle]

Is it proper to use a canonical tag when the pages are completely different?

All the pages on the site should work together, re-inforcing each other, not competing against each other.

[Robert Charlton]

NVentouris, your question isn't clear. I'm guessing that by "canonical" in this case you're talking about choosing which page becomes your default home page. It's possible to set this up on a server, eg, so that instead of your default home page being...

http://www.example.com/

you can choose another page like...
http://www.example.com/homepage.htm

Is this the case?... or, are you thinking of somehow using the canonical tag, as aristotle is supposing, and simply applying that to an existing page?

The discussion is entirely different, depending on which approach you're asking about. In either case, you would have to explain in more detail what you're thinking about doing. I'm having a hard time imagining precisely what you have in mind.

This is before we get to the question of whether the landing page you describe would be a better default home page than the product list would be. There, the answer would be "it depends", as you haven't really described site navigation, type of site, whether this is an existing site with a history, etc.

I'm thinking that a landing page that also includes the top end of a hierarchical navigation structure would be much better than a "products list" with all products would be.

Is it proper to use a canonical tag when the pages are completely different?

No, it's not.

[aristotle]

I'm guessing that by "canonical" in this case you're talking about choosing which page becomes your default home page

You very well could be right. I got the impression that the OP has two pages potentially competing for the same keyword, and wants to use the canonical tag to tell google which page to show in the SERPs.

[tangor]

With 100k daily visitors you should already ave a metric on which page the users like best. Make the more successful the landing page and the other a link from that page. Your site is probably already telling you which is the more successful.

[NVentouris]

Thank you all for your replies,

The site has 12 categories, one of the 12 is televisions. example.com/televisions is the beautiful landing page I mentioned above.

Television has 6 subcategories like cables for television, furniture for television, projectors etc... the second level is not in use because of the structure of the site.

The third is like:
/television/tv/all
/television/tv/samson
/television/tv/led
etc

If I google "Television" the page /television/tv/all rank no2 but is a products list page with all televisions in it.

I like more the Page /television as design and UX and if I canonical the /television/tv/all to television then the /television will rank in place of the /television/tv/all

I hope I am clear this time

[aristotle]

Do you really want to risk a no. 2 ranking in google for the search word "Television"

[NVentouris]

I don't think that I am risking anything at all. Canonical is transferring all the juice.

I thing that users want to see the products list and that why that is what Google Shows them.

[Andy Langton]

I like more the Page /television as design and UX and if I canonical the /television/tv/all to television then the /television will rank in place of the /television/tv/all

Canonical is not as strong a measure as you might think. Firstly, Google does not have to honour the canonical attribute, or pass "juice" if it thinks the pages are different. Secondly, the second page would be evaluated for relevance all by itself. If you had a situation where /television/tv/all ranked third under /television in second, you might be able to do this with a degree of confidence. Otherwise, you can assume that /television/ is definitely more relevant (and would rank better) than /television/tv/all - Google has already told you as much. You absolutely risk losing your ranking as aristotle suggests.

[NVentouris]

So are you suggest to canonical the /television to /television/tv/all ? because now I have 2 page (with different design) but same purpose and Title.

[aristotle]

My advice is to not change anything. There's a lot more to lose than to gain.

[blend27]

...The first one is a beautiful landing page with banners and deals etc.

...because now I have 2 page (with different design) but same purpose and Title.

I would not touch the page that ranks, but instead re-purpose the page that has deals/banners to convey the message that is a page about DEALS/Promotions on "Televisions category", if possible, just don't over-optimize it.

[aristotle]

I would not touch the page that ranks, but instead re-purpose the page that has deals/banners

All the pages work together, or should, to reinforce each other. Therefore changing one page could affect the rankings of another page.

The results of any change anywhere are always unpredictable. In this case the results are much more likely to be bad than to be good. If it were me, I wouldn't touch the site.

[blend27]

All the pages work together, or should, to reinforce each other. Therefore changing one page could affect the rankings of another page.

I totally agree with you on that one. At the same time OP is probably already doing so(changing it) as it is a "banners and deals" landing page anyway.