In John Mueller’s hangout on 09/17/2021, a webmaster was asking about competing with other e-commerce sites. He wanted to know how to do SEO in such a way that guarantees results.
John explained that nothing is guaranteed. But he also said that having some information on a category page is good.
He thinks it’s most effective to have clear, separate pages for different user intents.
It makes it easier for their systems to decipher what’s on the website and it makes it easier for users as well.
Otherwise, it can be tricky for Google’s systems to figure out the user intent of the page.
This discussion happens at approximately 6:12 in the video:
John Mueller Hangout 09/17/2021 Transcript
Hi, I had a similar question to Christian’s, I read a case study about the descriptions on the category pages of e-commerce websites. As you suggested, we shouldn’t manipulate the system about the intent of the page. But one of the competitors in the market uses this, this, the same strategy with the keyword stuff. And the index pages are the same, include the same products but different text, but all of them are on the search results. And in this case, how should we compete with them? How can we compete with them? For example, we wrote 500 words for those pages. But as I read these case studies, I decided that we should use them on blog posts and create a link to the category pages. But does it guarantee the result? In that case?
John 7:12
Nothing is guaranteed. So I think that that’s kind of like the basis, it is something where like, like I mentioned with Christian, it is sometimes tricky for our systems to figure out what the intent is of the page. And in some cases, it’s a lot easier. In some cases, it’s a little bit harder. So having some amount of information on a category page is good. But having it so that you have clear, separate pages for the different intents I think makes it a lot easier for our systems and makes it a lot easier for users as well. If they want information, then they land on an informational page. And they don’t have to think, “Oh, is this a store? Or is this, I don’t know, something else.” And if after going through the informational content, they feel they would like to buy something, then they should have an easy way to get there. So something like a clear and visible call to action at the end or in between or wherever you want to place that.
Webmaster 2 8:17
What if Google recognizes page information but people still engage with products?
John 8:25
How do you mean?
Webmaster 2 8:27
For example, I see that the page is informational. But I still engage with products and buy something and Google has the data that people engage with these pages. In that case, I think that the page is worthy to rank on the top, right?
John 8:46
I don’t know if that would always be the case. I could imagine there are situations where it makes sense to have that kind of a mixed intent on a page. But I wouldn’t say that’s like the ideal situation.
Webmaster 2 9:05
What is the limit for the words that we have to use on that page?
John 9:11
We don’t have any limits.
Webmaster 2 9:15
Okay. Sweet.
John 9:16
There is no limit. So I am just not going to say yes or no. I think it’s something where, especially with category pages, you need to have some information on the page so that we understand what the topic is. But that’s generally very little information. And in many cases, we understand that from the products that you have listed anyway. If the names of the products are clear enough for us to understand, oh, this is, I don’t know, running shoes or something like Nike running shoes, Adidas Running shoes, different brands, whatever. Then it’s clear that this is a list of running shoes. You don’t need to put in extra text there. But sometimes product names are a little bit hard to understand, and then it might make sense to add some additional text to give us some context there. But it’s usually additional context in the size of I don’t know, maybe one or two or three sentences.
Webmaster 2 10:19
Can we use the same text on blog posts and the category pages?
John 10:23
Sure, sure. Yeah. I mean, if you’re talking about a very small amount of text, then having that duplicated is absolutely no problem. Usually, on the blog post, you would have a lot more. And if there’s a handful of sentences that are the same, but that’s totally fine.
Webmaster 2 10:44
So I can use one or two paragraphs from blog posts on the category pages? It’s not a problem?
John 10:49
Yeah.