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Attention - inside there is a very large longread on how to make high-quality facets for an ecommerce project!
This method of building navigation became popular several years ago. Currently, almost all CMS support faceted navigation in one form or another, although they implement it well, as a rule, on large projects.
An SEO filter is a catalog subpage where products are displayed according to specified parameters. Such a page should be available for indexing by search engines and serve to collect traffic for low-frequency queries.
Suppose you have a product from the steel reinforcement category, which differs in several parameters: class (A1, A2, A3), diameter (8, 10, 12 mm), GOST, rod size, steel. These parameters create many possible combinations: 10 mm reinforcement, 6 meter reinforcement, 6 mm A3 reinforcement, etc.
For tires, facets can include parameters such as profile size, radius, seasonality and studdedness.
It is impossible to cover all these queries with a tree structure, but in the niche of low-frequency queries you can get a lot of traffic with minimal competition.
SEO filters work similar to filters in online stores. For filtering, either specific parameters are used (when there is one filter per value) or tags (the database may not be linked to parameters, and products can be displayed by any filter).
Parameters are easier to implement, since information about them is often already present in the database.
Tags provide greater flexibility, allowing, for example, the use of synonyms or the use of less relevant terms to attract traffic (for example, “for a summer house”, “for a country house”).
Personally, I prefer using parameters because it's easier and cheaper.
Trying to index every possible combination could result in hundreds of thousands of pages. For example, three parameters with 15 values will give 4080 pages, and four parameters will give 65070.
To avoid index overflow, you need to limit the number of pages that go into the index.
1) Restriction on properties in parameters
You should not index pages where two properties are selected in one parameter (for example, size 44 and 45, color red and white). These pages are practically useless for ranking purposes, since no one is looking for two parameters at once.
2) Limitation on the number of parameters
Do not index pages that contain more than two different parameters. Such pages will usually not have frequent queries, and their indexing will be of low quality.
3) Parameters for search, parameters for indexing
Not all parameters that are important to users have high search demand. For such parameters, you can limit indexing, leaving them in filtering.
4) Property limitation
For each parameter, not all of its properties need to be indexed. This requires careful configuration, but such restrictions will help improve the quality of indexing.
5) Limitation on the number of goods
You should not index pages with a small number of products. It is better to rank pages with at least 3 products, since pages with one product usually have poor behavioral indicators.
1) Rel canonical or noindex
Often rel=canonical is used to indicate the main directory page, or noindex to indicate that pages are not indexed.
2) S-Robots-Tag
Using X-Robots-Tag, you can close pages from indexing before they open, which helps save your crawling budget.
3) rel="nofollow" for links
Links to facet pages that should not be indexed are best closed using rel="nofollow".
4) SEO-hide (closing links)
A radical method of closing links through non-indexable JS scripts, called SEO-hide.
It is very important to set up the URL for facet pages correctly.
The simplest option is to use property IDs, for example: /faset:12345-6789, where 12345 and 6789 are the IDs of the selected parameters.
A good option is to transcribe the properties into a URL. Example: /zelenoe_125-mm, where “zelenoe” and “125-mm” are transcriptions of the parameters.
It is imperative to generate meta tags to promote facet pages. This includes h1, title, description.
Templates like %category% + %faset% are often used (where %category% is the product category and %faset% is the selected filters).
It’s good if the system allows you to set templates for meta tags for each group.
Navigation can be located on the side (near the menu) or on top, above the products.
Menus can be in the form of drop-down lists or a drop-down list of options.
It is recommended to link facets with products.
If you use parameters, you can create links to tables with parameters (filter values).
If these are tags, it is better to place a list of tags with links under the product description.
When working with facets for different regions, duplicate content may occur. This requires a high quality site to avoid index and ranking problems.
For multi-region sites, it is recommended to avoid faceted navigation as it can lead to duplication issues.
Often, product content alone is not enough to rank pages.
I use the following approaches:
1) Writing text for parameters
For pages with one parameter (for example, size), a common text is created for all values. For example, text about sizes, text about colors and materials, if they are in demand in the search.
2) Through text at the intersection of parameters
For the combination of different parameters, a common text is also written.
If you need to remove a parameter or filter, you should use a 301 redirect from the outdated URL to the current group.
All pages to be indexed must be included in the sitemap.
The most important thing is the admin panel for managing facets. For me, the most convenient way is to use Excel to upload and download data. I have not yet come across convenient web panels for managing facets.
Facets are a powerful tool for an SEO specialist that requires a careful approach. They can generate significant traffic with excellent behavioral performance.
If the project is small, it is better to use conventional linear structures. If the project is large and there is a development team, it is worth spending time planning and creating a quality facet solution.
For any question, you can contact the SEO studio "SEO COMPUTER" by email info@seo.computer
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