Faceted Navigation for eCommerce: Complete Guide for SEOs

If your eCommerce website sells a batch of products, there’s thing similar faceted navigation to amended your customers’ hunt experience. Sorting by filters similar size, color, and benignant tin greatly summation conversion rates — but, unless you acceptable up the method aspects correctly, that could easy beryllium negated by harmful SEO impacts.

Fortunately, faceted navigation isn’t arsenic tricky arsenic it seems, arsenic agelong arsenic you travel a fewer important rules.

In this blog, we’ll screen everything your online concern needs to know, including:

• What faceted navigation is
• How it tin impact your SEO performance
• And which strategies you request to travel for champion results

Let’s get started.

What is Faceted Navigation?

Faceted navigation (also known arsenic faceted search) is simply a benignant of navigation typically recovered connected the sidebar oregon astatine the apical of class and postulation pages of online retailers. Faceted navigation is achieved done the enactment of definite “filters” (which disagree from method filters connected a site, but that’s a treatment for different blog), specified arsenic brand, color, terms range, oregon immoderate different merchandise attributes you privation to include.

This benignant of navigation greatly benefits your customers, particularly for ample websites. Rather than having to hunt done countless results successful each category, your shoppers tin constrictive down your products with their desired filtering options and much rapidly find what they’re looking for.

There is 1 communal functionality that, if not handled correctly, could go a disadvantage for your site’s SEO performance. Typically, erstwhile a lawsuit applies a filter to their search, your website volition automatically use a parameter to the class URL, arsenic seen successful this illustration from our lawsuit Couture Candy. Typically, these URL parameters are additions similar ?price=10, ?dir=asc, oregon different qualifiers.

How This Can Impact SEO

Not lone are faceted navigation URLs beauteous disfigured to look at, but they tin besides bash harm to your hunt motor optimization if near unchecked.

The past happening you privation is for these faceted pages to beryllium indexed by hunt engines similar Google, but it happens much often than you think. (Trust us: We’ve done the audits.)

Here’s wherefore these URLs tin beryllium truthful harmful:

1. Duplicate Content

When your shoppers use facets portion browsing, they make caller URLs for your tract — but the contented connected those pages often remains the aforesaid from URL to URL. And, erstwhile the aforesaid contented is indexed with antithetic URLs, your tract runs the hazard of being dinged for duplicate content.

Duplicate contented penalties tin confuse Google’s algorithm (as to which pages should rank) or, successful the worst-case scenario, tin pb to your webpages being removed from the hunt results altogether.

Note: You’ll besides spot duplicate leafage contented hap erstwhile internal hunt results pages are indexed, arsenic akin identifiers are added to the extremity of class leafage URLs. 

2. Index Bloat

Depending connected the size of your eCommerce store, faceted navigation URLs tin adhd hundreds oregon thousands of much URLs to your website. When those pages are allowed to beryllium indexed by Google, you get what’s known arsenic index bloat.

This ample fig of indexed, low-quality pages tin dilatory down your tract and negatively impact idiosyncratic experience, not to notation discarded invaluable SEO opportunities (more connected that next).

Index bloat is 1 of the biggest indicators that your tract has issues with modified URLs, either from faceted navigation, interior tract searches, oregon different factors. If, for example, your tract lone has 10,000 invaluable pages, but Google Search Console shows an indexed fig of pages nearing 38,000, you’ve got a occupation — and it’s clip for your squad to instrumentality different look. 

3. Wasted Crawl Budget

If you person scale bloat connected your site, you’ll apt besides person wasted crawl budget.

Google dedicates a definite magnitude of “energy” reviewing each azygous tract connected the internet. Exactly however overmuch clip its crawlers walk reviewing an idiosyncratic tract is known arsenic “crawl budget.”

Because crawl fund is limited, you privation to guarantee yours is being utilized connected the astir important pages of your website, similar class and product pages. Faceted navigation URLs decidedly shouldn’t marque the cut.

Unfortunately, if you don’t person the close setup, multitudes of these URLs generated by your customers tin sneak onto Google’s list, stealing its attraction distant from the pages that you do privation to beryllium indexed.

Best Practices for eCommerce Faceted Navigation

Of each the questions we get astir this facet of technical SEO, it each boils down to 1 large query:

Are we doing it right?

Short of diving into your Google Search Console and combing the SERPs for immoderate wonky tract URLs, determination are 3 strategies we urge for decently implementing faceted navigation — and preventing the antagonistic SEO impacts discussed above.

1. Canonical Parameter URLs to Main Category Page

The astir straightforward mode to guarantee your filtered oregon faceted navigation URLs don’t look successful the SERPs is by utilizing the due canonical tag.

No substance what unsocial parameters oregon identifiers amusement up successful the URL erstwhile a shopper browses your site, successful astir cases, you privation the basal URL to bespeak the main class page.

In the illustration below, spot however the URL successful question includes faceted parameters (?=pf&pf_v_designer=…). The canonical tag alternatively directs to the main class page, with that parameter removed.

By telling hunt engines that your canonical URL is the equivalent of the faceted URL, the main class leafage becomes the default leafage to beryllium indexed.

2. Noindex Parameter URLs

Alternatively, you tin take to adhd a noindex tag to each of these pesky navigation URLs (whether related to facets, filters, oregon interior tract searches).

By adding “noindex” to your meta robots tag successful the caput of each faceted URL, you volition assistance halt the indexing of that page.

3. Use Robots.txt

If your navigation URLs each travel a similar, unsocial format (like utilizing ?= earlier a navigational identifier), you could besides usage robots.txt record to artifact Googlebot and different hunt engines from crawling them each with 1 fell swoop. 

Use a disallow regularisation successful conjunction with the unsocial parameter of your navigational pages.

Don’t Forget to Use a Plugin

Faceted navigation is typically added to an eCommerce tract by utilizing a plugin. These apps automatically make filtered URLs, place them arsenic they appear, and (ideally) use the close canonical tags oregon noindex tags to them automatically.

Not each plugins disposable connected an eCommerce platform whitethorn supply the champion results. And, due to the fact that we don’t behaviour hands-on probe for each of the plugins that travel out, we can’t urge idiosyncratic applications astatine this time.

Instead, we suggest you probe your options, take 1 that promises to enactment for your platform, springiness it a shot, and measure the results. (Our squad is blessed to springiness a speedy once-over earlier and aft implementation, to guarantee everything looks okay.)

If your chosen plugin fails to enactment successful the desired manner, scrap it and springiness different 1 a try.

Here are a fewer resources to commencement your research:

• 5 Best Wordpress Search Filter Plugins Compared | HeroThemes
• Wix Stores: Adding Filters & Sorting Options to Your Product Gallery
• How to Implement Faceted Search successful Wordpress | Exemplify
• Add Storefront Filtering | Shopify

For much faceted navigation fixes, check retired Ahrefs’ extended guide.

Revisit Your Faceted Navigation Now

Whether your eCommerce tract has been utilizing faceted navigation for years, oregon you’re considering implementing it for the archetypal time, utilizing the close SEO attack volition prevention you a large woody of wasted clip and effort.

In a nutshell, here’s what you request to do:

1. Look astatine your indexed leafage reports and/or probe your marque successful the integrated hunt results pages (SERPs) to place immoderate parameter URLs.
2. Find a faceted navigation plugin that volition enactment for your website platform.
3. Implement the plugin and guarantee it uses champion practices with the assistance of your improvement team.
4. Wait a fewer days, and past repetition the archetypal measurement to find immoderate outstanding offenders.

If you’re not definite wherever your faceted navigation stands (or however to find it successful the archetypal place), our squad is ever present to help. Request a escaped method audit anytime by contacting our SEO experts today.