What to do with products that fit into two categories
LightSEO · Catalog
What to do with products that fit into two categories
A classic situation: does a kids' winter snowsuit belong in "Outerwear" or in "Winter collection"? The answer depends on how your catalog is built technically.
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additional ones, no duplicates
Basics
The core principle
A product has one main category. It defines the main URL of the product page and the breadcrumbs. This is a technical link that sets no limits on where the product appears.
Additional categories only display the product and create no copy. The product appears in several sections, while there is still one product page at one URL.
Duplicating the product page is the worst option. Two URLs with the same product compete with each other in search and muddle your sales statistics.
Tools
How to solve it
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Additional categories
A built-in feature of most platforms: the product is visible in several sections under a single URL.
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Tags and collections
"New arrivals", "Sale", "Gifts" work better as tags than as categories.
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Filters
Season, age and purpose often make more sense as a filter than as a category.
Check
How to tell it is done right
The address bar shows one URL per product. No matter which category you came to it from.
The breadcrumbs stay consistent. They show the main category or the one the visitor came from – and the URL stays the same.
Search shows no two identical pages. If it does, you need a canonical tag or a merge of the product pages.
Are the product categories in your catalog a mess?
We will put things in order: main and additional categories, canonical, tags – with no duplicates and no lost rankings.
