Showing posts with label doorway pages. Show all posts
Showing posts with label doorway pages. Show all posts

July 16, 2013

Algorithm Updates or End User preferences, eCommerce Website Optimization at maze!

Perhaps most of us could have read/heard a news item 'Panda slaps 10 year old original eCommerce content site,' couple of years ago. Well, dug deep into the topic and having gone through the comment section we have learned that that ecommerce website marketer practiced some of the black hat SEO techniques that of keyword stuffing (at the bottom of the page) written exclusively for search engines instead of end user preferences. However, those practices are now rectified, if, at all, you would try to go through.

Having that example discussed, we can imagine what could be the worst nightmare of an ecommerce website marketer; their portal coming under the claws of google algorithms. In that perplexed state, which should be the ecommerce website marketer’s first target, algorithm updates, or end user preferences? What practices should the marketer be following?

Either periodic change of google algorithms or ever-changing customer preferences, the ecommerce website should be equipped to welcome any.

No one should have anything against google algorithm updates for Google being the biggest stakeholder in online searches. It deserves the control over how the crawling and indexing should be done; what accuracy levels one should follow regarding the content to be published; and how fast the end user should get what he prefers.

As per end user preferences concerned, every business’ main goal is to attain customer satisfaction through reliable information, quality service and if not regular, frequent visits. Thus, an ecommerce website must try to provide accurate information always to keep themselves in good books of Google algorithm updates.

But the penalized ecommerce website http://tinyurl.com/p5w48u had unique content to its kitty. It was all dependent on organic search than any other traffic pulling sources. No links were purchased or given. It has exclusive product information for end user preferences, which no one could find anywhere else (as claimed by the ecommerce website marketer himself). Even then, Google has penalized it.

Early into the fact assessment, everyone had raised concerns about Google algorithm updates. However, it was learned that that ecommerce website has much of the content written targeting search engines than the end user preferences. That was out right an act of keyword stuffing for which any website is vulnerable to be penalized.

Now with Panda 4.0 up for victimizing many such ecommerce website marketers, what one should know to get with the flow is discussed here.

The quality - Fresh Product Descriptions: You can rather call it as no mass publishing. As a first step, the tangible thing any ecommerce provider should take up is drafting fresh product descriptions right away with price tag updates on daily basis. Say a big no to direct company information. There might be many websites, which publish the same product descriptions given by the manufacturer. Never ever publish the same. Tweak it a little. If possible, with a better keyword planning team devise new keyword sheets and show up the content as fresh to the google algorithms.

The brevity - Go comparable: The new age customers are analytical, clever, and smart as never before. They need a lot of research before a purchase. Make them avail of what they want rather than pushing what you have: branding a keyword on your website for particular brand. Let them have a choice of comparison between two products of equal segment but different brands. Give them some time to kill more on your website.
For instance, draft detailed reviews (with accurately placed keywords linking back to product selling page) on Canon Powershot G7 and Nikon's Coolpix P5000 (arguably competitive product segments from the two major camera manufacturers) and make them avail through the top level gateway site thus, the end user will get an opinion of his own while making final decision.

Gateway Site is indeed an useful technique through which one can hyperlink exclusive product reviews, product comparisons, and various product descriptions to the main domain following proper search-oriented keywords inserted for better optimization.

The simplicity - No Doorway Page/Bridge Page: To safeguard the eCommerce website against algorithm updates, one should adhere to stringent SEO i.e., avoid creating just a doorway page/bridge page/jump page – a page which is phrase related, agent related, or IP related.

One common way of creating doorway page is establishing a page targeted to a search phrase with lack of information, i.e. just for the sake of creating or mimicking the success of similar pages on a website. When user searches for that page, he may land in doorway and can find no information, which sounds a form of black hat SEO, and potential enough to be a victim of Google algorithms. Therefore, avoid simple bridge pages or jump pages in eCommerce website optimization.

Ultimately, for an eCommerce website marketer the biggest challenge would be ‘to-go-with-the-flow’ with the robust Google updates. Keep quality over quantity in the content plan to be shielded from algorithm updates; a better classification of product categories and pages with search-engine free architecture are purportedly proved to be the best practices for ecommerce website marketers to see better results in the long run.

We also wish to see Google to come up with altogether a different algorithm for e-commerce websites to get rid of algorithm updates (if at all a website achieved a momentum over a period).


Our opinion on how algorithm updates or end user preferences push ecommerce website optimization into a perplexed state might differ from you. If yes, let us learn.