Wrong URL variation is ranked, what to do?

Hello,

I have a webshop where this URL is ranked domain/products/something/c/9 instead of domain/products/something/ . What should I do in this case? The /c/9 variation is ranked for 50 keywords (in weak places) but the domain/products/something/ variation does not have rankings at all.

Thanks!

Is the /c/9 variation in the URL something you've put in place? And is the content the same on the domain/products/something/ and domain/products/something/c/9? If so, you can try setting a canonical on the domain/products/something/ URL and wait for recrawling.

Whatever the case, I would make sure all your relevant sales content/funnels/products are on the URL that is ranking.

Steptoe said:

Is the /c/9 variation in the URL something you've put in place? And is the content the same on the domain/products/something/ and domain/products/something/c/9? If so, you can try setting a canonical on the domain/products/something/ URL and wait for recrawling.

Whatever the case, I would make sure all your relevant sales content/funnels/products are on the URL that is ranking.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply. I can't find out what is that URL variation, it shows the exact same category page as the main URL variation. With SEO text, products, etc.

agostino2023 said:

Thanks for your reply. I can't find out what is that URL variation, it shows the exact same category page as the main URL variation. With SEO text, products, etc.

Click to expand...

Find the way to set the canonicals to domain/products/something/ as suggested by @Steptoe,

Another way is to block the domain/products/something/c/9 category pages via robots.txt,
Or add 301 redirects from these pages to the main category pages via htaccess,

Both are fairly easy to implement,
You can use AI to get the codes with a simple prompt as well

agostino2023 said:

Hello,

I have a webshop where this URL is ranked domain/products/something/c/9 instead of domain/products/something/ . What should I do in this case? The /c/9 variation is ranked for 50 keywords (in weak places) but the domain/products/something/ variation does not have rankings at all.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Further analysis is required in this case, and you should check what the variation is for in both pages and how significant it is. If both the pages have very similar content and there is minimal difference then both the pages will compete with each other and only one can rank. It is called keyword cannibalization.

Here are 2 conditions and solutions -

1. The variation in both pages is significant you want both to rank separately - then optimize both pages strongly for their exact variation of keywords.
2. The variation in both pages is not significant and you can use one page over the other - canonicalize it

agostino2023 said:

Hello,

I have a webshop where this URL is ranked domain/products/something/c/9 instead of domain/products/something/ . What should I do in this case? The /c/9 variation is ranked for 50 keywords (in weak places) but the domain/products/something/ variation does not have rankings at all.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Change your website link to "domain/products/something/" because it's better for Google, and then make your content better to show up higher in searches

Do a 301 redirect. You can use the Redirection plugin.