E-commerce SEO: Fix the Catalogue Before Chasing Rankings
Most catalogues are 60 percent dead weight. I prune thin SKUs, fix faceted URLs, then build the buying guides that earn rankings and AI citations.
Get a Free AuditWhat Changes Here
Fighting Against Scale
E-commerce SEO fights against scale, thousands of near-identical product pages and faceted filters built for shoppers, not crawlers.
Clean Up Before You Add
The real wins come from cleaning up what's already there before adding anything new.
How Buyers Find You
Product Searches & Direct Comparisons
Buyers search by product, by direct comparison ("X vs Y"), and increasingly by asking an AI to recommend an option within a budget and set of criteria.
A Catalogue Built for Machines
Whichever way they arrive, it all requires your catalogue to be genuinely well-structured, not just large.
What Actually Moves the Needle in E-commerce
What actually works for e-commerce
- Pruning or consolidating thin, near-duplicate product pages
- Fixing faceted navigation URLs that quietly waste crawl budget
- Buying guides and comparison content that earn both rankings and AI citations
- Structured data that lets AI models actually read your inventory
Where e-commerce programmes fail
- Auto-generated product descriptions duplicated across hundreds of SKUs
- Ignoring crawl budget waste from faceted filters until it caps indexation
- A blog disconnected from what customers are actually trying to buy
How an Engagement Runs
HOW IT WORKS How an Engagement Runs
A full crawl to find thin, duplicate, and faceted-URL issues wasting crawl budget across the catalogue.
Removing or merging near-duplicate product pages that dilute ranking signals instead of adding to them.
Getting faceted navigation under control so crawl budget goes to pages that should actually rank.
Writing comparison and buying-guide content that earns both rankings and AI citations.
Deliverables, Not Just a Strategy Deck
Full catalogue technical audit
Every thin, duplicate, and faceted-URL issue found and prioritized by actual crawl-budget impact.
Faceted navigation fix
Filter URLs brought under control so crawl budget goes to pages that should actually rank.
Buying guides & comparison content
Content built around real purchase decisions, not generic category descriptions.
Product schema implementation
Structured data so products are eligible for rich results and AI models can read your inventory.
Ranking & indexation tracking
Monthly tracking of how much of the catalogue is actually indexed and ranking.
Monthly performance report
Organic traffic and conversion by category, so you see exactly what moved and why.
Where to Start
Technical SEO
SEO Audit
Generative Engine Optimization
E-commerce SEO Questions I Get Asked
01 What's the biggest SEO issue for e-commerce sites?
Crawl budget waste from thin, near-duplicate product pages and unmanaged faceted navigation URLs, both of which quietly cap how much of the catalogue actually gets indexed.
02 Do you work with large catalogues?
Yes, large and thousands-of-SKU catalogues are exactly where systematic technical fixes and content pruning have the biggest impact.
03 How does AI visibility apply to e-commerce?
Buying guides and comparison content structured for AI extraction are increasingly what gets cited when someone asks an AI assistant for a product recommendation.
04 Does Core Web Vitals actually matter for e-commerce sites?
Yes, more than most site types, large catalogues, product image galleries, and third-party scripts like reviews widgets and chat tools are exactly what drags LCP and INP down, and a slow product page loses both rankings and conversions at the same time.
05 Should out-of-stock or discontinued products be noindexed?
Temporarily out-of-stock products should generally stay indexed since the page still has real value, but permanently discontinued products should either redirect to a relevant replacement or be noindexed, leaving them live and indexed just wastes crawl budget on dead pages.
06 How do you handle duplicate content across product variants like size or color?
Canonical tags pointing variant URLs to the main product page, or correctly configured URL parameters, so Google consolidates ranking signals onto one page instead of splitting them thin across near-identical variant URLs.
07 Does this apply to marketplace sellers, not just my own website?
This work is specifically for your own site, whether that's Shopify, WooCommerce, or a custom build, since marketplace SEO on Amazon or Etsy is controlled entirely by that platform's own algorithm. Owning your own site's SEO is what builds brand equity a marketplace listing never gives you.
Adjacent Services
All services →Get a Free E-commerce SEO Audit
Send your site and I'll check what's actually worth fixing first for a business like yours.