Google On Content On E-Commerce Category Page: Stay Away From Low-Quality Blurbs

We covered the topic of SEO for e-commerce category pages a number of times here. But Gary Illyes from Google addressed the topic last week in an SEO office hours. In short, he said if you are going to add content to those category pages, make sure they are not low-quality, auto-generated blurbs of text.

Gary said, instead, “add content that people will actually find useful, don’t add content because search might require it or so you think.”

Gary said, “please don’t do those auto-generated low-quality repeated, blurbs of text over and over again on all your category pages.”

Why? He said, “It just looks silly, even for the average person.”

A couple of years ago, John Mueller from Google said make sure to not add too much content to those category pages, which was a similar message from the year prior. Google also said don’t stuff content on those category pages. Finally, don’t forget to check Glenn Gabe’s case study on this topic.

This new statement from Gary came at the 5:29 mark in the SEO office hours video – here is the embed:

Here is the transcript:

Brooke is asking: Is content on an e-commerce category page valuable to improving overall rankings?

You can add whatever content you like to your pages, they are your pages after all. But please don’t do those auto-generated low-quality repeated, blurbs of text over and over again on all your category pages. It just looks silly, even for the average person. If you need content on your pages add content that people will actually find useful, don’t add content because search might require it or so you think. Also check out our e-commerce recommendations.

Here’s my case study from 2021 about removing fluff category descriptions, and the site performed BETTER https://t.co/aJKC1GXcZz pic.twitter.com/1KbxJMSVNG

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) September 7, 2023

Forum discussion at Twitter.