Faceted navigation is a UX (user experience) element that simplifies the website visitor’s website navigation experience. This helps your website visitors find out what they want on your website easily.

Moreover, most eCommerce websites use the help of filters and categories to fine-tune the search experience of online shoppers. 

However, this form of website navigation creates many problems for a site’s SEO. This happens because Google’s crawl bots have difficulty crawling your website’s pages.

Therefore, it causes your SEO score to drop, which can prevent your web pages from ranking on top of Google’s search results.  

So, how do you implement facet search on your website correctly? As an SEO consultant, you must know the best SEO practices for your website. Therefore, read this post until the end to learn more about these practices. 

What SEO Problems Does Faceted Navigation Cause? 

SEO faceted navigation has one major flaw – it can potentially create a near-infinite number of URLs that lead to the same content on your website.  

This form of website navigation is better for visitors since it makes the site more accessible for them. However, Google’s crawl bots have a harder time crawling the site, which negatively affects the site’s SEO. 

Therefore, some common problems you will face if your website has SEO faceted navigation are: 

1. Duplicate Content 

When users apply different filters, the website may generate new URLs with the same/similar content as the original page. This can confuse search engines and lower your ranking.  

For example, if you have a page that shows all the products in a category and another page that shows the same products but is filtered by color, you have two pages with duplicate content.  

Search engines may not know which page to index and rank and may penalize both pages for having duplicate content. 

2. Wasted Crawl Budget 

Search engines have limited time and resources to crawl your website. Therefpore, if they encounter too many URLs with faceted navigation, they may be unable to crawl all your important pages.  

For example, if you have a page that shows all the products in a category, and another page that shows the same products but sorted by price, you have two pages with different URLs but the same content.  

Search engines may waste their crawl budget on crawling both pages and may miss other more relevant and valuable pages. 

3. Diluted Link Equity 

Link equity is the value that links pass from one page to another. If you have multiple URLs with the same content, the link equity may be split among them. This reduces the authority and relevance of each page.

For example, if you have a page that shows all the products in a category, and another page that shows the same products but is filtered by color, you have two pages with the same content but different URLs.  

If other pages link to both pages, the link equity will be divided between them instead of concentrating on one. This may weaken the ranking potential of both pages 

How To Identify Faceted Navigation Issues? 

To identify faceted navigation issues on your website to master website structure implementation, you can use some tools such as: 

1. Google Search Console 

The is a free tool that helps you optimize and monitor your website’s performance in Google Search. The URL Inspection tool can check how Google sees and indexes your pages.

You can also use the URL Parameters tool to tell Google how to handle the parameters in your URLs, such as which ones to crawl or ignore. 

2. Screaming Frog SEO Spider 

This paid tool crawls your website and analyzes various SEO factors, such as  

• Duplicate content 
• Canonical tags 
• Meta tags 
• Internal links, etc.  

You can use it to find and fix faceted navigation issues on your website. 

3. Ahrefs Site Audit 

This paid tool crawls your website and identifies SEO issues, such as broken links, redirects, orphan pages, etc. You can use it to check the status and performance of your faceted navigation pages and optimize them for SEO.  

Moreover, you can use other SEMrush alternatives for a site audit instead. 

How To Fix Faceted Navigation Issues? 

To fix faceted navigation SEO problems on your website, you can use some best practices as SEO freelancers, such as: 

1. Using Canonical Tags 

A canonical tag tells search engines which version of a page is the preferred one to index and rank. You can avoid duplicate content issues by pointing all the faceted navigation URLs to the original page.  

For example, suppose you have a page that shows all the products in a category and another page that shows the same products but filtered by color.

Therefore, use canonical tags to tell search engines that the first page is canonical, and the second page is duplicated.  

This way, search engines will only index and rank the first page and ignore the second page.  

To use canonical tags, you need to add a <link rel=” canonical” href=”…”> element to the <head> section of your HTML code, where the href attribute is the URL of the canonical page. You can also use relative or absolute URLs, depending on your preference.  

You can also use dynamic canonical tags generated based on the user’s filters and preferences to avoid hard-coding the canonical URLs. 

2. Configuring URL parameters 

A URL parameter is a part of a URL that changes based on user input like filters or sorting options. You can configure them in Google Search Console or your robots.txt file.

This will tell search engines how to handle them, which ones to crawl, ignore, or consolidate into one representative URL. 

For example, suppose you have a page that shows all the products in a category, and another page that shows the same products but sorted by price. 

Therefore, configure the URL parameter that controls the sorting option to tell search engines that it does not change the content of the page and that they should crawl only one version of the page.  

This way, search engines will not waste their crawl budget on crawling multiple versions of the same page.

To configure URL parameters in Google Search Console, go to the Legacy tools and reports section and click on URL Parameters.  

You will see a list of parameters that Google has detected on your site. Moreover, you can edit each parameter and tell Google how to handle it.  

Therefore, you can tell whether it should be crawled, and whether it should be consolidated with other URLs. Additionally, you can also add new parameters if Google has not detected them.  

To configure URL parameters in your robots.txt file, you need to use the Disallow or Allow directives. This will tell search engines which URLs to crawl or ignore based on the presence or absence of specific parameters.  

For example, you can use Disallow: /*?color=* to tell search engines not to crawl URLs with a color parameter. 

3. Nofollowing Or Removing Internal Links 

An internal link is a link from one page on your website to another page on your website. You can use the nofollow attribute or remove the links to the faceted navigation pages from your website.

This prevents search engines from crawling and indexing them and to preserve your link equity for the original pages.  

For example, if you have a page that shows all the products in a category and another page that shows the same products but is filtered by color, use the nofollow attribute or remove the link to the second page from the first page.  

This way, search engines will not follow the link and crawl the second page, and the link equity will not be split between the two pages.  

To use the nofollow attribute, add a rel=” nofollow” attribute to the <a> element of your HTML code, where the href attribute is the URL of the faceted navigation page. Delete the <a> element from your HTML code to remove the link. 

4. Using Noindex tags 

A noindex tag tells search engines not to index a page and not to show it in the search results. You can use it to prevent search engines from indexing the faceted navigation pages that are not relevant or useful for users, such as pages with no results or too many results.  

For example, suppose you have a page that shows all the products in a category. In that case, use a noindex tag to tell search engines not to index the second page or to show it in the search results.  

This way, search engines will not waste their crawl budget on indexing irrelevant pages, and users will not see them in the search results.  

To use noindex tags, you need to add a <meta name=” robots” content=” noindex”> element to the <head> section of your HTML code, where the content attribute is the value of the noindex tag.  

Depending on your preference, you can also use other values, such as nofollow, noarchive, nosnippet, etc. You can also use dynamic noindex tags generated based on the user’s filters and preferences to avoid hard-coding the noindex tags. 

What Are The Best Practices To Prevent Faceted Navigation Issues? 

To prevent faceted navigation issues on your website in the future, you can use some best practices such as: 

1. Using SEO-Friendly URLs 

Your faceted navigation URLs should be descriptive, readable, and consistent. They should include the main category and the applied filters, separated by slashes or hyphens.

Therefore, avoid using unnecessary or confusing parameters like session IDs, tracking codes, or random numbers. Additionally, use lowercase letters and avoid spaces or special characters. 

2. Use Canonical Tags 

A canonical tag is a way of telling search engines which version of a page is the preferred one to index and rank. You should use canonical tags to avoid duplicate content issues by pointing all the faceted navigation URLs to the original page.  

3. Use Noindex Tags 

A noindex tag tells search engines not to index a page and not to show it in the search results. You should use noindex tags to prevent search engines from indexing the faceted navigation pages that are not relevant or useful for users, such as pages with no results or too many results.  

4. Use Nofollow Or Remove Internal Links 

An internal link is a link from one page on your website to another page on your website. You should use the nofollow attribute or remove the links to the faceted navigation pages from your website to prevent search engines from crawling and indexing them and to preserve your link equity for the original pages.  

5. Use Breadcrumbs 

Breadcrumbs show users where they are on your website and how they can navigate back to the previous pages. You should use breadcrumbs to enhance the user experience and the SEO of your faceted navigation pages.  

Therefore, include the main category and the applied filters in your breadcrumbs, separated by arrows or symbols. You should also make the breadcrumbs clickable so users can easily remove or change the filters.  

Additionally, use schema markup to tell search engines what your breadcrumbs mean and how they are structured. 

Final Thoughts 

Now that you know more about faceted navigation and the various SEO problems it can pose for your website, you must apply the fixes above to solve them. Therefore, identify them first and fix them as per your website needs. 

If you have any queries regarding faceted navigation, please comment below. In addition, don’t forget to bookmark this website for more helpful guides. Thanks for reading! 

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