Duplicate Sub-sub categories

Question

I am building a clothing/toy based shop and i have come across a worry in regards to my category set up.

Basically i have many sub-sub categories that will be being used under multiple sub-categories. For instance:

My category tree looks like so

-Default category
  - Womens underwear
    - knickers
    - bras
  - Nightwear
    - knickers
    - bras

And then under the sub-sub-categories I have my products.

My questions is, will the fact that I have many duplicated sub-sub categories affect my SEO? I am guessing i can just assign one product to multiple categories. But I'm just worried that the sub categories will trip me over in getting a good rank

Answer 1

According to Matt Cutts, duplicate categorization will not hurt you unless the content itself or the violation is egregious and done only for SEO value. In the example that you set forth above it does not seem to be too over the top, but if you had hundreds of categories with all of the same products in it, using the categorization to bolster your page count, you may be in trouble.

In short: You should organize your catalog to appeal to a human using the site, not for Google to index you. If you follow this simple guideline you should be in good shape.

As an aside:

Consult an SEO professional if you have questions about what is acceptable and what is not -- SEO questions are not on-topic in this forum - Magento site administration and programming questions are encouraged.

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Source:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi-wkEeOKxM