E-commerce SEO Audit: Fix Pagination, Facets and Duplicate Content

An SEO Audit for an E-commerce Website: A Practical Method to Improve Visibility and Revenue

If you already understand the fundamentals of an SEO audit, the question is no longer "why audit" but how to adapt an SEO audit for an e-commerce site to the realities of a catalogue: variants, stock constraints, merchandising and sales objectives. On an online shop, the smallest indexing debt — pagination, faceted navigation, inconsistent canonicals, duplication — can dilute the visibility of the transactional pages that drive revenue.

The aim is to identify precisely what is holding your shop back on Google and what is damaging the buying experience, then convert that diagnosis into a prioritised action plan based on impact and complexity. In a context where Google still captures the bulk of demand (global market share estimated at 89.9% in 2026 according to Webnyxt, and 92.96% of global traffic according to BrightEdge, 2024), the quality of crawling, indexing and understanding of category and product pages remains a major growth lever.

Why an E-commerce SEO Audit Is Not the Same as a Brochure Website Audit

A brochure site typically manages a few dozen to a few hundred URLs that remain relatively stable. An online shop, by contrast, changes constantly: new products, discontinued lines, price updates, variations, promotions and seasonality. As a result, issues are not limited to "a few tags to fix"; they affect URL governance and Google's ability to discover, prioritise and understand the pages that generate sales.

An e-commerce audit is therefore more specialised, because it must account for templates and e-commerce mechanics (product pages, category pages, filters, faceted navigation, the checkout journey) and connect SEO findings to business signals: availability, margin, conversion rate and average order value. The objective is straightforward: steer indexing and internal linking towards what is profitable, while containing what creates noise (unhelpful URLs, duplication, low-value sorting pages).

The Catalogue Challenge: URL Volume, Variants and Seasonality

The first trap in e-commerce is not "lack of content" but letting the site generate too many URLs for a finite crawl budget. Facets (size, colour, price), pagination, sorting parameters and variants accessible via multiple paths can create thousands of distinct URLs — often highly similar. Many e-commerce SEO methodologies highlight this: some filter configurations can produce a mass of URLs that add no value for Google, increasing duplication risk and wasting crawl budget.

Seasonality adds a second layer of complexity: temporary pages, seasonal products and renewed collections. Without hygiene rules (canonicals, redirects, controlled deindexing), you end up with URL history bloating the index and diluting signals — when performance needs to remain focused on the pages that actually matter.

Linking SEO to Business Signals: Stock, Margin, Conversion and Basket Size

A useful e-commerce SEO audit does not simply list technical anomalies; it enables trade-offs. Indexing a facet combination, for example, can be worthwhile if it maps to real demand and leads to available, competitive products. Conversely, indexing pages with very few products, unstable stock or low margins can consume crawl budget at the expense of strategic categories.

This SEO-to-business link also shows after the click. Google Analytics helps you understand what organic visitors do (engagement, add to basket, conversion), while Google Search Console answers "what is happening in Google" (impressions, clicks, CTR, positions). Used together, they reveal pages that are highly visible but attract few clicks (snippet or intent mismatch), and pages that attract traffic but do not convert (trust, product information or journey issues).

Getting Ready: Scope, Data Collection and a Reliable Crawl

On an e-commerce site, good scoping is often the difference between a theoretical report and an actionable roadmap. The goal is not to audit every URL one by one, but to cover representative templates, sample intelligently and make data collection robust enough to avoid false positives. Many e-commerce sources recommend a holistic review (technical, content, authority, UX) focused on page types (categories, product pages, filters, brand pages, editorial content), rather than a handful of isolated URLs.

Define the Scope: Category Pages, Product Pages and Editorial Content

Start by defining page families and their roles:

• Category and subcategory pages: transactional hubs that structure demand and distribute authority.
• Product pages: conversion pages, often numerous and sometimes unstable (stock, variants, reviews).
• Filtered pages: system pages (facets, sorting, pagination) that need governance.
• Editorial content: guides, blog posts and buying advice that capture long-tail queries and support conversion.

The point is not to produce more pages, but to decide which pages deserve to be indexed, which should remain crawlable without being indexed, and which should be blocked or consolidated.

Connect the Data Sources: Google Search Console, Analytics and Catalogue Exports

A serious e-commerce audit requires, at minimum, Google Search Console and Google Analytics, as recommended by many audit methodologies. Search Console provides impressions, clicks, CTR and indexing signals, while analytics adds behavioural and business insights.

Where possible, add a catalogue export (even a basic one): URL, category, stock status, price, brand, attributes and margin or internal segmentation. This is not "SEO" in itself, but it is what allows correct prioritisation. A technical audit may conclude a page is indexable; a revenue-led audit must conclude it deserves to be indexed first.

What the Crawl Should Reveal (Without Depending on the CMS)

Your shop could run on any technology: the audit must remain CMS-agnostic and rely on an external crawl. That crawl should reveal:

• URL structure (parameters, directories, path consistency) and depth,
• HTTP status codes (200, 3XX, 4XX, 5XX) and redirect chains,
• crawl directives (robots.txt) and sitemap quality (only canonical URLs you want indexed),
• canonical tags and their consistency with indexability and redirects,
• templates that generate duplication (pagination, facets, sorting),
• performance and mobile compatibility signals on business-critical pages.

This machine snapshot becomes meaningful when you cross-check it with Search Console (what is actually indexed, queries, opportunities) and analytics (conversion, revenue, engagement).

Architecture and Crawling: Site Structure, Depth and Crawl Budget

E-commerce architecture is not just a UX consideration; it determines how quickly search engines can discover key categories and reach deep products. A common recommendation is to keep important pages accessible within roughly three clicks, to reduce depth and improve the internal distribution of value.

On large catalogues, every unnecessary redirect, unmanaged parameter and duplicate URL consumes crawl budget, delaying the indexing of profitable pages. The audit should therefore focus on crawl leaks first — before chasing marginal gains.

Prioritise Indexing for Category and Subcategory Pages

Category pages are often the strongest transactional SEO entry points: they target stable intent, structure internal linking and concentrate signals more easily (internal links, external links, engagement).

In the audit, the question is not "should all categories be indexed?" but rather: which categories reflect real demand and a sufficiently rich assortment? For subcategories, ensure they do not compete with each other (too-similar intent) and that they have enough content and listing depth to justify their place in the SERP.

Improve Internal Linking: Menus, Breadcrumbs and Recommendation Blocks

E-commerce sites benefit from powerful native internal linking elements: menus, category links, breadcrumbs, "related products", "best sellers" and "recently viewed". The audit should verify two things:

• Discoverability: are the links present in the rendered HTML, making them accessible to crawlers without friction?
• Relevance: do they reinforce priority business pages (categories and strategic subcategories), rather than pushing value towards sorting URLs, variants or temporary pages?

On sites where internal links overwhelmingly point to parameterised URLs, you often see a domino effect: more crawled URLs, more duplication and weaker main categories.

Handle Out-of-Stock Items, Discontinued Lines and Redirects Without Losing Performance

Managing unavailable products is a recurring e-commerce challenge. The audit should identify templates that disappear (404s), pages that redirect in cascades, and pages that remain indexed even though the offer no longer exists.

The goal is to avoid unnecessary 404s (which remove pages from the index), minimise 5XX errors (which can damage trust and block crawling), and eliminate redirect chains that waste crawl budget. Where redirects are needed, use direct, relevant targets and update internal links that still point to intermediate URLs.

Pagination: Avoid Indexing Dead Ends While Protecting Strategic Pages

Pagination serves two conflicting purposes: enabling navigation through all products and allowing Google to reach deep catalogues, while avoiding a proliferation of low-value pages. Good management is rarely about "block everything" or "index everything"; it is about setting rules based on category size, offer stability and business contribution.

When to Let Pagination Be Indexed — and When to Contain It

In many catalogues, paginated pages can be self-canonical because they show distinct listings and help crawlers reach deep products. However, indexing them is not automatically desirable if they do not match a distinct intent and produce low-quality SERP entries.

A good audit therefore looks for balance:

• Allow crawling of pagination so Google can discover products and consolidate exploration.
• Contain indexing when pages 2, 3, 4… have no search value, or when they combine with facets and sorting to create large-scale duplication.

Parameters, Sorting and Pagination: Reduce SEO Value Dilution

The main risk comes from combinations: pagination + sorting + facets. A single category can then generate hundreds or even thousands of URLs. E-commerce methodologies repeatedly note that filters can produce large volumes of URLs that are unhelpful to Google, diluting signals and complicating indexing.

The audit should map the parameters that are actually generated (via internal links, not just theoretically possible), then decide which URLs should be indexable, which should be neutralised, and which should be made non-crawlable to save crawl budget.

Checklist: Depth, Internal Linking, Canonicals and Performance

To audit pagination in a way that leads to action, check:

• Depth: are important products buried behind too many clicks, or only reachable via very deep pages?
• Internal linking: do paginated pages receive "accidental" internal links (menus, recommendations) that boost them at the expense of main categories?
• Canonicals: are paginated pages self-canonical (consistent if you accept their role), or canonicalised to page 1 (often confusing if the listings differ)?
• Performance: slow pages harm UX and can affect SEO. Some e-commerce sources suggest a page should ideally load in one second and that penalties begin after five seconds. Google also notes that between 40% and 53% of users abandon a site if loading takes too long (Google, 2025).

Faceted Navigation: Capture Demand Without Creating Technical Debt

Faceted filters are essential to the shopping experience, but they can become an SEO nightmare if every combination generates an indexable URL. The audit objective is not to remove facets, but to distinguish: (1) facets useful to both users and Google, (2) facets useful only to users, and (3) facets that mostly create noise.

Understanding the Impact: URL Explosion and Cannibalisation

A "size" or "colour" facet can generate countless filtered pages. Yet many of those pages do not match any stable demand, cannibalise each other, or duplicate near-identical listings. Several e-commerce audit sources highlight this risk of multiplying low-value URLs for search engines, with duplication as the outcome.

The common symptom visible in crawl data and Search Console is thousands of discovered URLs, but relatively few genuinely useful pages indexed — and strategic categories that struggle to stabilise.

Select Which Facets Should Become Dedicated SEO Pages

Best practice is to select certain filter combinations that match strong, stable intent and then turn them into clean SEO pages (readable URL, content, internal linking). This is a selection process, not blind automation.

Audit criteria for decision-making include:

• observable demand (impressions and queries in Search Console, or internal search data if available),
• sufficient assortment (number and diversity of products),
• stability (the page does not become empty every few weeks),
• business value (margin, average order value, conversion).

Hygiene Rules: Indexing, Internal Linking and Filtered URL Consistency

For facets not chosen as SEO pages, the goal is to preserve UX while containing SEO debt. The audit may recommend a combination of rules: preventing indexing, canonicalising to a parent page, or controlling crawling via robots.txt depending on the situation (and on what you actually observe in the crawl).

A key watch-out: if your menus, breadcrumbs or "popular" blocks link to filtered URLs, you are pushing those URLs into the core of your internal linking structure. The audit must therefore review link sources — not only the pages themselves.

Canonical Tags and Variant Management: Stabilise Catalogue Indexing

In e-commerce, a single product can exist under multiple URLs: variants, different navigation paths, parameters, campaign pages. Canonical tags clarify which version should consolidate signals and be prioritised for indexing. E-commerce audit sources also note that canonicals are a minimum requirement for controlling duplicate content when multiple URLs display the same product.

Common Errors: Inconsistent Canonicals, Chains and Non-Indexable Targets

Frequent crawl-detectable errors include:

• canonical pointing to a non-indexable URL (noindex, blocked or redirected),
• inconsistent canonicals between versions (http/https, www/non-www, trailing slash),
• canonical chains (A canonicalises to B, which canonicalises to C),
• default canonicals pointing to the category when the product page should remain the target.

The audit should validate alignment across canonicals, redirects, sitemap and indexability. Otherwise, Google receives conflicting signals and indexing becomes unstable.

Variants (Size, Colour, Bundles): Decide Between Separate Pages and Consolidation

Variants cannot be handled with a single rule. Some variants deserve dedicated pages if they correspond to distinct search intent (for instance, a bundle, a highly searched variant, or a model with genuinely different characteristics). Others should be consolidated onto a primary page to avoid cannibalisation and signal dilution.

The audit should therefore decide at template level what structure best serves users and SEO, then verify that the site applies that decision consistently (URLs, canonicals, internal linking, sitemap).

Key Checks Across Category Pages, Listings and Product Pages

To stabilise indexing, check specifically:

• category canonicals (self-canonical, consistent with the indexed URL),
• filtered page canonicals (do not allow thousands of URLs to declare themselves "main" by default),
• product page canonicals (one primary, stable URL included in the sitemap if indexable),
• internal link consistency (avoid promoting non-priority variants as central pages).

Duplicate Content in E-commerce: Diagnose, Fix and Prioritise

Duplicate content is one of the most costly SEO problems in e-commerce because it multiplies mechanically: manufacturer descriptions, near-identical listings, facets, sorting, pagination, variants. The audit should first quantify and qualify (where, why, how much), then prioritise a fix plan that protects pages with genuine business value.

Typical Sources: Manufacturer Descriptions, Parameters, Sorting and Facets

E-commerce audit sources explicitly highlight the case of copy-pasted supplier descriptions. This is a common form of duplication, particularly on broad catalogues where multiple retailers publish the same text.

On top of this comes technical duplication generated by sorting parameters, facets and sometimes pagination. The audit needs to separate duplicated content (text) from duplicated pages (different URLs for similar results), because the corrective levers differ.

Internal vs External Duplication

Internal duplication involves your own competing URLs (variants, facets, overly similar categories). It is addressed through indexing decisions, canonicals, consolidation and internal linking.

External duplication mainly concerns product copy reused elsewhere (manufacturers, distributors). It is addressed through uniqueness, enrichment and proof (reviews, real usage details, visuals, practical information). The goal is not to write more — it is to write more specifically to your offer and your customers.

Action Plan: Rewriting, Consolidation, Dedicated Pages and Controlled Exclusions

A realistic plan usually falls into four groups:

• Rewrite first the product pages that already drive impressions or revenue but remain too generic.
• Consolidate pages that cannibalise each other (merge, redirect, intent clarification).
• Create a small number of dedicated pages with strong potential (selected facet combinations), instead of indexing the entire filtering engine.
• Exclude from the index URL families with low value (sorting, unstable combinations) while preserving the user experience.

Prioritisation should remain business-led: the audit aligns indexing with value, not "cleaning for the sake of cleaning".

Product Pages and Category Pages: Optimise Content to Perform (Without Producing More)

A common mistake is treating e-commerce optimisation as a volume race. On a catalogue, performance often comes from better targeting (intent), stronger trust signals (proof) and better governance (duplication, canonicals, internal linking). The goal is to help pages rank and convert without opening an endless content project.

Improve Product Pages: Uniqueness, Trust Signals and Objection Handling

On product pages, the audit should verify whether the page provides enough information to convince and reassure: photos, factual details, use cases, delivery, returns, customer service and reviews. These elements sit at the intersection of conversion rate optimisation and SEO because they improve perceived quality and page usefulness.

Also check uniqueness systematically. If your descriptions mirror the manufacturer text, you start at a disadvantage. It is usually better to enrich the 20% of product pages that drive 80% of opportunities (impressions, sales) than to attempt a like-for-like rewrite at scale.

Improve Category Pages: Intent Alignment, Semantic Coverage and Structure

Category pages must match a clear intent and provide a readable structure (headings, sections, buying guidance). The audit work is mainly about verifying intent-to-page fit: if Google ranks guides for a query, a bare category page is unlikely to hold its position over time. Conversely, if the SERP is transactional, a category page that is too editorial may underperform.

Think in terms of coverage rather than keyword density. Address expected subtopics (selection criteria, sizes, materials, uses, care, delivery) to increase relevance without repeating the same sentences.

Structured Data and Rich Results: E-commerce-Specific Checks

E-commerce sources recommend verifying that pages send the right signals to Google via markup and structured data, particularly for rich snippets. In the audit, focus on consistency: markup present on the right templates, data aligned with visible content (price, availability, reviews), and no inconsistencies that could invalidate enhanced results.

A Catalogue-Led Content Audit: Analyse, Prioritise and Systemise

An e-commerce content audit only matters if it helps you decide where to invest time. On a catalogue, you cannot manually optimise every product page. The method is to identify segments: high-potential pages, already-performing pages to protect, and low-value pages to contain.

To go deeper into content logic (without repeating the basics), you can build on the content audit approach, then adapt it to a catalogue through sampling and prioritisation rules.

Find High-Potential Pages: High Impressions, Low CTR, Positions 4–15

Some of the best e-commerce opportunities sit just outside the top positions. CTR data suggests the top three results capture 75% of clicks (SEO.com, 2026), and that page two receives around 0.78% of clicks (Ahrefs, 2025). In practical terms, moving a few positions on queries already near the top 10 can have a meaningful impact.

In Search Console, segment by:

• queries with high impressions and underperforming CTR (snippet work, intent alignment, promise clarity),
• pages in positions 4–15 (often the most cost-effective optimisations),
• category pages that are visible but rarely clicked (titles, meta descriptions, enrichment, reassurance elements),
• product pages ranking on non-transactional queries (intent mismatch, to address via content or internal linking).

Measure Performance Impact: Visibility, Qualified Traffic and Revenue

An audit should set up measurement from the outset. E-commerce-focused sources propose an ROI calculation of (gain − cost) / cost × 100, and note that early effects often appear within one to three months if recommendations are implemented quickly, while some levers (authority, link building) tend to show results over six to twelve months.

At a minimum, track:

• Search Console: impressions, clicks, CTR and positions for category vs product segments,
• Analytics: organic sessions, engagement, conversion rate and revenue attributed to organic (depending on your attribution model),
• health indicators: indexing rate for strategic pages, volume of unhelpful crawled URLs, 4XX/5XX errors.

For internal discussions grounded in benchmarks, you can also consult Incremys' SEO statistics, which compile recent, sourced data on organic search (CTR, market shares, trends).

Jardindeco Case Study: What the Audit Unlocked

An e-commerce audit becomes truly valuable when it enables progressive, measurable, prioritised execution. The Jardindeco case study illustrates exactly this: a UX and SEO redesign, a difficult starting point ("no tools, no methodology, no proof"), then a gradual improvement in structure and priorities — treating the site as a whole system (technical, semantic, strategy, production).

Context, Scope and Priority Findings

In this type of situation, the audit first brings order: clarify what blocks crawling and indexing, identify structural duplication zones (facets, parameters), then realign key pages with intent and business value.

What is particularly instructive in the Jardindeco approach is the emphasis on evidence and prioritisation: avoid launching initiatives everywhere at once, and tackle issues step by step based on expected impact.

Actions Implemented and the Prioritisation Logic

On an e-commerce site, prioritisation typically translates into a pragmatic sequence:

• secure crawling and indexing (remove blockers),
• reduce large-scale duplication (parameterised URLs, facets, sorting),
• strengthen the transactional foundations (categories),
• systemise enrichment for high-potential content (products, guides).

This is also the best way to avoid tying up engineering teams on low-value tickets — a common outcome when a crawl surfaces thousands of alerts, many of which have no measurable impact.

Post-Audit Tracking: Validate Gains in Search Console and Analytics

Post-audit tracking should confirm three types of gains:

• SEO gains: improved impressions, clicks and positions on target segments (categories, subcategories),
• Indexing gains: a higher share of strategic pages indexed and less noise (fewer unhelpful discovered URLs),
• Business gains: improved organic conversion rate and attributable revenue (based on your analytics rules).

Data also shows that speed strongly affects experience: HubSpot (2026) reports that an extra two seconds of load time can increase bounce rate by +103%. In e-commerce, that is a key signal to monitor on the pages that drive the bulk of volume (categories and best-seller product pages).

Delivery and Action Plan: Turn the Diagnosis Into an Executable Backlog

The value of an audit depends as much on how it is delivered as on the analysis itself. Many audit methodologies recommend classifying recommendations by potential impact and implementation complexity, using language that teams can act on (without unnecessary jargon) and with clear acceptance criteria.

If you need to revisit the fundamentals and roadmap logic, the article on a technical audit complements this approach well. Here, the goal is to adapt it to e-commerce by accounting for templates (categories, facets, pagination, variants) and their scale effects.

Score Recommendations: SEO Impact, Effort, Risk and Dependencies

To prioritise without getting lost, assign a simple score to each recommendation:

• SEO impact: does it improve indexing for business pages, reduce large-scale duplication, or strengthen internal linking to transactional hubs?
• Effort: workload estimate (engineering, content, QA),
• Risk: risk of breaking navigation, affecting analytics tracking or creating regressions,
• Dependencies: does it require template changes, URL rule changes or product/marketing sign-off?

This prevents a common bias: tackling easy but low-return fixes first, while postponing structural work (facets, duplication, category linking).

QA After Release: Indexing, Internal Linking and Performance Checks

Post-release QA should be planned from the audit stage. In particular, check:

• robots.txt and sitemap consistency (a sitemap should only contain canonical URLs you want indexed, ideally updated automatically as products are added or removed),
• the removal of redirect chains and the update of internal links still pointing to intermediate URLs,
• the reduction of parameterised URLs injected into internal linking,
• changes in indexing and performance reports in Search Console,
• speed and engagement signals on business pages in analytics.

Automate E-commerce Auditing and Tracking at Scale With Incremys

On a catalogue, the challenge is not only to audit but to sustain quality over time (new products, navigation changes, new pages, updates). A commonly recommended cadence is a full audit annually, with intermediate checks every three to six months on indexing and new errors — especially in an environment where Google runs 500 to 600 algorithm updates per year (SEO.com, 2026).

Unify Crawling, Semantics and Data via API to Manage SEO

At scale, the value of a platform is centralising collection and tracking, rather than multiplying manual exports. Incremys offers the SEO 360° Audit module, which brings together crawling, semantic analysis and performance tracking, integrating Google Search Console and Google Analytics via API (a 360° SEO SaaS solution). This is primarily useful for systemising prioritisation and monitoring outcomes, without turning the audit into a one-off exercise.

If you also manage channel trade-offs, the SEA statistics and GEO statistics help place SEO decisions in a broader context (more competitive SERPs, evolving visibility surfaces, growth of generative engines). For editorial planning, the resource on SEO content strategy helps turn opportunities into a coherent production plan.

When to Run Another Audit: Redesign, Catalogue Expansion, Traffic Drops or Revenue Decline

Signals that justify re-running a dedicated e-commerce audit recur consistently across methodologies: before or after a redesign, when traffic drops without an obvious cause, when sales stagnate despite stable traffic, or when the site has never been properly reviewed. Because e-commerce sites evolve continuously, regular auditing prevents small changes (parameters, navigation, new sections) from turning into costly indexing debt.

FAQ: E-commerce SEO Audit

What SEO Issues Are Specific to E-commerce?

The most common issues are scale-related: URL explosion through facets, sorting and pagination; internal duplication (variants, multiple paths); external duplication (manufacturer descriptions); inconsistent canonicals; excessive product depth; internal links pushing parameterised URLs; and instability caused by stock changes (out-of-stock items, discontinued lines). Performance and UX also matter, because a shop that ranks but converts poorly loses much of the value that SEO can deliver.

How Do You Manage Pagination for SEO?

Keep pagination crawlable so Google can discover deep products, but avoid indexing paginated pages that have no real search value. The audit should check depth, internal linking to paginated pages, canonical consistency, and the combinations of pagination + sorting + facets that often dilute SEO signals.

What Are Faceted Filters and What Is Their SEO Impact?

Faceted filters improve UX by refining a product listing (price, size, colour, brand), but they can generate thousands of different URLs. The SEO impact can include wasted crawl budget, duplication, cannibalisation between pages and weaker main categories. The solution is to select a small number of high-value combinations to turn into dedicated SEO pages, and contain the rest with indexing and internal linking rules.

How Do You Reduce Duplicate Content on an Online Shop?

Start by identifying the dominant source: manufacturer copy (external duplication), parameterised URLs (technical duplication) or variants (internal duplication). Then prioritise: rewrite and enrich high-potential product pages, consolidate pages that cannibalise each other, govern parameters (sorting/facets) and ensure canonicals are consistent with your sitemap and indexability.

How Do You Audit Thousands of Product Pages Without Rewriting Everything?

By segmenting. Use Search Console to identify product pages with impressions, positions near the top 10 or low CTR, and analytics to find those that contribute to revenue. Then work by template and by batch (same product families, same issues) rather than page by page. The goal is to improve what drives demand and revenue first.

Should You Index Sorting Pages (Price, Popularity, Newest)?

In most cases, sorting pages mainly create parameterised URLs that duplicate the same product lists without a distinct search intent. The audit should verify whether these pages receive meaningful impressions and match stable demand. If not, it is usually better to contain them (while keeping sorting available to users) to avoid diluting indexing signals and internal linking value.

How Do You Manage Out-of-Stock or Discontinued Products Without Losing SEO Value?

Avoid defaulting to 404s when a page has earned visibility and links. Use a consistent approach: keep the page live with relevant alternatives, redirect directly to the closest equivalent when a product is permanently replaced, and update internal links that point to removed or redirected URLs. The audit should also eliminate redirect chains and server errors that hinder crawling.

What Should You Check in Canonicals on an E-commerce Site?

Check that there is one primary URL per piece of content (category, product), that the canonical points to an indexable page (not noindex, not blocked, not redirected), and that it aligns with your sitemap and redirects. On facets and variants, verify the canonical strategy matches your intent (consolidation vs dedicated pages) to avoid unstable indexing.

Which KPIs Should You Track After the Audit to Measure Sales Impact?

For SEO (Search Console): impressions, clicks, CTR, positions for priority category and product segments, and indexing trends. For business (analytics): organic sessions, conversion rate, revenue attributed to organic and engagement on key pages. Add technical health indicators (volume of unhelpful crawled URLs, 4XX/5XX errors, canonical stability) to confirm the debt is reducing.

How Often Should You Run an SEO Audit for an E-commerce Website?

Common recommendations suggest a full audit around once a year, with intermediate checks every three to six months (indexing, new errors, the impact of changes). You should also run an audit after a redesign, catalogue expansion, or a drop in traffic and revenue. To continue exploring these topics (SEO, GEO and digital marketing), visit the Incremys blog.