When to Use Canonical URL Versus Super URL on Amazon?

darrenhutchison · May 2015

Hi everyone,

I've just started using AMZTracker and I'm trying to decide whether to build my own SuperURLs or use AMZTracker's Super URL tool. One question I have is in relation to when to use or share a canonical url versus a super url.

I have been informed that you should use a canonical url for some activity (blogger outreach, for example) and a super url for other activity (sharing in review groups). I think the reason is that you should use the super url with those people most likely to buy your product (to aid conversion rate) and the canonical with those less likely to buy your product (so it doesn't have a negative impact on conversion rate). Can anyone confirm this or clarify?

AMZTracker states that you should use super urls for all activity/traffic - so I'm a little confused:

"Use this Super URL tool anytime you send traffic to your Amazon listing. This can be via PPC, Facebook ads, blog pages, email blasts, YouTube videos and (possibly most importantly) our Amazon Review Trader network".

Thanks for your help.
D

Travis_Jamison · May 2015

Hey @darrenhutchison these are really great questions.

Super URL: You want to use this anytime you have traffic going to it that will purchase your product. Obviously with Vipon, but also with any other targeted traffic. Targeted facebook ads, YouTube videos, your own websites (I like to replace buy-buttons on my sites with Super URL links), and Google/Bing PPC for sure (Not Amazon PPC, only for Google).

Now with that said, you do NOT want to just send a bunch of garbage traffic through the link. That won't help anyone.

Canonical: I guess in theory if you are sending a shit-ton of traffic that may not be all that targeted to the page then you could use this, but really I don't even recommend that. It might still mess with your metrics.

Where to use the Canonical link over the Super URL:
For Google SEO reasons. If this is something you care about (and you probably should) then ranking your Amazon listing in Google can be a huge win. If this is your goal, then you will want to actually use the canonical version. Think of blog posts only for SEO purposes type of thing. If it's going to help you rank in Google, but will probably not be providing any sales as a result, then just use the canonical.

Travis_Jamison · May 2015

Notes:
For anyone reading this who doesn't know WTH we're talking about... A "Canonical URL" is the "master URL" used by search engines (and others) to show which URL slug is the "main one".

So if one unique page for example can have lots of weird URL variations, Google will hate this, get confused, and not rank your site as well. So websites add a canonical tag that looks like this to specify which one Google should rank (this is an Amazon example):
rel="canonical" http://www.amazon.com/your-product-name-is-here/dp/yourASIN

You can your Amazon canonical URL by doing the following.

1) Go to your Amazon listing, and "right click" and select "view page source"
how to find amazon canonical URL

2) Do a "page search" for the term: canonical
Page search is "command f" on mac, or I think "Ctrl+F" on Windows. You will find something on the page that looks just like this:

That's it. Use this link shown there anytime you make a backlink to your page if you're trying to rank in Google/Bing

Sandra Brooks Bryant · August 2015

How can we review the super URLs we have created in AMZTRACKER to see which ones we created and also to find out which reviewers got which URLs? Also, how can we keep track of how many people we have requested a review from other than writing it down?As soon as I clicked on the mail icon, my request was sent and it vanished from the screen. I got requests immediately! Y'all are doing a fab job of networking! Thanks! Sandra

Travis_Jamison · August 2015

@Sandra-Brooks-Bryant
Just click on the "Super URLs" tab in your AMZ Tracker dashboard. That is where you set your Super URLS up already right? (hope so)

Right now we don't have any kind of tracking in place for the number of promos sent thus far.

Thanks! Glad to hear you're enjoying the ride

dkilgore · August 2015

I used the Amztracker Super URL for a promotion I did on facebook. AMZT says that I had 199 clicks, and I know that this promotion resulted in 25 sales, which isn't bad, right? So why has my rank for those keywords gone down even though my sales rank went way up?

Travis_Jamison · August 2015

Hey @dkilgore check out this thread talking about it some.

Basically, it's normal for the rankings to jump around a lot after running a bunch of promos the first time (they always end up improving), and also make sure the product gets some historical sales to go along with it. Basically the Amazon algo wants to see that the product can consistently make sales instead of spiking.

You'll end up just fine

Sammy · August 2015

re Ranking Amazon pages in google - I just started trying to do this

Does google just rank the 1 or 2 amazon pages for a given keyword or should your listing still show up somewhere in the serps...

I've targeted some lower competition keywords instead of the big terms to start off with.
My competition has ~1000 various exact match anchor text links from contextual articles (blog reviews) - so it's stiff competition for the KW's I want...

Any advice on ranking in google besides the obvious?
How aggressive can you be in terms of links? I've got some decent genuine links from sites I control. Would i be better off throwing links to these as well?
Does it still need to look like a natural backlink profile?
Anyone ever actually had an amazon page google slapped?

I've used somewhat risky tactics but I haven't gone down this path before.

My listings are indexed (show for a brand search) but are no where else in google for any term at all besides the brand name...

@Travis_Jamison any tips?

Travis_Jamison · August 2015

Plenty of tips for you @Sammy

1) Google does usually only rank 1-2 Amazon pages for a keyword. So if you're not showing up at all don't worry, once you overtake the other listings your rankings will explode.

2) You can generally be really aggressive with the links. I don't necessarily do too many blasts to those pages anymore, but I do push the boundaries. A trick that can work is that if a page gets penalized, you just change around the title of the page and the canonical URL will reset, giving you a fresh URL in the Google serps

I did have to actually message seller support one time though because the URL slug wouldn't change.

3) I do think that natural-ish backlink profiles will do better over time. And by this I simply mean diverse link types, anchor texts, social signals, etc. Not necessarily boringly slow stuff.

4) I did have an Amazon page (algorithmically) slapped, but the title change trick fixed it. As soon as Google registered the new URL the rankings actually bounced back higher than before lol

I'm actually interested in testing some stuff specifically for this, so if you want my SEO team to take a whack at your page for free just pm me your URL + keywords.

alisubhani · August 2015

What would you recommend using when attempting to get a product ranked that has variations? the superurl with ASIN for parent? or superurl with ASN for the child?
thank you

Scott_Davis · September 2015

Hey @Travis_Jamison awesome tips on ranking your product page in google.

I'm having a stab at using my own network to link build my page. After stalking the backlinks of the product pages already ranking I'm going to go pretty hard with anchor text and use all partial match to target a few of different keywords.

One thing that I've found frustrating is messing with the title to try and get some main keywords in the URL. I've got them in there now but the title looks a bit spammy. Are you finding you can rank amazon pages without getting the main keywords in the URL? They're in the title of course but the slug amazon gives us can be pretty random. So far I've seen about one case in around 10 of an amazon page ranking without optimized urls. My preference would be to try and get the best converting title I could then leave it and only change the URL if I had to.

Scott_Davis · September 2015

Hey @Travis_Jamison awesome tips on ranking your product page in google.

I'm having a stab at using my own network to link build my page. After stalking the backlinks of the product pages already ranking I'm going to go pretty hard with anchor text and use all partial match to target a few of different keywords.

One thing that I've found frustrating is messing with the title to try and get some main keywords in the URL. I've got them in there now but the title looks a bit spammy. Are you finding you can rank amazon pages without getting the main keywords in the URL? They're in the title of course but the slug amazon gives us can be pretty random. So far I've seen about one case in around 10 of an amazon page ranking without optimized urls. My preference would be to try and get the best converting title I could then leave it and only change the URL if I had to.

BDS · November 2015

This is something I'm dabbling in now and was wondering if either of you had any results to share with us since it's been a little over a month. @Sammy @Travis_Jamison

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