Google explains what it means when it suggests categorizing content based on user intent, such as having one location for information-based content and another for transaction-based content.
By categorizing content based on user intent, Google can serve the right pages to the right user at the right time.
Otherwise, Google may end up serving product pages to people who have no intention of purchasing anything.
Is this to say that information-based content and transaction-based content cannot coexist on the same website?
That’s what site owner Christian Kunz asks Google’s John Mueller during the October 8 SEO office-hours hangout.
Kunz runs an eCommerce site and is concerned about cramming too much information into his product pages.
He inquires whether non-transactional content should be separated into its own section.
Should it, on the other hand, not be on the site at all?
Here’s what Mueller suggests.
Google’s John Mueller on Content Separation
When asked for clarification on content separation and whether it should be done at the page or website level, Mueller says:
“I don’t think we have that documented or defined. But my understanding is that this is more of a page-level thing.
Because it’s— I mean, just purely from trying to think of it as— I don’t know— a practical way, like how you would implement it, and look at websites overall.
A lot of websites just have a mix of different kinds of content. And then you try to figure out which of these pages match the searcher’s intent, and try to rank those appropriately.
So my feeling is this is something more that would be on a page-level rather than on a website level.”
It is acceptable to combine content aimed at different user intents on the same website.
However, keep it separate at the page level.
Mueller uses the example of a website that focuses on breaking news but also has special sections dedicated to historical events.
Because the historical content is in its own section, Google knows not to serve those pages when people search for recent news stories.
“You see that with news websites often that they have the recent events, but they also have sections for maybe older events that took place… they kind of have an isolated archive section. And those are very different intents.
Like if you want something really now that is happening, or if you want some kind of informational research, evergreen-type content. And there too we kind of have to look at it on a per page basis and not say, oh, this is a research website because there’s some research content here.”
The same concept holds true for an eCommerce website.
You could have one section for selling products and another for providing information about those products.
Then Google can serve the appropriate pages when people want to buy one of the products rather than looking for something like assembly instructions.
A small amount of informational content on a product page should be sufficient.
However, including a whole brochure’s worth of information may cause Google to misidentify it as a product page.
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