Best Practices Approach: Categorization and Taxonomy on Shopping Comparison Engines

This is a great piece for the www.eTaildTail.com community from my friend Kevin who blogs over at www.ChannelDollars.com -- Enjoy -- Ed

"When submitting products to comparison engines, taxonomy and categorization can be a big concern and rightfully so.

Each engine has their own type of taxonomy and standards when taking a merchant’s items, and assigning those items to categories. There is no easy method, but here are a few quick points to be aware of:

1. No, you can’t assign an item to multiple categories

Only a few companies have this principle in place, but most do not. The reason is because a merchant could potentially flood an engine with only a few products spread out in many places. The consumer will quickly tire of seeing the same products over and over, abandoning the engine to shop elsewhere. This same principle means options are not typically allowed to be listed as multiple items, because a single item could then take up an entire page of results. For example, some engines like GoogleBase and NexTag only allow one item per product url or link page.

2. Picking a category

Next idea: there is no perfect category! Yes, an item could conceivably fit into multiple categories so it is up to the merchant many times to pick the best category (A-B testing anyone?). Now, many engines will actually recognize a product by SKU or UPC, and have a predetermined place for that item. So, this issue could be rendered moot. However, most times a merchant is forced to pick a category assignment so it’s best to pick a few items from a given group and search for them. See where those items come up. Then, decide if you want your items directly competing with similar items from other merchants, or if you would prefer your items elsewhere in seclusion. This is a competitive analysis that could help greatly with conversions if not total click count.

3. Try sending your categories first!

Many merchants get caught running in circles and drowning in the possibilities of where to put items. Try sending your categories first. That is, send the category assignments from the home website and see how the CSEs handle those. In the CSE back office, you should then be able to get a listing of products and category assignments. Based on those results, then see what alteration is necessary. First send what you have, and then make adjustments as needed. Don’t get caught up in unnecessary work!"

Check out Kevin at www.ChannelDollars.com , he has some great information and advice to help online merchants!