SEO for linked products
There are two ways to sell a shirt in five colors on Shopify. You can make one product with a Color option, or five products, one per color. FD Combined Listings is for the second way. It links the five products and shows them as swatches, so shoppers move between colors as if it were one product.
This page explains what that means for search, and what the app does and doesn't change.
Each product keeps its own page
When each color is its own product, each one has its own:
- URL, like
/products/linen-shirt-olive - Title and meta description
- Description
- Images and image alt text
- Reviews, from your reviews app
So a search for "olive linen shirt" can land on the olive shirt's page, with olive images, instead of a page that starts on a different color.
FD Combined Listings doesn't merge or edit your products. It doesn't change titles, handles, descriptions, images, variants or SEO fields. It stores group data in app-owned metafields, which don't show in your product's content.
Swatches are real links
On the product page, the swatch styles show each option as a standard link (<a href>) to the other product's URL. The swatches are built when you save a group and your theme outputs them with the page HTML, so the links are there when the page loads. They don't wait for a script.
This gives every product in a group links from the other products in the group. If a group has eight colors, each color's page links to the other seven.
A few things to know:
- The links follow your store's language and market path. A shopper on
/fr/stays on/fr/products/.... - The Button style switches products with a script, not with links to the other products. If links matter to you, use a swatch style (Swatch: Color, Swatch: Image, Swatch: Circle Color or Swatch: Polaroid).
- Swatches on collection and search cards are added by the app's script after the page loads, so they aren't in the page's first HTML.
Canonical tags stay as they are
The app doesn't add, remove or change canonical tags. Each product page keeps the canonical tag your theme sets, which on most themes is the product's own URL. Linking products doesn't point search engines at one "main" product.
Shopping feeds list each product
Because each color stays a separate product, sales channels and shopping feeds see each one as its own product, with its own title, image and price. The app doesn't change what Shopify sends to them.
Draft and sold-out products
- Draft and unpublished products are hidden from the swatches, so shoppers don't land on a page that isn't live.
- For sold-out products, you choose what the swatch does. On swatch styles, the Sold Out / Unavailable tab offers Hidden, Faded Only, Crossed Out, Faded & Crossed Out and Do nothing. If you pick Hidden, sold-out products are left out of the swatches, so they get no swatch links while they're sold out.
Tips for separate products
Linking products only helps search if each page has something of its own. Some practical steps:
- Write a title that names the color or material, like "Linen Shirt - Olive".
- Write a description for each product, or at least change the parts that differ.
- Use photos of the actual color on each product, and add alt text.
- Keep handles short and readable, like
linen-shirt-olive.
You can still group products that share most of their text. The app doesn't require unique content, and it doesn't change how search engines rank your pages.
