Perusing the Patagonia site

BRIAN R. BROWN

Patagonia's site has fairly clean, Web-standards-based code, and it isn't using tables for layout purposes. This means that the pages aren't bloated with excess code and it should be fairly quick and easy for search engine spiders to crawl the pages — at least when they can get to them. It also means that it shouldn't be hard to modify the page templates to make improvements to the pages.

HTML headings (h1, h2, etc.) are in use, but there are multiple h1s on pages, and where used, aren't unique or important for the pages. The use of other heading tags is haphazard and doesn't follow true hierarchical standards.

Even more important than headings are the title tags, which are okay. Apart from the home pages, I'd move “Patagonia” to the end of the title tag. On category pages, consider changing the order of the copy used. (For instance, put “pants featuring organic cotton” before “men's outdoor gear and apparel.”)

The site should seriously consider simplifying the URL structure, as the URLs are parameter-filled and obnoxiously long. This might explain why indexation at the subcategory and product detail page level is not very strong.

If you haven't visited Patagonia.com before, you'll see that the site is initially challenging to spiders because the home page is an international gateway.

Search for “patagonia.com” in Google and view the cached results. You'll be presented with a beautiful photo and a dropdown to select your country. On subsequent visits though, a cookie will route you directly into the site based on this selection. But search engine spiders may be at a loss, without the ability to select a country or accept the cookies. So the search engines are stuck looking at a nearly empty page.

The Patagonia logo is there as an image — sadly named “logo.gif,” and there are no alt attributes even (though this is not the case on interior pages). The main image is actually a CSS-based background image, so no alt text is available anyway, even though it would be of limited SEO value. There is, of course, a long, keyword-rich title tag trying to make up for the lack of — hold on, what's this?

On the right-hand side, down a ways below the photo, in light-colored gray text on a white background, we just barely catch the words “Search Index Page Description.” While it looks like the entire page is within the browser window, the vertical scrollbar only seems to be representing about a third of the page.

Scroll down a ways and find a whole bunch of other text (at least medium-light-gray this time, with a bit more contrast) that starts out: “Welcome to the Web site for Patagonia, a designer of outdoor clothing, outdoor gear, footwear, and luggage. Patagonia specifically makes hard shells, soft shells, rain jackets, ski jackets, ski pants, organic cotton clothing, sportswear…”

Start hovering over it and we discover that there are a number of links within this text, 45 actually, even though they aren't underlined or colored differently. While it isn't entirely a spam-dump of keywords and links, even the average visitor can quickly tell that these 338 words probably aren't meant for them — assuming the “Search Index Page Description” didn't tip them off to begin with.

How should Patagonia improve its SEO? First, I'd rewrite this text with users in mind, making it more friendly and human-readable. I'd keep some of the keyword-rich links to interior pages, but I'd probably cut back on the quantity. I'd make sure they are good for users — not just search engines — and make them stand out as links.

Next, I'd quit labeling this as “Search Index Page Description” and stop burying it at the bottom of the page. On the country selector home page, I'd put it below the photo. Anyone new to Patagonia will certainly find a little description about the site, products and company helpful, so don't hide it.

On the category, subcategory and product detail pages, I'd suggest making this text more user friendly and integrating it more into the product area. Getting this keyword-rich descriptive text higher up into the page copy, instead of in the footer and tail end of the HTML code, will more likely bring about the desired impact within search engines — without carrying the risk of being seen as or reported as Web spam as it might now.