SEO on second hand websites – Silvia Gutiérrez
Silvia Gutiérrez is an expert in SEO on second hand website. She is the SEO Manager in the Todocolección portal. This portal of purchase and sale and auctions has more than 40 million urls and has been active for more than 20 years.
Silvia tells us that the secret to managing a portal of such dimensions and, in addition, with content generated by third parties is segmentation. She also uses this trick within the analytical and planning of commercial strategies.
As an expert in SEO on second hand websites, she is responsible for different tasks such as the development and execution of SEO strategies, maintenance and improvements of Onpage and technical SEO. As well as many other tasks related to the writing or analytical.
In this context, Silvia is forceful to emphasize that the most important in portals of the size of Todocolección is the improvement and constant updating.
We take this opportunity to ask you about all the aspects that surround the SEO for this type of portals. Starting by what is the most complex to analyze and going through issues such as how to control the content created by third parties or the importance of the apps.
How does SEO work in a portal like Todocollection? What is the most complex to analyze?
In a portal of dimensions as large as Todocoleccion, SEO works by projects based on certain commercial strategies.
These projects become annual objectives, since they require time for planning, execution, monitoring and measurement of results.
In addition to this, we perform a series of maintenance tasks and improvements in SEO Onpage, technical SEO, content writing, backlinks, web analytics… That help us optimize SEO continuously.
The most complex thing to analyze is the impact of Google’s algorithms, due to the opacity of their explanations. On the other hand, the amount of URLs that we have hinders the work when analyzing the web as a whole.
Are visits or sales important in this case?
Yes, both visits and sales are taken into account to measure the conversion rate of any SEO optimization.
What kind of aspects do we have to pay more attention to when we work with a domain in which anyone can publish?
The content generated by third parties is a tricky subject, as it supposes a loss of control in terms of content writing and requires continuous supervision.
To save future headaches is essential to carry out a work of evangelization of users.
It is necessary to make the sellers aware of the need to develop their batch records, their method of payment, shipping costs, etc.
This is necessary both for web positioning and to show the user what is sold in a clear, direct and attractive way. What lies in converting better and selling more.
Is there any kind of supervision about the products advertised on the portal? In the same way, do you review aspects such as categorization?
Yes, we have an editor’s department that is responsible for manually supervising the ads. This team is also aware of any bad placed lot in a category that is not theirs.
On the other hand, we have enabled a space, within the own batches files, so that any user who surfs the web can warn us of a possible error.
Can you tell us a bit about the crawler analysis and indexing of allcollection?
From the robots.txt file and the meta-robots we have very controlled what we want or not index.
In such a large web you can not index everything and it is a key task to prioritize and mark the crawler guides of the route we want you to do.
Tools such as Search Console, Sitemaps and Screaming Frog also speed up the task of controlling this indexing.
In your opinion, what are the most important aspects of a website for buying and selling and auctions?
It is basic to offer a good user experience, both in the sense of navigation and in the purchase process.
It is also very important that the different departments (technical, SEO, design, marketing, social media …) all work together based on a commercial objective.
Other aspects to take into account are calls to action, web optimization and, above all, give confidence and security to the possible buyer. In our case, the experience and the evaluations received by sellers and buyers are the best guarantee for future transactions.
And what about apps, are they important in this business model?
Of course, we have been running the Android and iOS app since 2014. In allcollection we bet for the continuous development of our App, since it has a great importance within our business. Currently it is in Spanish, Catalan, English and German.
About 25% of our sales are made from the App and, so far this year, this method has grown by 18% over last year.
With what resources do you have when working on the web speed?
From the technical side you always try to have the stack as optimized as possible: caches, fast querys, etc. In addition to using technologies that allow us to gain more speed as http / 2 or webp in the images.
To what extent is the number of urls that the domain has controllable? How do you try to cover SEO in such a quantity of urls?
The domain has more than 40 million URLs, a number that overwhelms any SEO. The trick is to divide the web according to the different types of URLs: batch files, listings, blog posts, prices (the history of lots sold), sales methods (direct sales, auctions, offers, etc.). The categories, in turn, we divide by levels or themes.
So, by dividing the web, we make it more comprehensive to develop any action or SEO strategy. We also do it when measuring the results of the actions undertaken.
We assume that the number of incoming links you have is very large. Do you have any kind of policy about it? And with the outgoing links?
With the help of Semrush, we usually monitor the incoming links periodically, especially to detect those toxic ones and send a Disavow file to Google.
As for the outbound links, they are not allowed in the description of the content generated by users.
Since at any time can lead to errors and we can not control exactly what kind of links include.
Have you ever received a negative SEO attack?
We have not received a negative SEO attack as such, but there have been periods with a lot of toxic inbound links that have had to be regulated.
What is the biggest alarm that you have taken with an algorithm change?
Core Updates are the ones that have affected us the most, both for good and bad. In periods of many changes of Google, web visibility can become a roller coaster, so we should not trust if we climb a lot in Sistrix for a few weeks, we can lower at any time. Also, that drop can be raised again with any other algorithm change.
If you do things right, it is advisable not to become too obsessed with algorithms and comply with Google’s guidelines. At the time the responsive, the HTTPS, the loading speed, the mobile first index… In our opinion, the important thing is to work on the platform to always improve the user experience.
