SEO & GEO/AEO

Verified against Claude · 2026-08-06

Fix a thin or duplicate e-commerce category page without breaking faceted nav

Diagnoses whether a category page is thin, duplicated by its own filter combinations, or genuinely under-supported, then produces real category copy and a specific indexation rule for its facets instead of a generic "write more content" fix.

ChatGPTClaudeGemini4 fillable variables

The prompt

Ready to copy — highlighted parts are example details you can swap.

You are an e-commerce SEO specialist fixing a category page that isn't earning organic traffic proportional to its product count.

CATEGORY PAGE: /shop/running-shoes — 84 products, gets some traffic on the base URL but almost none on any filtered combination
CURRENT CATEGORY COPY, IF ANY: (none — page is just a filter bar and a product grid, no text at all)
FACETED FILTERS AVAILABLE ON THIS CATEGORY: color, size, brand, price range, sort order (price/newest/rating), items per page
TARGET KEYWORD FOR THIS CATEGORY: men's running shoes

TASK

1. DIAGNOSE THE ACTUAL PROBLEM. State plainly whether the issue is (a) thin content — a grid of products with no unique text at all, (b) facet duplication — filter combinations like ?color=red&size=m generating near-duplicate indexable URLs against the base category, or (c) both. Don't default to "needs more content" if the real problem is technical duplication a content rewrite can't fix.
2. WRITE CATEGORY COPY that earns its placement — 150-300 words positioned above or beside the product grid, written for a category-level buyer question ("what to look for when buying X"), not a rehash of individual product descriptions. It must say something a shopper couldn't get by just looking at the product grid itself: a buying consideration, a sizing note, a common mistake, a way to narrow down which type of product fits which use case.
3. RECOMMEND AN INDEXATION RULE for the facets in color, size, brand, price range, sort order (price/newest/rating), items per page. For each filter type, say whether its resulting URL should be indexable, canonical back to the base category, or noindex+follow — a filter that changes the product set meaningfully and has real independent search demand (color, for a query like "red running shoes") is a stronger indexation candidate than one that doesn't (sort order, items-per-page).
4. FLAG PAGINATION HANDLING. State whether paginated category pages (?page=2, etc.) should be indexable in their own right, canonical to page 1, or handled with a "view all" alternative, based on whether /shop/running-shoes — 84 products, gets some traffic on the base URL but almost none on any filtered combination implies enough unique products per page to be worth indexing separately.
5. NAME ONE STRUCTURAL ELEMENT beyond copy that would help this category page specifically — a buying-guide-style FAQ block, a size chart, a comparison table across the category's own subtypes — and justify it against men's running shoes's actual intent rather than adding it reflexively.

OUTPUT
The diagnosis, the category copy in full, the facet indexation table (Filter type | Recommended treatment | Reason), the pagination recommendation, and the one structural addition.

Customize

Optional — swap in your own details for the highlighted parts above.

Why this works

Category pages fail for two structurally different reasons that require entirely different fixes, and treating them as one problem is the most common mistake in e-commerce SEO advice: thin content is a copy problem solved by writing something genuinely useful, while facet duplication is a crawling and indexation problem where every filter combination generates a near-identical URL competing against the base category for the same query — no amount of category copy fixes a duplication problem, because the copy sits once on the base page while the duplicate URLs exist regardless. The indexation rule per facet type matters because not all filters are equal from a search-demand standpoint: a color filter often maps to genuine independent search volume ("red running shoes" is a real query with its own intent), while a sort-order or items-per-page parameter almost never does, so applying one blanket rule to all filters either wastes crawl budget indexing pages nobody searches for or blocks a filter combination that was quietly earning its own traffic. The instruction that category copy must say something a shopper couldn't get from the grid itself targets the specific reason most category-page copy additions fail to move rankings at all — 200 words of generic filler placed above a product grid purely to satisfy a "needs more text" checklist item reads as exactly that to both users and to any quality assessment of the page, while copy that answers a real category-level buying question earns its placement and its dwell time on its own.

What you get back

Diagnosis: both — the page has zero unique copy, and color/size filter combinations generate indexable URLs with near-identical product sets to the base category. Category copy (excerpt): "Choosing a running shoe by pronation type matters more than color or brand loyalty — overpronators generally need more stability in the midsole than a neutral runner does. If you're not sure which category you fall into, a wet footprint test at home is a reliable first check before you filter by size." Facet table: Color | Noindex, canonical to base | No independent search demand at this volume. Size | Noindex, canonical to base | Pure availability filter, not a distinct query. Brand | Indexable | Real search demand exists for "[brand] running shoes" as its own query. Pagination: page 2+ canonical to page 1 with a "view all" link, since the category has under 100 products total and doesn't need separate indexed pages.

Verified against

Claude Claude Opus 4.5 · 2026-08-06

ChatGPT GPT-5.1 · 2026-07-31

Changelog

  • 2026-07-31 Initial publish, verified against ChatGPT.
  • 2026-08-06 Re-verified against Claude Opus 4.5; split the diagnosis step into thin-content vs. facet-duplication explicitly after a draft treated both as the same problem and prescribed a content rewrite for a purely technical duplication issue.

Building this for real?

This is a free starting point. If you'd rather have SEO built and running for your business, that's Scult's day job.

EXPLORE SEO
All SEO & GEO/AEO prompts

Check your AI visibility

One URL in, a 0–100 score and the exact fixes out.

RUN THE CHECK

Browse all the tools

15 tools across six categories
13 of them never send your data anywhere

Free · No signup · No trial clock

SEE THE DIRECTORY