SEO for marketplaces and directories
On a marketplace, SEO is a template and data problem. I decide which pages deserve to exist, build the templates that make them useful, and watch indexation and revenue by template.
How do you do SEO for a marketplace or directory?
Marketplace SEO means deciding which category, location, and attribute pages deserve to be indexed, building templates that give each one real content from your listing data, controlling faceted navigation so crawlers do not waste time on near duplicates, and linking the pages together at scale. Ravana Solutions provides marketplace and directory SEO to platforms across the US from Norfolk, Virginia. The work is done by its founder, Nick Mangubat, a developer who writes the Next.js templates himself and monitors indexation and leads by template.
Where SEO breaks for marketplaces and directories
Large platforms rarely fail on a single page. They fail on templates, rules, and data, repeated thousands of times.
Programmatic templates without a quality bar
Category by location and attribute pages can capture a huge amount of long tail demand. Without minimum listing counts or unique content rules, they also produce thousands of pages Google decides not to index.
Index bloat and near duplicates
Sort orders, filters, pagination, and empty categories create pages that differ by a word. They dilute crawling and internal links and drag down how Google judges the whole site.
Faceted navigation and crawl budget
Every filter combination is a URL a crawler can find. I decide which facets are indexable, which can be crawled but not indexed, and which should never be linked.
Internal linking at scale
On a large site, internal links decide which pages get crawled and how often. Breadcrumbs, related categories, and nearby locations need rules, not hand editing.
Data quality and freshness as SEO inputs
Stale listings, missing attributes, and duplicate records turn into thin or wrong pages. Listing freshness affects both rankings and whether a visitor converts.
No view of indexation by template
A sitewide indexed page count hides the problem. I segment sitemaps by template so you can see exactly which page types Google indexes, ignores, or drops.
What I do about it
Programmatic SEO
Template design and build, quality thresholds, internal linking rules, and a pilot set of pages before you roll out to the full catalog.
Programmatic SEO service →Technical SEO
Faceted navigation rules, a canonical and noindex strategy, a crawl budget review using log files where available, and segmented sitemaps.
Technical SEO service →AI search visibility
A prompt set for the "best provider in this city" questions buyers ask assistants, tracked monthly, so you can see whether your listings or a competitor's get named.
AI search visibility service →The AI search angle for marketplaces
When someone asks an assistant for the best provider of a service in a city, the answer often draws on directories and marketplaces. That is an opportunity if your category and location pages are readable, specific, and backed by real listing data, and a risk if they are thin.
I track the prompts that matter for your categories and report which platforms get cited. Citations cannot be guaranteed, but pages built on real data with clear structure give an assistant something worth citing.
A typical first 90 days
Audit templates and indexation
Indexation by template, faceted navigation crawl paths, log files where available, and a review of the listing data behind each template.
Set the rules and pilot
Quality thresholds, facet rules, and canonical strategy agreed, segmented sitemaps live, and a pilot set of improved template pages built.
Measure and scale
Indexation, traffic, and leads compared per template against the baseline, then the templates that earned it roll out to the full catalog.
What I report on
Built on my own tooling and research
I do not rent the audit. Raptor is the open source SEO crawler I wrote in Rust, with 128 checks covering rendering, indexation, structured data, and performance. My field report on generative engine optimization uses data from a live client, a regional veterinary practice, to show how ChatGPT and Google AI Mode choose the sources they cite.
Checks in Raptor, the open source crawler I wrote in Rust.
AI search engines on every prompt set: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google, where I check both AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Senior person on your account. Me, from the first crawl to the monthly report.
What this is not
- Not a content mill. I write briefs and strategy; your team or a writer you choose writes the content.
- No guaranteed rankings or AI citations. I measure and report instead.
- No link schemes and no bought mentions.
Frequently asked questions
How do you do SEO for a marketplace or directory?
Marketplace SEO means deciding which category, location, and attribute pages deserve to be indexed, building templates that give each one real content from your listing data, controlling faceted navigation so crawlers do not waste time on near duplicates, and linking the pages together at scale. Ravana Solutions provides marketplace and directory SEO to platforms across the US from Norfolk, Virginia. The work is done by its founder, Nick Mangubat, a developer who writes the Next.js templates himself and monitors indexation and leads by template.
How many programmatic pages should a marketplace publish?
Only as many as you have real data for. I set a minimum, such as a number of active listings or unique attributes, below which a page is not created or not indexed. A smaller set of useful pages usually beats a large set Google ignores.
How do you stop faceted navigation from wasting crawl budget?
By deciding which facets have search demand and real inventory. Those become indexable pages with clean URLs. The rest stay usable for visitors but are kept out of the index and out of crawl paths through canonicals, noindex, or not linking them at all.
Do you build the templates or just write the spec?
I build them. I write Next.js and TypeScript, so the Programmatic SEO Pilot includes the template code, the data mapping, and the internal linking, not a document for someone else to interpret.
How much does a programmatic SEO pilot cost?
The Programmatic SEO Pilot is priced from $7,500 and covers one page template and 100 to 500 pilot pages, built from a data source you supply. The pages launch in 3 to 4 weeks, followed by 30 days of monitoring. For a large existing catalog, the Complex Platform Audit, priced from $6,500, is usually the better first step.
Start with a free 30 minute call
Bring your page templates and a rough count of listings by category and location. If there is a fit, you get a scoped proposal with a fixed price within 2 business days.