SEO for your marketplace

SEO (search engine optimisation) is everything that helps your marketplace show up when people search Google or Bing for what you list: “used tractors in Ohio”, “rooms to rent Leeds”. Yclas takes care of the technical side for you. What makes the real difference, though, is content: good category and location names, useful descriptions and, above all, lots of fresh listings.

What Yclas does for you

You don’t need to set any of this up:

What	How Yclas handles it
Readable addresses	Listings, categories and pages get addresses made of words, such as /cars/blue-ford-focus-2019.html.
One address per page	Every page tells search engines its one true address (its canonical), without sort orders, filters or tracking codes, so Google doesn’t split your ranking across copies. A listing opened under an old or wrong category address is sent to its real address.
Page titles	Each page gets its own title: the listing title, the category name, the category and location together (“Cars - Madrid”), and “ - Page 2” on the following pages of a list.
Meta descriptions	The short text under your link in search results is filled in for every page: your site description on the home page, the category or location description (or “All Cars in Madrid”), and the listing’s own text for listings.
Category and location landing pages	Every category in every location, such as Cars in Madrid, is a page of its own that can rank for that search. It shows the descriptions of both the category and the location, and links to the same category in other locations and to the other categories in that location, with listing counts.
Structured data	Listing pages tell search engines the name, photos, description, price, stock and review ratings, so they can show richer results. Listing, category and location pages also carry a breadcrumb trail, and the home page tells Google about your site name and search box.
Sold and removed listings	Sold and deactivated listings answer “not found” to visitors and search engines, so Google drops them quickly instead of showing dead listings. You and your moderators can still open sold ones.
Empty pages	Category and location pages with no listings, and profiles of members with no listings, are kept out of search results, so thin pages don’t drag your site down. A page number beyond the last page answers “not found”.
Several languages	On a multilingual site, search engines are told about every language version of each page.
Social previews	Every page has the tags Facebook, X, WhatsApp and LinkedIn read to build a link preview.
Sitemap and IndexNow	A sitemap of all your listings and pages is rebuilt daily, and new, changed and removed listings are reported to Bing and other search engines that use IndexNow. See Sitemap.
robots.txt	Search engines are kept away from endless search-result pages and from your admin panel, so they spend their time on your listings. See Search engine visibility.
Maintenance mode	While your site is in maintenance mode, search engines are told it is temporarily unavailable, so they come back later rather than dropping your pages.
Mobile-friendly themes	Search engines rank mobile-friendly sites higher, and the current Yclas themes adapt to any screen.

For your busiest landing pages you can write your own search title, search description and intro in Settings › SEO › Category and city pages, with a Write with AI draft on paid plans. See Your own text for category-in-location pages.

If your admin dashboard says Not on Google yet, your site is on a free trial or the free plan: search engines are asked not to list it until you choose a plan. Everything else works as usual, and search engines can list your pages once you subscribe.

What you should do

1. Write a good site name and description

Go to Settings › General › Your site. The Site name appears in every page title. The Site description is what Google usually shows under your home page; keep it under 160 characters (the panel counts for you) and say plainly what people find on your site and where.

Good: Buy and sell used farm machinery across Ohio. Tractors, balers and parts from local farmers and dealers.

Weak: Welcome to the best classifieds site on the internet!

2. Name categories and locations the way people search

People search “apartments for rent”, not “Residential – Type A”. Use the words your visitors would type. Then give each important category and location a description: it is the introduction on its own page and on its landing pages in every location. Fill in its Search engines card too: a Meta title and Meta description that say how it shows up in Google. Leave them empty and Yclas builds them from the name and description. On a multilingual site you set them per language in the Translations card. See Categories and Locations.

3. Get listings, and keep them fresh

Search engines love sites that change often and have many useful pages. Every listing is a new page that can rank for its own search. A marketplace with five listings won’t rank, however good its settings. Seed your site, encourage members to write full descriptions with good photos, and make sure expired listings get renewed.

4. Write content around your niche

Use the blog, the FAQ and pages to answer the questions your visitors ask: “How to check a used tractor before buying”, “What documents do I need to rent a flat”. These articles bring in searches your listings never would, and they’re easy to share.

5. Connect Google Search Console

It’s free, it tells you which searches bring people to your site, and it warns you about problems. See Get your site into Google.

6. Earn links

Links from other websites are still one of the strongest signals for Google. Get listed in local business directories, ask partners and associations to link to you, and share your listings where your audience already is. See Promote your marketplace.

7. Use your own domain

A domain of your own (farmtrader.com rather than a subdomain) is easier to remember, easier to link to and builds authority over the years. See Connect your own domain.

SEO settings

Settings › SEO holds the site-wide defaults. You don’t need to change anything here: with the defaults, your pages look as described above.

Setting	What it does
Title patterns	The page title for each kind of page: Home page, Category pages, Location pages, Listing pages, Blog posts and CMS pages. {title} is the title Yclas builds and {site_name} your site name, for example {title} - Used tractors in Ohio - {site_name}. The pattern is the whole title, so include {site_name} where you want it. Leave {title} to change nothing.
Default image (URL)	The picture used in social previews when a listing or blog post with no photo is shared. A full https:// address.
Redirects	Sends old addresses to the right page. See Redirects and the 404 log.
404 log	Lists the addresses that answered “page not found”. See Redirects and the 404 log.
Automatic internal links	The first mention of a category or location name in a blog post becomes a link to it (up to six links a post). Works with the Nova theme.
Structured data by listing type	Listings with vehicle, property, job, event or business details are described to Google as that type (a vehicle with its mileage, a property with its bedrooms) instead of a plain product. Yclas decides from the listing’s custom fields. On a business directory, business listings become a LocalBusiness with their street address, map point, phone, website and opening hours.

A title, description or image you set on a listing, category, location, blog post or page always wins over these defaults. The Search result preview at the bottom shows how a listing would look in Google with your Listing pages pattern. Click Save changes after editing.

Redirects is on for new sites; the other switches start off, except Structured data by listing type, which is on for directory and services sites created in the sign-up wizard.

SEO for one listing

On the Nova and Atlantic Lite themes, administrators see an extra SEO (title, description, social image, schema type) button when they edit a listing. It opens:

• SEO title and SEO description: what Google shows for this listing, instead of the title pattern and the listing’s own text;
• Social image (URL): the picture for social previews, instead of the first photo;
• Schema type: how the listing is described to search engines (Product, Vehicle, RealEstateListing, JobPosting, Event or LocalBusiness). Automatic lets Yclas decide.

Leave a field empty to use the default. Sellers don’t see these fields.

SEO health

Your Analytics page has an SEO health card with a few quick checks: categories, locations and blog posts with Missing titles, Thin categories (main categories with fewer than 3 published listings), Broken links (404s) logged, and when your Sitemap was last built.

Things to avoid

• Hiding the site from search engines by accident. Check that Hide from search engines is off under Settings › General › Access & privacy, and that the site isn’t in maintenance mode or private.
• Keyword stuffing. Repeating the same words in titles and descriptions makes your pages look like spam to both people and Google.
• Changing addresses often. A category’s or location’s Seoname is part of the address of every page in it. With Redirects on, old addresses send visitors to the new ones, but search engines still take a while to catch up. Pick good names early.
• Copied descriptions. Listings copied word for word from other websites rarely rank.

SEO takes time. A new site can take weeks to appear in Google and months to rank well. Keep adding listings and content, and check Search Console every few weeks rather than every day.

Related guides

• Get your site into Google — verify your site and submit your sitemap.
• Search engine visibility — robots.txt and hiding your site.
• Redirects and the 404 log — keep old addresses working.
• Tracking codes and analytics — measure what’s working.