# Product variants

Category: [E-Commerce SEO](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category/e-commerce-seo/) › [Shop pages & navigation](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category/e-commerce-seo/shop-pages-navigation/)

A **product variant** is a version of one product that differs in an attribute such as size, color, material or pattern. In SEO, the question is how variants are marked up and which URLs they get, because every variant can create another near-identical page.

## How does Google handle product variants?

Google's structured data for variants uses a `ProductGroup` that holds the shared properties. `variesBy` names the attributes that differ, `hasVariant` lists the variants, and `productGroupID` identifies the group (the parent SKU). Each variant carries its own SKU or GTIN, and an ID given on both the group and the variant must match.

Google requires that each variant can be preselected through its own URL, for example with query parameters. On a single-page setup, where one page holds all variants, the `ProductGroup` needs one canonical URL. With a separate page per variant, no single canonical is required.

Retailers also decide how many variants share one page. Nielsen Norman Group advises showing variations of the same product under a single listing and giving different products their own listings.

## Example

```json
{
  "@type": "ProductGroup",
  "productGroupID": "tshirt-basic",
  "variesBy": ["https://schema.org/color", "https://schema.org/size"],
  "hasVariant": [
    { "@type": "Product", "sku": "tshirt-basic-red-m",
      "url": "https://example.com/tshirt?color=red&size=m" }
  ]
}
```

## Related terms

- [Product detail page (PDP)](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/product-detail-page/index.md)
- [Canonical tag](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/canonical-tag/index.md)
- [Product schema](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/product-schema/index.md)
- [Near-duplicate content](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/near-duplicate-content/index.md)
- [Category page](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category-page/index.md)

## Sources

- [Product variants structured data – Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/product-variants)
- [Consolidate duplicate URLs – Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/consolidate-duplicate-urls)
- [Products with multiple variants – Nielsen Norman Group (secondary)](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/products-with-multiple-variants/)

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Last updated: October 7, 2026
URL: https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/product-variants/