Background
I love the UNIQLO brand and ambition. It's a company that has made me want to buy clothes.
On an average day, I am usually wearing many of its garments. All products are well made and the store has enough variety in its collaborations to keep me browsing on a weekly basis.
If you’re not in the know, UNIQLO is a Japanese clothing company that was established 1984 and has since enjoyed a strong market presence both in the UK and throughout the world.
Although the company experienced a rocky first few years in the European market in the early 2000s, after a strong rebrand, UNIQLO was able to flourish and now operates in over 20 countries worldwide — with the aim of becoming the largest SPA store on the planet by 2020.
In November 2017 however, while searching for my annual Christmas jumper, I happened across an interesting homepage meta description, which led me to do a little investigating:
Interesting Google SERP for @UNIQLO_UK ... "Menu Search Wish List Cart Menü Suche Favoriten Warenkorb Menu" pic.twitter.com/e0nCNHU3wi
— Ryan Siddle (@ryansiddle) November 24, 2017
It's pulling a different country/locale navigation, although it's for the uk/en. Uniqlo's HREFLANG looks a bit wonky, but I'm surprised it's that far off (+ using geo-ip redirection). Curious... Down the rabbit hole I go...
— Ryan Siddle (@ryansiddle) November 25, 2017
As it says in the tweet, the philosophy of "down the rabbit hole I go" definitely led to this technical teardown, as it involves two of my favourite things:
- Technical SEO
- UNIQLO
It's worth noting however, that this is by no means a full technical audit, but there are some interesting opportunities I came across in the short space of an afternoon.
First of all, it's quite noticeable that each country appears to be using different versions of a content management system, and this only scratches the surface.
The topics covered within the following presentation involve:
- Hreflang
- HTTPS
- Mega menu links
- Product variations
- Faceted menus & sorting
- Broken backlinks (not strictly technical SEO, but who doesn't love a freebie)?
- Bloated index
- Product schema errors
- Overlaying boxes
- What next?
- Bug bonus