Best Practices for Product Attributes

Attribute Names

Establish consistent attribute naming conventions, that includes letter case and punctuation. For example, Color:Green and Color:green might be considered as two different attribute values by different systems. Such noise in the data can affect business rules, search results and data filters for applications that match products to rules.

Attribute Use

Consider how attributes are to be used when assigning properties and values. Identify the attributes that are used as labels for presentation, such as a title or product name, image, price, and description, and which attributes are used for data entry. Consider how the attributes are represented on different pages throughout the site, and how they appear on category pages, product detail pages, category grids, and thumbnail sliders.


Ad-hoc color descriptions can pose a challenge from the standpoint of database operations. Color names such as “Azure Skies” or “Robin Egg Blue” have great appeal, but might not return the best results when used as search criteria, or if merchandising requires you to specify Color_Family:Blue. Take into consideration how colors are represented in search results and layered navigation, and establish some guidelines for your business needs. Then, be consistent when assigning color attribute values throughout your catalog.