A Magento site driving me crazy... any suggestion is appreciated
-
Hi guys,
this time it's me asking for help :D.
I have a client with a Magento 1.7.0.0 version site: www.mybomboniere.it
I audited it, and found out tons of issues, but the one that worries me more is the fault of canonicalization, which is causing serious duplicated content problems.
I'm not new to Magento, hence, the first thing I did was going to:
First: Going to System > Configuration > Catalog > Search Engine Optimization and setting on "No" the Use Categories Path for Product URLs voice. Doing so I quit all the duplicated product pages.
System > Configuration > Catalog > Catalog > Search Engine Optimization and setting on "yes" the voices Use Canonical Link Meta Tag For Categories and Use Canonical Link Meta Tag For Products.
Doing this I should see URLs with sort parameters having the URLs without them as canonical
The BIG PROBLEM is that even if I did that, I am still not seeing any rel="canonical" tag added to the code. I've tried to figure out the reason of this, but - sincerely - I cannot find one.
Secondly, the client created so many categories and subcategories that - honestly - the best thing would be to start cutting some of them. But one thing is what is correct in theory, another what the client desires, and she does not desire cutting any subcategory.
That means that some risk to be a substantial duplicate of others. The correct choice should be to canonicalized the overly identical subcategories to a main one... but this is not possible using the default Magento functions.So, or using an SEO extension (but, which one is the best for Magento 1.7.0.0.? Yoast plugins seem outdated), or using a solution like the second option proposed in this post: http://www.adurolabs.com/blog/technical/how-to-add-rel-canonical-in-magento.
The doubt is that the post is presenting it in case of products pages, not categories ones. Hence, is it correct also for them, or do you have others suggestions.
Sorry for the long question, but any help will be much appreciated :).
Ciao
Gianluca
-
Hi,
Following some testing, you can actually use the xml update feature for both categories and products individually, the trick is to first remove the existing rel=canonical that is put in if you have those settings turned on for that in the magento admin. So:
<reference name="head"><action method="removeItem"><type>link_rel</type>
<name>http://www.domain.com/oldurl</name></action></reference><action method="addLinkRel"><rel>canonical</rel>
<href>http://www.domain.com/new-url</href></action>You will need to identify the canonical url being inputted into the code, add it to the oldurl bit above and then put in the new url. You can do this in products and also for categories in the custom design tab and then the custom layout update box.
Hope that helps!
-
Hopefully you are nearly there with Lynn's advice but if you do go down the extension route I highly recommend this one: http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/online-promotions-by-mirasvit-1211.html
-
Actually I take back that bit about the filtered urls. Just checked and indeed they should canonical back to the base category url, so if you find out why the canonical is not showing up you should be good
-
Hi Gianluca,
What an honour
For the product canonical meta tag you have set it up correctly, I assume you have cleared the magento cache, are you sure there is not a php cache/accelerator running also (like apc or similar)? This would also prevent the changes you have enabled from immediately showing up.
The second option in the link you mention will also work, but really the first option (which you are trying now) is more efficient and automatic as long as you do not have duplicate content across different products which ideally you wont. That being said it is worth trying the second option on your sub categories, I believe you can do custom layout updates at the category level also and that should help you!
One thing to clarify: You say you expect to see canonicals on urls with sort parameters, but in my experience you will not. I cannot think of a commercial seo module for magento off the top of my head that will handle correct canonical tags for search and filtering parameters. The easiest way to do it is some custom development work which is not that difficult to do if you find someone comfortable with Magento.
Hope that helps!
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Using the same image across the site?
Hi just wondering i'm using the same image across 20 pages which are optimized for SEO purposes. I was wondering is there issues with this from SEO standpoint? Will Google devalue the page because the same image is being used? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seowork2140 -
Sitewide links and owned site
Hi everyone, I need the community opinion on something. I am webmarketer and SEO for a pure player who runs a couple of e-commerce sites. On one side we have bigsite.com. It makes all our revenue. I have been in charge for years. Results are good. We have smallsite.com. It is starting. But small revenues for the moment. We have a new SEO working on this. My question is : We always had a banner on bigsite.com's homepage, sending valuable traffic to smallsite.com.T he new SEO, has footer sitewide links from smallsite.com to bigsite.com homepage. Considering both sites share same ssl, server and company name, I am quite sure this is out of google's guide lines and would hurt bigsite.com. Do you agree that this is wrong from the new SEO, and that it could hurt my work and the search results for bigsite.com and smallsite.com, as well as team work ? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kepass0 -
If I put a piece of content on an external site can I syndicate to my site later using a rel=canonical link?
Could someone help me with a 'what if ' scenario please? What happens if I publish a piece of content on an external website, but then later decide to also put this content on my website. I want my website to rank first for this content, even though the original location for the content was the external website. Would it be okay for me to put a rel=canonical tag on the external website's content pointing to the copy on my website? Or would this be seen as manipulative?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RG_SEO1 -
Ranking Suggestions
Hi There, I am currently working on this site: completesteamclean.ca to rank as high as possible for "carpet cleaning windsor" on Google.ca and I can't seem to make any head way against the other websites ranking. I've optimized the page, created social media accounts for activity, even invested in Google Adwords and Facebook ads to try to boost my presence. Does anyone have any suggestions on any tactics/revisions I can make that may help boost my site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MainstreamMktg0 -
Interlinking sites in multiple languages
I am working on a project where the client has a main .com site and the following additional sites which are all interlinked: .com site targeting US
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rachelmanning888
.com site targeting China
.HK site targeting Hong Kong All sites contain similar information (although the Chinese site is translated). They are not identical copies but being shopping sites, they contain a lot of similar product information. Webmeup software (now defunct) showed that the inbound links to the main site, from the additional domains are considered risky. Linkrisk shows them as neutral. The client wants them to be interlinked and would not want to remove the additional domains as they get a good amount of traffic. In addition, the messages and products for each country domain have been tailored to a degree to suit that audience. We can rewrite the content on the other domains, but obviously this is a big job. Can anyone advise if this would be causing a problem SEO wise and if so, is the best way to resolve it to rewrite the content on the US and Hong Kong sites? Alternatively would it be better to integrate the whole lot together (they will soon be rebuilding the main site, so it would be an appropriate time to do this).0 -
Recommended e-commerce site search for Magento?
Does anyone have recommendations for any particular site searches for large e-commerce sites based on Magento? Some (hopeful) requirements: Possibility to segment product pages and blog content on results page Doesn't cause any major SEO or technical issues Understands semantic search Ability to filter results Ability to sort (e.g. by price, popularity, new in stock) It'd be really useful to see examples and know if there are any particular issues to be aware of. Thanks. 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alex-Harford0 -
Reindexing a site with www.
We have a site that has a mirror - i.e. www.domain.com and domain.com - there is not redirect both url's work and show pages so basically a site with 2 sets of URLs for each page. We have changed it so the domain.com and all assorted pages 301 redirect to the right URL with www. i.e. domain.com/about 301's to www.domain.com/about In the search engines the domain.com is the site indexed and the only www. page indexed is the homepage. I checked in the robots.txt file and nothing blocking the search engines from indexing both the www. and non www. versions of the site which makes me wonder why did only one version get indexed and how did the clients avoid a duplicate content issue? Secondly is it best to get the search engines to unidex domain.com and resubmit www.domain.com for the full site? We are definately staying with the www.domain.com NOT domain.com so need to find the best way to get the site indexed with www. and remove the non www. Hope that makes sense and look forward to everyone's input.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK0 -
How to decide on which site to 301 redirect
Hi there I'd like your opinions please! My client currently has their website at not-very-good-url.it which has a really good link profile they also have duplicate sites at: much-better-brand-name-url.it and much-better-brand-name-url.com but both these other sites have only a handful of links in. How important do you think a better brand url is? And therefore do you think it would be better to 301 to a better brand URL and take the risk that the link profile will get hit? Or leave the main site where it is and 301 the other two to it? Many thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chammy0