douglaswalker Posted December 8, 2018 Share Posted December 8, 2018 Hi there, I have noticed in Webmaster tools that most of my product_reviews (over 1000) have been de-indexed by google as google is recognizing product_reviews.php as the canonical tag. Therefore for example: product_reviews.php?products_id=43 with all the review information is now not indexed and product_reviews.php is in its place. How can i get google to see that product_reviews.php?products_id=43 is a legitimate page with useful information on it. All help appreciated Doug☺️ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
douglaswalker Posted December 8, 2018 Author Share Posted December 8, 2018 A little update I worked out how to give the reviewed product its own title so on the product_reviews.php page I now have as the title Review | Name of Product The name of the product is the same as the name on the product_info page with Review added... Do you think this is a good idea? or is it to similar to the product title on the product_info page. Ideally i would like to have the one of the reviews in the product description for the page but i need to work out how to do that. I use header tags reloaded addon Should the page also carry a rel - canonical Doug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hotclutch Posted December 8, 2018 Share Posted December 8, 2018 "my product_reviews (over 1000) have been de-indexed by google as google is recognizing product_reviews.php as the canonical tag." This is not possible, unless you are (unintentionally) specifying the canonical as such. Even if you specified the canonical as such, Google nowadays has its' own idea of what the canonical URL should be. You can confirm this now with the new URL INSPECTION TOOL in the new webmaster interface. Typically, Google will see a product review page as a soft 404 - if there is no actual review - and then proceed to drop that URL from the index. Unless you can do some coding, I would recommend not using a canonical tag. The stock osCommerce one is a mess, and should not be used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
douglaswalker Posted December 8, 2018 Author Share Posted December 8, 2018 (sorry in my above post I said product_reviews Was The canonical I meant reviews. php ) . I have the info from the new tool You mention.... Google itself has recognised reviews.php as the canonical for product_reviews.php. I don't specify a caniconal tag Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hotclutch Posted December 9, 2018 Share Posted December 9, 2018 I find that very strange, and if true can only be due to something in your script causing it. Google selecting reviews.php as the canonical for more than a thousand of your individual product review pages? Does not sound logical, and i have never seen that before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
douglaswalker Posted December 9, 2018 Author Share Posted December 9, 2018 I have done a bit more digging The reviews are still indexed but there is now a reporting difference apparently to do with mobile indexing. looks like they are not there but they are (go figure) The canonical products I was seeing were discontinued products which were rightly redirected to reviews.php or should they really be 404's I would still like opinions on making the review title tags unique as in Review | Product Name at the moment they all have the same generic tag. also would i be right in thinking that a canonical tag to sort out the review urls would be good eg on the https://www.site.com.au/product_reviews.php?products_id=43 page I should have the canonical tag <link rel="canonical" href="https://www.site.com.au/product_reviews.php?products_id=551" /> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hotclutch Posted December 9, 2018 Share Posted December 9, 2018 It's normal for google to de-index product review URLs for the reason i gave above. Once the review page becomes populated with reviews this changes and google will then index the page(s) again. If you are going to have a canonical tag then this <link rel="canonical" href="https://www.site.com.au/product_reviews.php?products_id=551" /> is the correct tag to place. You should also bear in mind the page parameter. If you have many reviews for the same product causing pagination then the page parameter should be included in the canonical tag. As far as title tags for reviews are concerned, yes those should be unique. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
douglaswalker Posted December 10, 2018 Author Share Posted December 10, 2018 Thank you I have implemented all those things on the reviews pages Unique title ✔️ <link rel="canonical" href="https://www.site.co m.au/product_reviews.php?products_id=the id" /> ✔️ Unique description ✔️ I did this by modifying the product_ title header tags contribution (gburton) I have in my shop and the canonical tag which is standard in BS shops. If anyone is interested I can share the code.. but i have quite a modified shop so it may be different from yours Doug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cupidare Posted December 13, 2018 Share Posted December 13, 2018 It seems that that this module has no support for page=XX in some pages (such as products_new.php or similar)... this worked for me (also for my other pages, with "page" such as my testimonials page) : case 'products_new.php': if (isset($_GET['page']) && tep_not_null($_GET['page'])) { $oscTemplate->addBlock('<link rel="canonical" href="' . tep_href_link($PHP_SELF, 'page=' . (int)$_GET['page'], 'NONSSL', false) . '" />' . PHP_EOL, $this->group); } else { $oscTemplate->addBlock('<link rel="canonical" href="' . tep_href_link($PHP_SELF, null, 'NONSSL', false) . '" />' . PHP_EOL, $this->group); } break; and the canonical link shows to the correct page (at least in my understanding) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
douglaswalker Posted December 14, 2018 Author Share Posted December 14, 2018 @cupidare hi there what file do you have this in... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cupidare Posted December 14, 2018 Share Posted December 14, 2018 These changes were applied to ht_canonical.php in includes/modules/header_tags ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
douglaswalker Posted December 14, 2018 Author Share Posted December 14, 2018 ahh yes of course thank-you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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