Jump to content
  • Checkout
  • Login
  • Get in touch

osCommerce

The e-commerce.

product reviews google indexing


douglaswalker

Recommended Posts

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

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

"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

 

(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

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

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

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

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

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

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...