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Duplicated Meta Descriptions in Webmaster Tools

jmcamps
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jmcamps Newbie

jmcamps

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Hello,

 

I have plenty of duplicated Metadescriptions in Webmaster Tools. I have the Automatic URL Canonical Redirect active in SEO menu and I have too a module installed that suppose to do the same "Canonical SEO".

 

If I click to all the URL of these duplicated Meta Descriptions, all of them are redirecting to the correct URL.

 

In order to tell Google to eliminate all this duplicated Meta Descriptions, is there any automatic way to do it or, will Google remove them in the futura (I have arround 1600).

 

If not, which is the best way, set one by one in the htaccess or in the robots.txt?

 

Is there any module to autome all this?

 

Thanks

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jmcamps Newbie

jmcamps

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Thanks shacker,

 

One last question, have you got attributes set in your products?

 

I am asking this because Google is indexing too que URLS that Prestashop is generating with a # at the and and before the attribute. This generates too duplicated metadescriptions.

 

Is something that the module of presto changeo solves?

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clayton29657 Newbie

clayton29657

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I can confirm this issue is still a problem in 1.4.9 not sure where you got 1.4.9.1 unless they are about to release a new version so I am not sure about that part. I am working on fixing my duplicates as we speak and I will be purchasing the 301 redirect module from presto changeo and hopefully this will get resolved. I was shocked to see how the duplication issue is in the shop when I know for a fact no duplicate names were used in the meta section on all my pages.

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jmcamps Newbie

jmcamps

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Hi all,

 

I will dig down exacly where the problems resides, Benjamin or someone else, please confirm me the following I will say:

 

I have found 2 Meta duplication problems in 1.5.3.1 Prestashop installation, a production one and a brand new installation, both have the same problems:

 

1 - Solved. Webmaster Tools was seen as duplicates the Meta Tags (title & description) generated by the categories pagination. Pages 2, 3,4,.... are seen in Gogle as URL+?p=(number of page). This provokes for Google different URLs with same Meta Tags. YOu can check that this is true if you use any tools, like Screaming Frog, that shows exacly the same Meata Tags for all the pagination URLs. To solve this I have changed the tpl file to add the number of the page after the Meta Tags.

 

2- Not solved. When you have attributes in a product, Prestashop, I think that is the javascript, is adding at the end of the product URL and, after the .html this (#/attibute), for example, in my case that I am selling shoes, if I select the blue color, Prestashop is adding (#/colores-azul).

I throught at the beginning that this kind of code was not indexable by Google, but yes it is, I think Google is able to read this simple code generated by javascript.

OK, what happens is exacly the same that in point 1, Google is interpreting this URLs as different ones but is sharing for them the same Meta Tags, those are the Meta Titel & Meta Description set in the product page.

 

I see here two options, the first one and best will be to see, as I guess that this kind of code is not returned to the server, if there is any possibility to modify the .js, .tpl or whatever to see if the attributes, in my case sizes and colors, can be added at the end of the Meta Tags, this will create for Google a rich new content and will avoid Google to see duplications. The second one is to use robots.txt or another SEO module to restrict the sending of (#/attibute) to Google, this will remove the duplications but we will lost plenty of indexing.

 

Any of you knows how to solve this in therms of posting the necessary code and tell in which files this code must be placed?

 

If you want to see all this, you can connect to my site http://www.marlosonline.es and please select any shoes that have attributes, press over any size or color and you will see the # that is included in the URL, then use, as I said Screaming Frog or Firefox SEO Doctor pluggin to check the Metas, you will see the same Metas for any of this # new created pages.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Waiting for your comments.

 

Kind regards.

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Bill Dalton Enthusiast

Bill Dalton

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I checked Google and your site is looking very clean, and none of the # anchor tags are being indexed.

 

The engines ignore anything after the hash (the pound sign). The engines view the hash symbol as an anchor in html, which is a way to jump users to additional content within the same page. So, if anything after the hash symbol is ignored by the engines, and that’s how you are loading additional content, then that content might as well not exist SEO-wise. Running a simple site: command on your website ...

 

Google site:marlosonline.es

 

https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Amarlosonline.es&oq=site%3Amarlosonline.es&aqs=chrome.0.57j58.32175&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

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clayton29657 Newbie

clayton29657

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Hi all,

 

I will dig down exacly where the problems resides, Benjamin or someone else, please confirm me the following I will say:

 

I have found 2 Meta duplication problems in 1.5.3.1 Prestashop installation, a production one and a brand new installation, both have the same problems:

 

1 - Solved. Webmaster Tools was seen as duplicates the Meta Tags (title & description) generated by the categories pagination. Pages 2, 3,4,.... are seen in Gogle as URL+?p=(number of page). This provokes for Google different URLs with same Meta Tags. YOu can check that this is true if you use any tools, like Screaming Frog, that shows exacly the same Meata Tags for all the pagination URLs. To solve this I have changed the tpl file to add the number of the page after the Meta Tags.

 

2- Not solved. When you have attributes in a product, Prestashop, I think that is the javascript, is adding at the end of the product URL and, after the .html this (#/attibute), for example, in my case that I am selling shoes, if I select the blue color, Prestashop is adding (#/colores-azul).

I throught at the beginning that this kind of code was not indexable by Google, but yes it is, I think Google is able to read this simple code generated by javascript.

OK, what happens is exacly the same that in point 1, Google is interpreting this URLs as different ones but is sharing for them the same Meta Tags, those are the Meta Titel & Meta Description set in the product page.

 

I see here two options, the first one and best will be to see, as I guess that this kind of code is not returned to the server, if there is any possibility to modify the .js, .tpl or whatever to see if the attributes, in my case sizes and colors, can be added at the end of the Meta Tags, this will create for Google a rich new content and will avoid Google to see duplications. The second one is to use robots.txt or another SEO module to restrict the sending of (#/attibute) to Google, this will remove the duplications but we will lost plenty of indexing.

 

Any of you knows how to solve this in therms of posting the necessary code and tell in which files this code must be placed?

 

If you want to see all this, you can connect to my site http://www.marlosonline.es and please select any shoes that have attributes, press over any size or color and you will see the # that is included in the URL, then use, as I said Screaming Frog or Firefox SEO Doctor pluggin to check the Metas, you will see the same Metas for any of this # new created pages.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Waiting for your comments.

 

Kind regards.

 

Hello jcamps what exactly did you add or what you added to the tpl file because I am also having this issue with duplicate meta titles showing by the number f pages per category? I am using 1.4.9

Edited by clayton29657 (see edit history)
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jmcamps Newbie

jmcamps

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Hi all,

 

Sorry about my delay in the answering, I´ve been busy this morning here in Barcelona.

 

I will try to answering to all.

 

First, Bill thanks for your comments. I know that now there are not any of the # anchor tags indexed in Google Webmaster but I promise I had seen them last week. Maybe is because I brought too last week the "Canonical SEO" module and in doing something. I knew too that engines must ignore what is behind a # symbol as, is not a new URL for them. Anyway Bill, thanks again and I will keep you informed.

 

Second and answering to clayton.

 

To solve the meta tags duplicated as problem pagination, what you can try, in order to tell Prestashop to add the page number in the metas, is the following:

 

1- Check if you have a "Tools.php" file in the folder "override/classes/ if you have it add the following code, if not, create it and place it there:

 

<?php

 

class Tools extends ToolsCore {

 

// You have to add the following code

public static function getHomeMetaTags($id_lang, $page_name)

{

/* Metas-tags */

$metas = Meta::getMetaByPage($page_name, $id_lang);

$page_number = (int)self::getValue('p');

$ret['meta_title'] = (isset($metas['title']) AND $metas['title']) ? $metas['title'].(!empty($page_number) ? ' ('.$page_number.')' : '').' - '.Configuration::get('PS_SHOP_NAME') : Configuration::get('PS_SHOP_NAME');

$ret['meta_description'] = (isset($metas['description']) AND $metas['description']) ? $metas['description'] : '';

$ret['meta_keywords'] = (isset($metas['keywords']) AND $metas['keywords']) ? $metas['keywords'] : '';

return $ret;

}

// Finish here

 

2- Open the header.tpl placed in your theme folder and modify the original lines to this code:

 

 

{if isset($meta_description) AND $meta_description}

<meta name="description" content="{$meta_description|escape:html:'UTF-8'}{if isset($smarty.get.p) && $smarty.get.p} ({$smarty.get.p}){/if}" />

{/if}

 

Hope this helps.

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Bill Dalton Enthusiast

Bill Dalton

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If we can agree that the # anchor is not a problem. I agree that you have a problem with duplicate meta tags caused by page pagination.

 

It may be argued that these pages do you little good and actually drag down your possible search engine rank. If you follow that logic then the solution becomes how to make all of those pages one. Because they really are just one.

 

1. You could instruct the engines to only index the the first page VIA your robots.txt file.

2. You could detect the search engine bot and give it the ALL Product page view so that the bot gets one big page.

 

But I'm still wondering about actual duplicate pages be generated by PS and if presto-changeo.com duplicate url redirect is still needed. I'd love to see examples of PS and duplicate urls.

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clayton29657 Newbie

clayton29657

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Hey jmcamps,

 

thank you very much for your help as all of the duplicate issues are now resolved. I wish I understood why this is happening in the 1st place. It should cover the category itself not the whole category and by each page.lol well, i am just happy that is resolved because there was around 350 in my webmaster but now fixed

 

thank you

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jmcamps Newbie

jmcamps

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Thanks to all of you, Bill & Clayton.

 

I let all know how is my issue going on, I think we have to all wait a whilw as Google crawling sometime is slow and takes time to fix all the duplication stuff.

 

We keep in touch.

 

Kind regards.

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wonderland-wigs Newbie

wonderland-wigs

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Hi all,

 

We are having this same problem and would really appreciate some help.

Duplicate meta descriptions are pulling in 1132 please look like the examples this below

 

Curly wigs, range of styles and lengths, your curly wig dispatched same day, good quality curly wigs

/en/26-curly-wigs

/en/26-curly-wigs?p=2

/en/26-curly-wigs?p=3

/en/26-curly-wigs?p=4

/en/26-curly-wigs?p=5

 

Unser Sortiment an Perücken kommen in allen Farben und Stilen, und wir sind stolz darauf, eine Viel

/de/35-wunderland-perucken

/de/35-wunderland-perucken?&p=12

/de/35-wunderland-perucken?p=10

/de/35-wunderland-perucken?p=11

/de/35-wunderland-perucken?p=14

/de/35-wunderland-perucken?p=2

/de/35-wunderland-perucken?p=3

/de/35-wunderland-perucken?p=6

/de/35-wunderland-perucken?p=7

/de/35-wunderland-perucken?p=8

 

Our developer has added p= and &=p to the robot txt and it did not fix it http://www.wonderlan....com/robots.txt

Help and advice would be appreciated

 

prestashop build 1.4.9

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caygri Newbie

caygri

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Hi all,

 

Sorry about my delay in the answering, I´ve been busy this morning here in Barcelona.

 

I will try to answering to all.

 

First, Bill thanks for your comments. I know that now there are not any of the # anchor tags indexed in Google Webmaster but I promise I had seen them last week. Maybe is because I brought too last week the "Canonical SEO" module and in doing something. I knew too that engines must ignore what is behind a # symbol as, is not a new URL for them. Anyway Bill, thanks again and I will keep you informed.

 

Second and answering to clayton.

 

To solve the meta tags duplicated as problem pagination, what you can try, in order to tell Prestashop to add the page number in the metas, is the following:

 

1- Check if you have a "Tools.php" file in the folder "override/classes/ if you have it add the following code, if not, create it and place it there:

 

<?php

 

class Tools extends ToolsCore {

 

// You have to add the following code

public static function getHomeMetaTags($id_lang, $page_name)

{

/* Metas-tags */

$metas = Meta::getMetaByPage($page_name, $id_lang);

$page_number = (int)self::getValue('p');

$ret['meta_title'] = (isset($metas['title']) AND $metas['title']) ? $metas['title'].(!empty($page_number) ? ' ('.$page_number.')' : '').' - '.Configuration::get('PS_SHOP_NAME') : Configuration::get('PS_SHOP_NAME');

$ret['meta_description'] = (isset($metas['description']) AND $metas['description']) ? $metas['description'] : '';

$ret['meta_keywords'] = (isset($metas['keywords']) AND $metas['keywords']) ? $metas['keywords'] : '';

return $ret;

}

// Finish here

 

2- Open the header.tpl placed in your theme folder and modify the original lines to this code:

 

 

{if isset($meta_description) AND $meta_description}

<meta name="description" content="{$meta_description|escape:html:'UTF-8'}{if isset($smarty.get.p) && $smarty.get.p} ({$smarty.get.p}){/if}" />

{/if}

 

Hope this helps.

 

I follow this tutorial but any change happen..

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Pietro Mantovani Newbie

Pietro Mantovani

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1. You could instruct the engines to only index the the first page VIA your robots.txt file.

2. You could detect the search engine bot and give it the ALL Product page view so that the bot gets one big page.

Excuse me, I have the same issue, could you please tell me how to do this in Robot.txt?

 Thank you very much for your reply

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patrmich Newbie

patrmich

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Posted

Thank you jmcamps for your solution to avoid duplicated meta description tag. Your method works well for me.

My shop is built with Prestashop 1.5.6.2.

I still have a problem of duplicate meta title tag for the following pages :
myshop.com/new-products
myshop.com/best-sellers

I use the following module :
blockbestsellers, developed by Prestashop, Version 1.2

Would you know how to add an index at the end of the meta title tag of each of the following page :

myshop.com/new-products?p=2
myshop.com/new-products?p=3
and so on,..

myshop.com/best-sellers?p=2
myshop.com/best-sellers?p=3
and so on,..

The goal would be to have the following related meta tags :

<title>New products on myshop (2)</title>
<title>New products on myshop (3)</title>

<title>Best sellers on myshop (2)</title>
<title>Best sellers on myshop (3)</title>


I thank you in advance for any help in this  matter.

Patrick

 

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