Ranking in Google

[generalexperts]

I did a little research on my site and found that my product that was listed in www.mydomain.com/products/productname was reaching #3 in organic search results on google. When looking at all my other products that were under www.mydomain.com/categoryname/productname they were ranking #7 or worse.

 

If I go to Catalog ->Associations and check the box under 'associated products' and then select the 'default category' as Products rather than the categoryname it will rank higher. This seems like a double edge sword. Yes I can still specify the products that show up under the category of my choosing, but now the breadcrumbs and navigation of my website seem to become a little useless.

 

Any suggestions on this? I'd like to see my products rank higher without messing up my navigation of my site. Thanks!

 

One thing I can think of is the URL is smaller, ie ../products/product-name is a lot shorter than ../category-name-name/product-name.

[inweb]

I can confirm shorter URLs works generally better in Google - it reports our PS as well as OpenCart and ZenCart clients.

 

To change that breadcrumb behavior with built-in SEO rewriting you have to hack the Tools::getPath() method in classes/Tools.php file.

[generalexperts]

Thanks for the reply. So are you saying it would be possible to list the products under www.mydomain.com/products/productname and have the breadcrumbs still show Home->category->sub-category-->productname. Do you know how I could do that? I'm using PS 1.5.4.1.

[generalexperts]

Still looking for some help on this. Could you provide details on how to edit the classes/Tools.php file? Or is there a tutorial/forum where this has already been explained?

 

Thank you!

[inweb]

It would require a huge amount of coding, that's why I didn't provide the details.

[Trip]

Well I don't know if I fully understand the problem but under preferences/ SEO you can change the url pattern.

{category:/}{id}-{rewrite}{-:ean13}.html

to

 {id}-{rewrite}{-:ean13}.html

should work. Only drawback I think you have to see if the old urls are redirected.

Regards, Trip

[generalexperts]

I have the "Duplicate URL Redirect" Module installed, so I think that would work. If I did this option would I still have the breadcrumbs?

 

Currently

http://www.mydomain.com/category/(ID)-product.html

Breadcrumb Home -> Category --> Product

 

Change to

http://www.mydomain.com/(ID)-product.html

Breadcrumb Home ->Category (->Sub cat if applicable)-> Product

 

Right now if I change the Default category that controls the category in the URL, and the breadcrumb reads correct (showing Home categories and product). So yes I could now change this for all of them. Not sure if it will automatically rewrite yet, but my original question would be fixed. But if I went to Preferences->SEO and changed it, would I be able to get rid of the Default Category that is written in the URL? I hate to try this and mess everything up as it effects all of them.

 

Would it be as simple as changing {category:/}{id}-{rewrite}{-:ean13}.html to {id}-{rewrite}{-:ean13}.html? Then it would read http://www.mydomain.com/(ID)-product.html

 

Thanks for your help!

[Trip]

@general

Just try it out and see if the result is what you expected. If not, you can change that back in a second.

I would be very happy if you could share your experience because the topic is really interesting and without practical tests

hard to prove.From what I read some people thing with categories in the links is good and others thing it is bad but mostly they fear duplicate content which is not a real issue with prestashop imo.

From my observation the category pages are the most important ones as, from how I make sense of it, they have the most link juice and therefore are ranking before the product pages. If you find different results and could prove the problem is with the long urls than this is really interesting.

Looking forward for an interesting discussion. Maybe other people can share there experience too.

All the best, Trip