prestashop 1.5 and 1.6 seems to have fundamental SEO issues on home page

[dynamics]

Hello

 

Since Previus August we have installed many prestashop websites on version 1.5 and one on 1.6 and we see that all of them the home page does not display correctly on google results

 

i can prove what i say with original prestashop demo site as well

 

The problem is that Instead to see the MetaDescription we see other irelevant results

 

We have correclty entered the meta Description in Admin Panel / preferences / SEO entry index.php page and we see it correctly on page's source code. But Google likes better to display block-cart 0 quantity zero value as meta description of each site

 

I found that tha same happens with prestashop 1.6 demo site

 

http://fo.demo.prestashop.com

 

if you search on google.com for  fo.demo.prestashop.com  ( this is anyone do search for a given domain name) then you will see irelevnat results if MetaDescription Given to the source code the description should be Shop powered by PrestaShop as the source code is <meta name="description" content="Shop powered by PrestaShop" />

 

The more strange is that here the first result is as follows

-----
    PrestaShop
    fo.demo.prestashop.com

EXCEPTEUR OCCAECAT. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Proin tristique in tortor et dignissim. Quisque non tempor leo. Maecenas ...

------

 

now if you search the page for the above meta description then you will not find any such text into the page

 

 

I would appreciate any explanation and help on how to solve this issue as it seems to be a fundamental issue of the prestashop template system and not a specific website or specific template issue.

 

All the Best

Dynamics

 

[karolwild]

 

But Google likes better to display block-cart 0 quantity zero value as meta description of each site

 

 

Error reported Bug Tracker

http://forge.prestashop.com/browse/PSCSX-713

We are waiting for repair.

Vote for this issue

 

Google chooses words in MetaDescription

In this case, Google shows a first marker on h2

EXCEPTEUR

OCCAECAT

index.php Meta Description and Text h2 can change.

[dynamics]

Error reported Bug Tracker

http://forge.prestashop.com/browse/PSCSX-713

We are waiting for repair.

Vote for this issue

 

Google chooses words in MetaDescription

In this case, Google shows a first marker on h2

EXCEPTEUR

OCCAECAT

index.php Meta Description and Text h2 can change.

 

Hi

 

it is not always because of the h2

 

i have installations without h2 on block cart... and google display it as "Shopping Cart 0 Item ... Add to cart"

 

It seems that the generic template framework should be seen carefully

 

and it happens to version 1.5.x too

Edited July 24, 2014 by dynamics (see edit history)

[karolwild]

You're right.
H2 is not the main problem
H2 is a secondary issue.
block cart h2 only creates unnecessary confusion.
The contents of the site can be mistakenly classified by Google.
The main problem
This is like there is no other text on the page.
Add text and your main problem goes away.
You can use the modules> Editorial

[dynamics]

Thank you karolwild

 

This approach seems to make sence. I came from joomla world where this was never was an issue. Of course fewer features on cart scripts but seo was great.

 

i will test your approach and i will post the results..

 

most of my themes do not have a welcome message on home page and they just have sliders and features or special offers or products from specific categories

do you believe that the editorial should go to a specific area or even is good to have a 2 line paragraph in footer common to all the pages ?

 

it is still strange that the default prestashop demo on http://fo.demo.prestashop.com/en/ it is is searched on goolge it gives wrong results too even it has text on right down titled as custom blog.

[karolwild]

I would have done each page separately.
In line with the theme of each page.
Demo is not optimized.
This is just an example.

[SiteWalls.com]

Mine is fine with SEO, just the page speed may be a little bit slow, but with cloudflare, its not a problem anymore.

[dynamics]

I would have done each page separately.

In line with the theme of each page.

Demo is not optimized.

This is just an example.

 

thanks karolwild

 

what do you mean by saying "In line with the theme of each page."   ? do you suggest to have it on top immediately after sliders or even on footer ?

 

so it seems that we should pay for a seo module to make any prestashop theme to have coreect meta description results ?

i suppose that these modules offer more features and the theme framework should give at least correct meta description results.

 

how can we forward this to official developer team? it seems that the demo theme which is the base for many other theme designers should be optimized for google results inline to the meta description we add into the prestashop administration

[karolwild]

If the site is about dogs
Description doing about dogs
Description in the footer would not recommend.

[dynamics]

Hi

 

all the rest part except the home page is okay.

google utilizes the prestashop backend's meta data

 

on the home page whatever if i do, google gets other description than the programmed in backend  > preferences > urls seo > index

 

i tried also to add the modules> Editorial  and i added there the relevant description and via google webmastertools i asked to re-crawl all the pages but after so many days the result is still same. Google returns the name of the website and the area of the block cart with zero products and zero amound of money... insted to have a crear title and meta description,

Exactly the same happens if i search for my category pages.. again the cart block on google insted of the entered metadata

 

My theme designer says that they follow the prestashop default theme so you can understand that if the default theme is problematic then all the prestashop project will result negative as the seo is a very critical factor in e-business

 

pls let me know how to raise this as a generic bug to the developers team

[Dh42]

I am going to chime in on this one. There is nothing wrong with Prestashop that makes it not show the meta description in the SERP's. The issue is with your on page content and google tailoring the search results. Google has ignored meta descriptions for almost 4 years now. They use them when they feel like using them and use more relevant on page content for the other results. Check out this article, http://moz.com/blog/why-wont-google-use-my-meta-description

[dynamics]

Hello

 

I think that as prestashop themes are based to smarty framework then developers should look at this direction for a solution and i am sure if we see the default theme to get proper results then all rest theme creators will build seo friendly themes. Else i am afraid that clients will blame  prestashop and we shall lose clients going to other platforms...

 

before to post here i always post tickets to my theme providers but the response from all is that they are designers and follow the default prestashop theme and just add design elements.

 

All these last 4 years we build a lot of joomla and virtuemarts and we never saw such an issue. On prestashop all our websites if you go and search the domain name return very bad results with random text most times from the block cart area etc...

 

I cannot find a relevant post to show you but i remember i had found some articles saying that it matters on how you build your divs in a theme and via this way google as well reads the data of the website. So i suppose it is mainly issue on how to build the theme divs or something like that

 

I think that the developers should get the chalenge to make the default theme able to display the correct meta when we search directly to the root home page address in google, even if they have to add specific text somewhere to the theme then all of us will convince clients to use this module or area as a wellcome text which would empower their search results

 

we are so happy with the rest features of prestashop but this is a big negative point and gives wrong perseption to our clients. As you know all people instead to go and enter the webaddress directly to the address bar they go and type the domain in to the google search area so at the end they see funny results and serius website owners demand to have there the correct meta-description slogan

 

All the Best

[dynamics]

pls at least is there any way to raise this to the default theme developers ?

how can i get this post to their attenstion?

[El Patron]

pls at least is there any way to raise this to the default theme developers ?

how can i get this post to their attenstion?

 

hi, to bring to attention of ps developers

 

open a bug/feature you choose on forge

forge.prestashop.com

 

then please post link back here for others to follow/comment/vote up

[Dh42]

There is nothing wrong with the theme, Google does not display meta data if they want, did you read my link above? 

[4saleusa]

anybody fixed that ?