Google Sitemap (PS module) not exporting the correct URLs

[Oli4CH]

Hi there,

I am using the latest PS Google Sitmap module with PS v. 1.7.4.2 and so far it worked pretty well.
A few days ago I changed the option "redirect to the canonical url" to the option "301 moved permanently". (Configure > Shop Parameters > Traffic & SEO).
One day later I get heaps of URLs on Google Search Concole that are not found anymore.

The xml file is automatically generated every day.
The strange thing about it, it contains URLs that are not fully correct.
Example: this is the URL in the XML file https://merkado.ch/schweizer-lebensmittel/weine-spirituosen/20-kirsch-likoer-hof-marcht-hotzenhof.html
Opening this URL in the browser autom. redirects to https://merkado.ch/schweizer-lebensmittel/weine-spirituosen/20-26-kirsch-likoer-hof-marcht-hotzenhof.html which is the correct URL.

Why the heck is the Google Sitemap module not exporting the correct URL?
This behaviour explains the missing/not index URLs on Google Search Console.

Does anyone have an explanaition or even a solution? Did anyone experience the same issues?

Any help will be very much appreciated.

Cheers, Olivier

[JBW]

Hi Oliver,

Google Sitemap Module creates the link to the general product without attribute. When opening the link Prestashop redirects it to the default combination/attributes, thats why the link is changing - the attribute is included in the link. For me this seems to be correct behaviour - I'm more wondering why Google reports them as not found as they get correctly redirected in the browser.

[Oli4CH]

Thanks a lot @JBW for your feedback.
Alright, I understand. You're right, the URL gets properly redirected in the browser.
So in that case the XML export might be correct.

Then the question is why is Google handling that XML sitemap by not indexing it.

Do you think it could be connected while changing the setting of "redirect to the canonical url" ?
The change was made on 26th Feb in the evening. 27th Feb appears a massive increase of excluded URLs.

Maybe you or someone else can see something on those screens.

 

Just an example of one URL:

 

When I use the button "live testing" on the Search Console the product is found.
There are also found quite some errors. I have some doubts that this might be conected to the robots.txt file as there quite a lot of folders and files are disallowed for crawling. I haven't change it so I am using the standard Prestashop robots.txt file.

[JBW]

What is shown it the error section "Products"? Coverage and Availablity is ticked green, so why do you think there are issues?

[Oli4CH]

The point is that from one day to the other the excluded URLs went up from only 2 to 85, which is extremely bad for my visibility on Google.
It happend just after I have changed the the setting of "redirect to the canonical url" in Prestashop.
This might be just a coincidence but I do not believe that.

I just checked the XML in one of my backups befire the 27th Feb and the URLs in the XML look the same.
This means to me that the Google Sitemap module works well.

Mostly there are only warnings so that shoudln't cause these kind of issues I suppose...

 

I do not understand the two mentioned errors as there is no rating for the product.
However, all the other excluded URLs (products) do only have warnings...

 

So do you think the other errors from the last screen of my previous post are not causing any issues?