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osCommerce

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Header Tags SEO


Jack_mcs

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Hi Heather. The code for that is in the index,php file. There are two places: one for the category listing section and one for category products section. There is an included file you can use to compare to yours with a compare program, like Winmerge.

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@@Jack_mcs Thanks Jack - sorted it now that I knew where to look - it was conflicting with some other code that I have now moved - all is good.

 

All I need to work out now is how to get rid of the default heading before the categories name on category pages....

 

Many Thanks

Now running on a fully modded, Mobile Friendly 2.3.4 Store with the Excellent MTS installed - See my profile for the mods installed ..... So much thanks for all the help given along the way by forum members.

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If you mean the default title in this addon, it should only show up if you have the default title checkbox checked in Page Control for index.php. In almost all cases, the default checkboxes should not be checked for a page.

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Hi Jack, I've just had a store setup on a new domain of the latest version and they've installed this addon, unfortunately I have no experience with it. On my product pages on older versions of oscommerce, I've always had the page title be in this order:

 

Item Name > Category > Store Name/Title

 

I would like to do the same but I can't work out how to do it with this addon, can you enlighten me please?

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@@Sam-AUST That's controlled in Page Control for product_info.php.  The "item name" is the product name, or the override name if you have that set in the product edit page, so be sure the product checkbox is checked. For the category, check the Category checkbox. For the "Store Name/Title" enter that in the boxes above the checkboxes and then check the root checkbox. The order is controlled by the sort order setting by each checkbox.

 

But it is important to note that including the store name is almost always a mistake. You only want to use text people will search for and having the store name usually just dilutes the effectiveness of the other two. Also, google now limits the length of the title to around 55 characters so having the other items added to the product title may be a waste of time or even hurt the SEO of the page.

 

I'm curious about your installation. In Page Control are there buttons in the header for help and hosting? I ask because I've ran across a number of sites where someone installed this addon but they skipped some parts to make it appear it was their work. It doesn't matter to me - I actually find it amusing - but it is a curiosity. The sites I found this on had quite a bit disabled to accomplish this so some of the benefits of it were lost.

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Hi, they didn't do that no, it had your details but I'm sorry to say in my frustration yesterday I asked them to remove the addon, it's just not something I'm used to after using standard oscommerce for 11 or so years. Unfortunately they removed parts of the addon and now I have no page titles at all, they did not replace the code with the old code and my site is pretty much stuffed, what a nightmare.

 

When I set up my original site I had all the time in the world to deal with this, but now I have an active business and have to deal with our sales/customers/everything so I'm not handling dealing with the new site very well.

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Whoever installed it should know to create a backup. If they didn't do that then you may want to think twice about having them work on your site in the future. The addon comes with installation instructions so as long as the code they replaced had not been altered by something else, the instructions can just be followed in reverse to restore it.

 

But I'm not sure what you mean by "standard oscommerce" because no version of oscommerce before the BS version, and maybe one of the 2.3 versions, came with meta tag capability. So unless you had some other meta tag addon installed, there was no good way to help with the SEO of your site. You are better advised to fix this installation that removing it but I know how frustration can cause decisions like that to be made.

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Sorry, it's just that my titles in the existing site I have worked like this:

<title><?php echo $product_title['products_name']; ?> : <?php echo $categories['categories_name']; ?> : <?php echo TITLE; ?></title>

And that has worked really well for me (along with my page content). This new site is the latest BS version (never used it before) and I really would like it to work the same way as it's been just fine for me. I'm currently waiting for their timezone to wake up so I can discuss with them but right now I have no titles other than the site name on every single page (which is useless).

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That is a quick method used by many older shops to get a web browser title on the page. It is about as minimum an SEO change one can make, though it is better than nothing. But if you are using the latest BS version, it has some SEO things built-in. It is not as powerful as this addon but it sounds like it might work for you. Once your site is working again, if you can't figure out the usage of the built-in things, as in the general forum. There's not a support thread for the BS version, as far as I know.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi,

 

After recently installing version 3.3.3 I am having a problem with the default description tag. The content that I entered into the Page Control / Default Tags fields, displays in those field on that page and, I checked to make sure that it is in the database as well. However, the description tag has no content on site pages. I'm wondering if anyone else is having this issue or if I may have missed something. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Here is my info:

- MS2.2
- I had the Header Tags Controller addon, which was a good addon, but started to have problems and chose to uninstall it (instead of installing an updated version).
- STS System
- I did the Header Tags SEO Fill Tags, where I checked each of the Fill All Tags options and clicked the Update button.
- I ran a Header Tags SEO Test on the index.php page and it came back with errors: 302 for title tag, and description and keyword tags were both marked red as a problem. However, the actual index.php page displays these tags and I read that my STS may be causing these false positive errors. The problem is not with the index.php page but with the default tags description content. So, when you go to any page that should have default tags, the description tag is missing its content.

Please let me know how to fix this issue or if there is any other information I can provide. Thanks.

 

Demitry

PS: there is a minor syntax error in /admin/header_tags_seo.php at the end of line 758, there is an extra single quote. Also line 759 should be combined with 758.

osCommerce: made for programmers, ...because store owners do not want to be programmers.

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@@Demitry I no longer have a test shop setup with STS so I can't check thist. To be clear, the default tags only work for pages that are not in the dropdown list in Page Control or for pages that are listed and have the default check boxes checked. In the case of the latter, please be sure you have the Default Description checkbox checked. But I'm not sure the default tags will work as intended with an STS shop without additional changes than what is in the instructions. All I can say is that the default tag should work with STS but I've no way to check it. I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you.

 

Thank you for pointing out the extra apostrophe. It does appear to be incorrect.

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Hi Jack,

Thank you for the reply. Am I wrong to assume that the Default Tags, which are filled out on the right side of the Page Control page are for all pages that have the header tags code but have not been changed via that dropdown options menu? I made this assumption because the title, keywords, and logo text tags in that Default Tags section, all display properly on every page of my site where I have not personalized those tags. The only tag that does not display is the default Description tag.

I don't think that the STS template set-up would cause this issue. I used the same STS code set-up as for the prior Header Tags Controller contribution. All it does is basically call to the includes/header_tags.php file for each template. Please see attached screenshots.

I looked at the code for this Description tag in /admin/header_tags_seo.php and in /includes/header_tags.php and the $defaultTags['default_description'] seems to be correct. Plus, the Default Tags Description text was saved in the database for that Headertags_Default table. Could you take a look at the attached screenshots and see if there is anything you think may be off? Any thoughts? Thanks.

Demitry

post-19108-0-19905900-1450226317_thumb.jpg

post-19108-0-78736000-1450226330_thumb.png

post-19108-0-03069300-1450226349_thumb.png

osCommerce: made for programmers, ...because store owners do not want to be programmers.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&amp;geo=US&amp;q=oscommerce

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Yes, the default tags will be used if a page isn't setup to use its own. You could try turning STS off for a quick test to see if the tags show up on the shop. If they do, then the problem is with how STS is setup.  

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yeah, I turned off the STS system and the Description tag was still missing its text contents. So, it is not the STS system, ..has anyone else had a problem with this?

osCommerce: made for programmers, ...because store owners do not want to be programmers.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&amp;geo=US&amp;q=oscommerce

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I ran the on-page error reporting and it came back with this (see attached screenshot) in /includes/functions/header_tags.php, but undefined indexes would not cause the default description tag to not show up.

post-19108-0-01415900-1450238973_thumb.png

Edited by Demitry

osCommerce: made for programmers, ...because store owners do not want to be programmers.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&amp;geo=US&amp;q=oscommerce

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When you turn STS off, the code uses the normal file for whatever page is being viewed so you need to make sure the header tags code is in the head section of that page. Also, in the page that is failing, you can place the code below the head section, turn STS off and refresh the page. It will show all of the data that header tags finds for that page. If the description isn't there then there is something wrong the basic installation.

?> <pre> <?php
print_r($header_tags_array);
?> </pre> <?php

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Jack,

 

Thank you for that troubleshooting tip. I ran the code with the STS template system turned off and it does display the description however, the meta tag does not. So, it means that I installed this add-on correctly and that the STS is not affecting it, right?

 

I went over the install instructions several times. Seems like this issue is somewhere where the default description tag is retrieved from the database to be displayed. I'm thinking either /includes/header_tags.php or /includes/functions/header_tags.php

 

Demitry

 

 

post-19108-0-86553000-1450310074_thumb.png

osCommerce: made for programmers, ...because store owners do not want to be programmers.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&amp;geo=US&amp;q=oscommerce

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Yes, that is what it means. But I can't help you any more than that since, as mentioned, I don't have an STS test shop set up here. All I can suggest is to look at where the STS header tag line is declared. Maybe you have to change it to include the description.

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ok Jack, thanks again for all your help in troubleshooting this issue. I'll try to dig deeper and see what it can be. Great contribution regardless! Thanks.

 

Demitry

osCommerce: made for programmers, ...because store owners do not want to be programmers.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&amp;geo=US&amp;q=oscommerce

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Hey Jack,

 

I'm sorry to bother you again, there are a few issues with the social icons page in admin section (/admin/header_tags_seo_social.php). I've been testing it and came across some problems.

 

1) when you click an icon to uncheck that social media icon, it gets permanently delted from the database and you cannot add it back (unless you insert it back into the database).

2) when you add/edit/delete the link to that icon in the input field below the image icons, it does not update, though it will delete permanently

3) the two Twitter Card entry options are being saved to the database but not displayed as meta tags in the source code. Those meta tags are not displayted at all.

 

I've been testing these along with the prior issue we spoke about on my mobile site, which does not use STS templates. It is a separate set of duplicate site files used for mobile devices. The admin section is not mobile friendly and does not use STS templates.

 

If you do not experience these issues in a regular MS2.2 shop then this is likely not an issue to be concerned about. However, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

Demitry

osCommerce: made for programmers, ...because store owners do not want to be programmers.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&amp;geo=US&amp;q=oscommerce

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I don't see the problems you are describing. When you click on an icon, the check mark should appear or disappear but nothing is changed until save is clicked. So if it gets deleted when you click on it, something is wrong with your installation.

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