Header Tags SEO

[blr044]

Have no reason why , but the character count is not consistent in the column_box in left column. When displaying products, the characters range 6 to 101 - ex:

 

Sorry to post again, but have been looking around for reason why the description in the column_box in left column varies so much. Here is just four of the descriptions: I hope you understand what I am trying to say below.

 

collectibles -> Lady in chair: (...see more) = zero characters

electronics -> home/office: K(...see more) = 1 character

auto -> GPS: (...see more) = zero characters

outdoor living -> picnic: = (...see more) = zero characters

water fountain -> tabletop: = Stone-look fountain is a fitting symbol of the source from which all blessing (...see more) = 78 characters

 

Did find in includes/boxes/header_tags.php on line 36 this:

 

  $info_box_contents[] = array('text' => strip_tags(substr($product_info['products_description'], 0, 100)).'<a style="color: red;" href="' . tep_href_link(FILENAME_PRODUCT_INFO, 'products_id=' . (int)$_GET['products_id']).'"  >  (...' . TEXT_SEE_MORE . ')</a>');

 

But I changed 100 to 80. But I view the source code the info matches what I have in categories/products in admin. I did recheck installation, and all is ok. So I am puzzled.

 

Bennett

Edited August 2, 2010 by blr044

[Jack_mcs]

Did find in includes/boxes/header_tags.php on line 36 this:

 

$info_box_contents[] = array('text' => strip_tags(substr($product_info['products_description'], 0, 100)).'<a style="color: red;" href="' . tep_href_link(FILENAME_PRODUCT_INFO, 'products_id=' . (int)$_GET['products_id']).'" > (...' . TEXT_SEE_MORE . ')</a>');

Try adding

echo 'Description '.$product_info['products_description']; 

before that line of code and refreshing the page. Does your description display? If so, is there any html in it (use view source)?

[blr044]

Try adding

echo 'Description '.$product_info['products_description']; 

before that line of code and refreshing the page. Does your description display? If so, is there any html in it (use view source)?

 

Yes, the description is there, but contains the whole description. In viewing the source code, there is html in it. Below is from the view source:

 

<!-- header_tags.php //-->
         <tr>
           <td>

<table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
 <tr width="100%" class="SideinfoBoxHeading">
   <td width="100%" class="SideinfoBoxHeading">Dual Garage Laser</td>
 </tr>
</table>
Description <p><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Fed up with the door and fender dings on your car from pulling into your two-car garage too deep or too far to the side?</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Then park like a pro, every time, with the Dual Laser-Guided Parking System.</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Designed  specifically for two-car garages, this automatic guidance system allows  you to pull into the exact same spot time and time again with laser-beam  accuracy!</font><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Best of all, the parking system is easy to install, requiring only a Phillips screwdriver. </font><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">A built-in  motion sensor detects when a vehicle approaches, triggering the  Laser-Guided Parking System to emit two bright, vertical laser beams  from a mounting location on the ceiling.</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Mount the  system using the included screws or double-sided tape, and adjust the  individual laser beams to shine on each of the two cars in any location.</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">When you  pull in to either space, you'll know exactly where to stop, because the  laser will strike the same spot on your car every time.</font></p>

<p><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">
<ul>
   <li><strong>Features:</strong>
   <ul>
       <li>Avoid hitting the back wall of your garage</li>
       <li>Let the accuracy of a laser assist your parking</li>
       <li>Avoid costly repairs to your bumper and/or garage walls</li>
       <li>Never park 'too far' or 'too close' in your garage again</li>

       <li>AC/DC Power or battery powered (9V Battery not included)</li>
   </ul>
   </li>
   <li><strong>Includes:</strong>
   <ul>
       <li>Laser base</li>
       <li>AC Power cord</li>

       <li>Mounting tape</li>
       <li>Mounting screws</li>
       <li>Instructions</li>
   </ul>
   </li>
</ul>
</font></p><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="SideinfoBox">
 <tr>

   <td><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="SideinfoBoxContents">
 <tr>
   <td><img src="images/pixel_trans.gif" width="100%" height="1" alt=""></td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
   <td class="boxText">Fed up with the door and fender dings<a style="color: red;" href="https://www.greatdiscounts4u.com/product_info.php?products_id=5&osCsid=5c59a7f9d014e9ac3769b7b42413b90b"  >  (...See More)</a></td>
 </tr>

 <tr>
   <td><img src="images/pixel_trans.gif" width="100%" height="1" alt=""></td>
 </tr>
</table>
</td>
 </tr>
</table>
           </td>
         </tr>
<!-- header_tags.php_eof //-->

 

And this is the image:

 

[Jack_mcs]

Yes, the description is there, but contains the whole description. In viewing the source code, there is html in it. Below is from the view source:

OK. Try it again with

echo 'Description '.substr($product_info['products_description'],0,100); 

and again with

echo 'Description '.strip_tags(substr($product_info['products_description'],0,100)); 

[blr044]

OK. Try it again with

echo 'Description '.substr($product_info['products_description'],0,100); 

and again with

echo 'Description '.strip_tags(substr($product_info['products_description'],0,100)); 

 

First image below is with your first suggestion of this:

echo 'Description '.substr($product_info['products_description'],0,100); 

 

And second image is using the second suggestion:

echo 'Description '.strip_tags(substr($product_info['products_description'],0,100)); 

 

NOTE: I even tried with FCKeditor disabled in admin. no difference.

Edited August 3, 2010 by blr044

[Jack_mcs]

First image below is with your first suggestion of this:

I don't know what I'm looking at. It appears you have two boxes installed since the decription is showing twice for two different items - don't know how that is possible. But the test code I gave you is the same as the code in the box, just broken up into parts. The idea is to see which part is failing. That's as far as I can go in a support thread like this. Good luck.

Edited August 3, 2010 by Jack_mcs

[Inetron]

Hi there,

 

Why does this work for some of my products and some of them not?

Otherwise, it works well.

 

Thanks,

Inetron

[Jack_mcs]

Hi there,

 

Why does this work for some of my products and some of them not?

Otherwise, it works well.

Probably something wrong with how you have them setup. The code doesn't know the difference. The test function and/or Fill Tags (with empty) will find such problems many times.

[blr044]

Let me ask you one more question, if I may. The column_box now listing in the left column with some text and only once, not twice. What I am asking, does this section of code in includes/boxes/header_tags.php

($product_info['products_description'],0,100))

control how many characters that will be displayed?

 

Because I do not understand why one item will display 100 characters and others in little as 2-8 characters. it would look great if it was consistent. If it is not possible to control the text, I will just disable the column box.

 

Thank you for all of your time.

[Jack_mcs]

Let me ask you one more question, if I may. The column_box now listing in the left column with some text and only once, not twice. What I am asking, does this section of code in includes/boxes/header_tags.php

($product_info['products_description'],0,100))

control how many characters that will be displayed?

 

Because I do not understand why one item will display 100 characters and others in little as 2-8 characters. it would look great if it was consistent. If it is not possible to control the text, I will just disable the column box.

 

Thank you for all of your time.

No, the code that controls that is

substr($product_info['products_description'],0,100); 

I think though the actual code should really be

substr(strip_tags($product_info['products_description'],0,100)); 

You may want to try that.

[Andreas2003]

I'm having a small problem with pseudo pages.

 

I have the unlimited info pages contrib installed, which is working.

 

The "information.php" is shown correctly in HeaderTags.

 

Then I setup a pseudo page in order to fill the meta information for "information.php?info_id=xx" (where xx are some of my id's).

Setup is working also correctly.

 

But...

 

The result in the frontend is not showing up, only the information of the root page (=information.php) is shown.

Same result is shown, when I click on "view result" in the page control.

 

Same problem appears when setting up the meta information for ask_a_question. Only a static info "ask a question" is shown in the frontend.

 

Any ideas appreciated, where I can find a solution to this problem.

Many thanks in advance,

regards

Andreas

 

PS: Cache is disabled

Edited August 4, 2010 by Andreas2003

[longhorn1999]

Hi Jack

 

I would also like to request this code change for HT SEO. When you hover over your logo you get index.php and that also appears in the source code of the page. Index.php does not appear in search results itself, probably because of htacces 301 redirect, but where it does appear to be a problem is in your internal linking as reported by Webmaster tools. In my site there is an even split of links over mysite.com/ and index.php

 

 

Hi Jack,

 

Sorry to refer to an older post, and I hope this is the appropriate forum for my questions, but I'm noticing a problem with my internal links that you may have some insight on. I'm using v3.2.3 of course, and v3.1.9 was especially important as it fixed all the duplicate content issues I was having, particularly with /index.php vs. /. I've just noticed that in Google Webmaster Tools, it's not showing that I have any internal links. The same is basically true with Yahoo Site Explorer, even though logically I should have at least a couple of hundred links back to my home page (www.my-domain.com). And when I hover over the logo or the 'continue' button, index.php appears, though as with Hotclutch before, it doesn't show up in SERPs, likely because of a 301.

 

My 2 questions here are:

 

1) Is having something like Sam's Remove & Prevent duplicate content with the canonical tag V1.3.2 redundant now since v3.1.9? I'd installed this in an futile attempt to get rid of duplicate content before v3.1.9 fixed that problem. Might this be interfering with Header Tags somehow even though everything seems to be fine except for my internal linking problem?

 

http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/7163

 

2) Could it be just be some unrelated issue with how I have my .htaccess file set up?

 

I'm not entirely sure where I got this from, but I have:

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^.*/index.php
RewriteRule ^(.*)index.php$ http://www.my-domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

 

Whereas some other posts recommend:

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} !^POST 
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /(.*)index\.php(.*)\ HTTP/ [NC]
RewriteRule ^index\.php(.*)$ http:\/\/www.my-domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

 

Thanks again for all your help,

 

Nick

Edited August 4, 2010 by longhorn1999

[Jack_mcs]

I'm having a small problem with pseudo pages.

 

I have the unlimited info pages contrib installed, which is working.

 

The "information.php" is shown correctly in HeaderTags.

 

Then I setup a pseudo page in order to fill the meta information for "information.php?info_id=xx" (where xx are some of my id's).

Setup is working also correctly.

 

But...

 

The result in the frontend is not showing up, only the information of the root page (=information.php) is shown.

Same result is shown, when I click on "view result" in the page control.

Be sure the includes/header_tags.php file has the correct permissions on it. If it does, open that file and look at the entry for information pages. It should have many more lines than one of the other pages. If not, then there is a problem writing to that file.

[Jack_mcs]

Sorry to refer to an older post, and I hope this is the appropriate forum for my questions, but I'm noticing a problem with my internal links that you may have some insight on. I'm using v3.2.3 of course, and v3.1.9 was especially important as it fixed all the duplicate content issues I was having, particularly with /index.php vs. /. I've just noticed that in Google Webmaster Tools, it's not showing that I have any internal links. The same is basically true with Yahoo Site Explorer, even though logically I should have at least a couple of hundred links back to my home page (www.my-domain.com). And when I hover over the logo or the 'continue' button, index.php appears, though as with Hotclutch before, it doesn't show up in SERPs, likely because of a 301.

 

My 2 questions here are:

 

1) Is having something like Sam's Remove & Prevent duplicate content with the canonical tag V1.3.2 redundant now since v3.1.9? I'd installed this in an futile attempt to get rid of duplicate content before v3.1.9 fixed that problem. Might this be interfering with Header Tags somehow even though everything seems to be fine except for my internal linking problem?

 

http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/7163

 

2) Could it be just be some unrelated issue with how I have my .htaccess file set up?

I can't understand the problem but

 

1 - Both shouldn't be used. If they are, two canonical tags will be issued. If they are different, though they shouldn't be, that could cause problems with links.

 

2 - Those shouldn't matter.

[Andreas2003]

Be sure the includes/header_tags.php file has the correct permissions on it. If it does, open that file and look at the entry for information pages. It should have many more lines than one of the other pages. If not, then there is a problem writing to that file.

 

Hi Jack,

 

thank you for you quick answer.

 

File permission is set to server writable. Date and time is set to current data, if I update the file.

But the entry for the information page is not bigger than the ones of the other pages.

 

Is there another code snip-set needed for the information.php?

The used one is this:

<?php
if ( file_exists(DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'header_tags.php') ) {
ob_start();
 require(DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'header_tags.php');
$preventDuplicates->checkTarget(ob_get_clean());
echo $preventDuplicates->finalMeta . "\n";
 } else {
?> 
<title><?php echo $INFO_TITLE; ?></title>
<?php
}
?>

 

If this is correct, what other "writing" problems may occur ?

 

Thanks in advance

Edited August 4, 2010 by Andreas2003

[Jack_mcs]

File permission is set to server writable. Date and time is set to current data, if I update the file.

But the entry for the information page is not bigger than the ones of the other pages.

 

Is there another code snip-set needed for the information.php?

The used one is this:

That code isn't in the includes/headertags.php file. You need to chack that file.

[Andreas2003]

That code isn't in the includes/headertags.php file. You need to chack that file.

No, I didn't mean the includes/headertags.php, but the information.php !

[Jack_mcs]

No, I didn't mean the includes/headertags.php, but the information.php !

I don't understand why you are looking at that file. I explained twice which one to look at. Once you do that, you should be able to determine the problem.

[FixItPete]

Jack,

 

I've been reading this thread... just learn more. I want to thank you! I can't believe how after all this time, you're still on the front line helping folks like me and others with this very cool contribution!

 

Second, I have a quick question:

 

On the product page, the "Currently Viewing: ________________________" area (toward the bottom of the page):

1) How much does that help with SEO?

2) Can that be turned off?

3) What else can you tell me about it?

 

Thanks for all your time,

Cindy

[blr044]

No, the code that controls that is

substr($product_info['products_description'],0,100); 

I think though the actual code should really be

substr(strip_tags($product_info['products_description'],0,100)); 

You may want to try that.

 

Just dropping a note Jack. It's working fine now after trying out a few things. Thought I work with the description in categories/products. I was saving time in typing out the description by copying and pasting from vendors site. It might be some extra steps presently, I copied their text to notepad and then pasted to product description in admin. So that way I eliminated all of those <ul> and any extra characters and etc. If that's caused the problem. But for now, am going to stick with this method.

 

Appreciate your hard work.

 

Bennett

[longhorn1999]

I can't understand the problem but

 

1 - Both shouldn't be used. If they are, two canonical tags will be issued. If they are different, though they shouldn't be, that could cause problems with links.

 

2 - Those shouldn't matter.

 

 

Ok thanks Jack. I uninstalled Sam's mod and hopefully that'll clear up that problem. The issue is that in both Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer, I'm not seeing that there are any internal links to either www.my-domain.com/ or www.my-domain.com/index.php. I'm worried that I may have some structural problem with my internal linking that may be hurting me for SEO purposes. FILENAME_DEFAULT is index.php of course and I have that 301 to redirect /index.php to /, so I'm hoping that maybe Google and Yahoo are just slow in crawling my site's internal links, though it seems unlikely.

[Jack_mcs]

I've been reading this thread... just learn more. I want to thank you!

 

Second, I have a quick question:

 

On the product page, the "Currently Viewing: ________________________" area (toward the bottom of the page):

1) How much does that help with SEO?

2) Can that be turned off?

3) What else can you tell me about it?

You're welcome. :)

 

1 - There's no simple way to measure the benefit of any SEO change. You would have to create duplicate sites with that one difference and see what happens. I this case, by itself, that link probably won't make a big difference. But considered as a whole along with all other SEO changes, it does help some.

 

2 - No, but you can delete the code for it.

 

3 - The idea behind much SEO-tpye things is that the more something is linked to, the more important it appears to the search engines. While they give on-site links less importance than off-site ones, the on-site ones are still given points.

Edited August 4, 2010 by Jack_mcs

[FixItPete]

You're welcome. :)

 

1 - There's no simple way to measure the benefit of any SEO change. You would have to create duplicate sites with that one difference and see what happens. I this case, by itself, that link probably won't make a big difference. But considered as a whole along with all other SEO changes, it does help some.

 

2 - No, but you can delete the code for it.

 

3 - The idea behind much SEO-tpye things is that the more something is linked to, the more important it appears to the search engines. While they give on-site links less importance than off-site ones, the on-site ones are still given points.

 

Thanks Jack! :)

 

Now head over to the Dynamic Sitemap thread and check out next question! :) (j/k) ;)

[Jack_mcs]

Thanks Jack! :)

 

Now head over to the Dynamic Sitemap thread and check out next question! :) (j/k) ;)

I no longer support that contribution. See Sitemap SEO in My Addons for a better version.

[FixItPete]

Ah! I may be restoring my backup to pre-Dynamic Sitemap and trying that!!! Great... something to do in the AM.

 

Thanks!