Open discussion on SEO

[burt]

Well, I'll add them into the mix and it will then be up to the individual shop owner to decide whether to use them. Easy ;)

[burt]

I'm pretty much done with Categories.

 

Categories Description

This shows in the output of each Category and will be used as a short description of the category being looked at. It has no link and no relevance to "product listings" - it will show underneath the category name if a description is inserted.

 

Categories SEO title

This replaces the Category Name in the <title element of the page. This give better control over page titles for categories. If this is not used, the <title element uses the category name as per standard osCommerce.

 

Categories SEO description

This set up the Meta Description element.

 

Categories SEO keywords

This set up the Meta Keywords element.

 

These can all be used or not used on a per category basis.

[♥altoid]

I'm pretty much done with Categories.

 

super, i've only gotten around to adding categories description to a 2.3 shop i am re-doing but look forward to adding he rest you just listed.

 

having this in the core is a huge plus for the oscommerce brand.

 

thank you for tackling all this. big :thumbsup:

[philipcarter99]

Hi gary,very interesting link..really informative

[burt]

Adding:

- title for

-- products

-- manufacturers

-- categories

-- pages (eg shipping.php etc)

 

Adding:

- meta description for

-- products

-- manufacturers

-- categories

-- pages (eg shipping.php etc)

 

Adding:

- meta keywords for

-- products

-- manufacturers

-- categories

-- pages (eg shipping.php etc)

 

Adding:

- description for

-- manufacturers

-- categories

 

Adding:

- better facebook module

- better twitter module (twitter cards)

 

Adding:

- some system for viewing where people come from

-- I still think Google Analytics is the correct tool for this

- Google Adwords Conversion header_tag

 

Adding:

- microdata pages

-- product listings

-- product review

-- list of product reviews

 

Adding:

- mini product descriptions

 

Adding:

- noodp and noydir module

 

strikethru's are done and coded.

[♥altoid]

I've never been a fan of sitemaps. What are other peoples take on them ?

 

Regarding sitemaps, the reason I mentioned them is for site indexing.

 

XML: Google and Bing look for these and even let you know in their tools when they visited them and gives you the indexing success. There are add ons for these, very easy to install so for shop owners no big deal to get them incorporated. But they seem to be important for indexing anyway. While we're on the topic...question....when search engines revisits a page is that page automatically re-indexed at that time? As I update pages I'd want the latest version in the index not older versions.

 

Sitemap (for humans): Maybe not all that big a deal. Only mentioned in this SEO topic if it would help engines navigate, find and index a site better.

[♥Biancoblu]

@@altoid

 

Steve

I've been using both an xml and a "human" sitemap for years, I found that ever since I started doing that pretty much all my pages got indexed very quickly. What I also do is I direct the search engine to the xml sitemap through robots.txt, in other words, as well as disallowing some pages, I also then mention the link to the xml sitemap which is obviously allowed. Don't know if that's the correct procedure but that's what I do.

IMO sitemaps are definitely useful for SEO purposes.

 

Not sure how search engines deal with edited pages (do they re-index each time they visit or not), what I noticed with my own site is that the edits sometimes get reflected pretty much immediately, sometimes not.

[burt]

Manufacturers is now complete.

 

1. Fine grain control over <title> element

2. meta description

3. meta keywords

4. overall description (which shows in the manufacturer page).

[tgely]

Hi @@burt,

 

what do you think about if we are not using two table columns edition pages in categories and manufacturers admin sites? I think the right column is very narrow to edit in text fields. Lot of users would like to install text editors and right column becames confused.

[♥GLWalker]

Categories SEO description

This set up the Meta Description element.

 

I see in the column it is set to text ~ thats good becuase then it could be doubled in usage, say for a short snippet inside the product listing ~ But it is a lot of power for shop owners that may not understand many of the SERPs want this to stay within a certian length. Will the output be cut short? And perhaps rounded to the full word closest to the set size?

[burt]

What's been added is the -general- idea, not the -final- idea.

Any and all code is open to changes and discussion :thumbsup:

[burt]

a short snippet inside the product listing

 

I'm seeing the benefit of being able to have a mini description for the product listings, but would it help or hinder SEO ?

[Dan Cole]

I'm almost afraid to touch this....I think it will help SEO....my feeling is that anytime we can add useful content for our customers it is generally helpful for SEO as well. I'm seeing that with my category descriptions on the product_listings pages.

 

Dan

[burt]

@@Gergely

 

what do you think about if we are not using two table columns edition pages in categories and manufacturers admin sites? I think the right column is very narrow to edit in text fields. Lot of users would like to install text editors and right column becames confused.

 

I been playing with the table columns and the right column seems good set to 50% instead of 25%. This enables the possibility of adding a text editor (which would, agreed, look better wider). This is only 1 tiny change, and some changes to show the input areas wider - easy.

[burt]

my feeling is that anytime we can add useful content for our customers it is generally helpful for SEO as well. I'm seeing that with my category descriptions on the product_listings pages.

 

I like the idea, but the way the product listing is presently coded leaves not really enough useable space for a mini description...

 

Maybe I can add the admin function and a _get_mini_description function ready for use in the future.

[Dan Cole]

I like the idea, but the way the product listing is presently coded leaves not really enough useable space for a mini description...

 

Maybe I can add the admin function and a _get_mini_description function ready for use in the future.

I had the same concern so I went with a javascript expand text type description....the top of the product list just displays a link like...

 

More information about apples.

 

if you click on that it gives you the category description which in my case is a half a page of text or so describing apples or or how to select them etc. This way the information is available for those who want it and the text is on the page for the search engines to pick up if they want.

 

Dan

[♥GLWalker]

I like the idea, but the way the product listing is presently coded leaves not really enough useable space for a mini description...

 

Maybe I can add the admin function and a _get_mini_description function ready for use in the future.

 

True, the current layout defenitetly needs customized to use a snippett. Something more along the lines of what a shop owner wants rather than a defualt feature (imo).

 

As for SEO benefit, Ive had this type of set up on a few shops that Ive worked hands on with SEO companies, several different companies on one such site, not one ever suggested removing the snippets, but in the beginning there was the suggestion to make sure the descriptions cutoff was rounded to the prev/next whole word. But there was never really any mention of whether or not it helped in the SERP.

 

From a customer standpoint, I like them becuase I can easily see what the product ~ may be about.

 

The way I display the output is 3 fold.

1) If no product metadescription, then strip the main description, and cut off nearest word around desired length.

2) elseIf metadescription, serve it, no need to strip, yet still trim and round to desired length.

3) else if true - This is irrelevant to a default set up - a new field specifically for these descriptions.

 

Ive never had anyone point out that it was harmful to reuse the main description or metadescription in this area.

[burt]

1) If no product metadescription, then strip the main description, and cut off nearest word around desired length.

2) elseIf metadescription, serve it, no need to strip, yet still trim and round to desired length.

3) else if true - This is irrelevant to a default set up - a new field specifically for these descriptions.

 

For some text in a product listing, I'm thinking;

 

does the "mini" description exist?

Yes -> show it

No ->

Does the "meta" description exist?

Yes -> show it

No ->

Show the first 150 characters - reduced to full words - of the stripped( "main" description ).

 

Thoughts?

[♥GLWalker]

does the "mini" description exist?

Yes -> show it

No ->

Does the "meta" description exist?

Yes -> show it

No ->

Show the first 150 characters - reduced to full words - of the stripped( "main" description ).

 

My thoughts exactly, ~ just reversed :)

[♥toyicebear]

SEO wise its not directly "harmful" to have snippets in the product listings, though in some cases it leads to the product listing page getting ranked in the search engine listings instead of the product info page.

[burt]

My thoughts exactly, ~ just reversed :)

 

HOw does this grab you, can you optimise?

 

function osc_split_mini_description($products_precis) {
   $content = strip_tags($products_precis, '<br>');
   if (strlen($content) > 155) {
     $shorten = strpos($content, ' ', 150);
     return substr($content, 0, $shorten) . '...';
   }
   else {
     return $content;
   }
 }

 function osc_get_mini_description($products_id) {
   global $languages_id;

   $product_query = tep_db_query(" select coalesce(products_mini_description, products_seo_description, LEFT(products_description, 300)) as products_precis from " . TABLE_PRODUCTS_DESCRIPTION . " where products_id = '" . (int)$products_id . "' and language_id = '" . (int)$languages_id . "'");
   $product = tep_db_fetch_array($product_query);

   return osc_split_mini_description($product['products_precis']);
 }

[♥GLWalker]

HOw does this grab you, can you optimise?

 

Awesome, I like how coalesce does all the work without the need to create a mile long function.

 

I set this up on a test site, and got it to work as needed, but had to add NULLIF or it would not retrieve further than the first requested column. I double checked to make sure my columns were NULL as default, as from what I found on coalesce shows it is made to work on columns set to null, not empty. They were, but anyhow, check this out:

 function osc_split_mini_description($products_precis) {
   $content= strip_tags($products_precis);   
  if (strlen($content) > 156 ) {
    $content = substr($content, 0, strpos($content, ' ', 156));
  }
  return $content;
 }

 function osc_get_mini_description($products_id) {
   global $languages_id;
   $product_query = tep_db_query(" select coalesce(NULLIF(products_mini_description,'') , NULLIF(products_seo_text,'') , NULLIF(LEFT(products_description, 300),'') ,'". TAG_LINE ."') as products_precis from " . TABLE_PRODUCTS_DESCRIPTION . " where products_id = '" . (int)$products_id . "' and language_id = '" . (int)$languages_id . "'");
   $product = tep_db_fetch_array($product_query);
   $products_precis = $product['products_precis'];
   return osc_split_mini_description($products_precis);
 }

 

I added TAG_LINE to be the default throw back. If it is set in the stores configurations options then it can be used in the rare case that none of the 3 exist.

 

I noticed earlier in this thread you had microformats in mind. I have been studying these a while now, and I feel that this exact function should also be used for microformating the description itemscope. It would keep the description consistant anywhere that the product id presented, IE: a product infoBox or the product listing or product info page. The character length is just fine and there would be no chance for one product display presenting different content than the same product being presented elsewhere.

 

Another good thing, this function could be duplicated, osc_get_meta_description and just switch the first 2 column lookups around for a failsafe meta description output.

[♥GLWalker]

Query should have read "products_seo_description" above, I had different field names already existing

[burt]

Yep, I am also working on microformatting some bits, I know you've done this on some areas, so if you can advise (or link me to yours) I'm all ears :D

 

If the columns are set to be null (or have content), we shouldn't need the nullif...

Do we really need a default throwback? I don't want to take all the work away from the shop owner ;)

[♥GLWalker]

If the columns are set to be null (or have content), we shouldn't need the nullif...

 

That was my understanding of it as well, but no matter how I tried without NULLIF it would only load if I had a mini description set, otherwise it just died. My columns are set to null, so my only conclusion was it must b the over all server set up?

 

No real need for a throw bak, oter than its nice to be able to do it. If the query runs that far and does not find content, theres really no point anyhow.

 

I can help set up some microformats, I'm currently wrapping some up on a test 2.3 site. They are everywhere, my code had changed a lot, but the general idea is there. I'll update when I get wrappedup, I have some ideas for writing a few new functions now :)