aurelou Posted July 5, 2015 Share Posted July 5, 2015 Hi all, Is there a way or an addon to set main categories as canonical over subcategories ? In my shop, all products of subcategories are in main categories, and it creates duplicate content. Thank you very much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_mcs Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 There are at least two meta tag addons that have canonical code in them as well as at least one dedicate addon. But having a sub-category list a category as canonical is wrong. Duplicate content can only occur if the pages are mostly the same which in the case of categories and sub-categories, they can't be. Why do you think duplicate content is being created? Support Links: For Hire: Contact me for anything you need help with for your shop: upgrading, hosting, repairs, code written, etc. All of My Addons Get the latest versions of my addons Recommended SEO Addons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azpro Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 @@Jack_mcs Oh yes .. It is very much possible to have duplicates ... For instance we had cPath=0_46_1377 in stead of cPath=46_1377 in Google Webmasters ... Probably due to a wrong add-on or faulty code in the past (store runs over 10 years) ... But I have seen those duplicats in several (different) situations more ... Also ... Think of products in two or more categories ... then later a category goes empty or inactive ... Or category is moved ... etc.etc ... It is a case of "should not be possible" but could happen! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aurelou Posted July 6, 2015 Author Share Posted July 6, 2015 In my case I have only few subcategories and all products that figure in subcategories also figure in main categories. So I don't need Google to find my subcategories and I prefer my main categories to be found in search results. I also have a problem because I have for my most important keyword a subcategory listed on Google search results instead of the main category which correponds to this keyword. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hotclutch Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 Maybe a link to your site would help. I fail to see how you could be having duplicate content even if your products are listed in multiple categories. What's the harm in Google listing your subcategories? Removing that listing is not necessarily going to improve the ranking of the main category. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hotclutch Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 I assume you are not running SEO URLs, in which case there will naturally be some duplicate content issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_mcs Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 @@Jack_mcs Oh yes .. It is very much possible to have duplicates ... For instance we had cPath=0_46_1377 in stead of cPath=46_1377 in Google Webmasters ... Probably due to a wrong add-on or faulty code in the past (store runs over 10 years) ... But I have seen those duplicats in several (different) situations more ... Also ... Think of products in two or more categories ... then later a category goes empty or inactive ... Or category is moved ... etc.etc ... It is a case of "should not be possible" but could happen! You are referring to different paths to the same location. The search engines, even google, realizes this happens and will not punish for it since they can figure out it is the same page, not a duplicate. But if it bothers anyone and if Header Tags SEO is installed, there is an option to set the canonical link to main path. But duplicate content is not really a big issue. A lot of misunderstanding about it arose when it was initially announced and a lot of that still floats around. If they find a page that is a deliberate duplicate for the purposes of SEO, they may lower its rank, or maybe not rank it at all. If they found many instances of that, they may remove the site from their listings. But if a page is duplicated because that is how a site is setup, it won't cause any problems. Support Links: For Hire: Contact me for anything you need help with for your shop: upgrading, hosting, repairs, code written, etc. All of My Addons Get the latest versions of my addons Recommended SEO Addons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_mcs Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 In my case I have only few subcategories and all products that figure in subcategories also figure in main categories. So I don't need Google to find my subcategories and I prefer my main categories to be found in search results. I also have a problem because I have for my most important keyword a subcategory listed on Google search results instead of the main category which correponds to this keyword. If you are presenting one thing to your customers and another to the search engines, you may find your site not listed at all since that is one of the top reasons for it to be banned. I'm curious why you have subcategories at all? They don't seem to serve any purpose in your case. If they do serve a purpose, I strongly recommend optimizing them for the search engines instead of trying to force the search engines to see what you want them to see. That usually doesn't end well. Support Links: For Hire: Contact me for anything you need help with for your shop: upgrading, hosting, repairs, code written, etc. All of My Addons Get the latest versions of my addons Recommended SEO Addons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clustersolutions Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 I was working on the SEO for a site that uses another shopping cart the last few weeks but in a similar situation as yours...my advice would be to further examine your category structure first...stay with the question that is my site's category structure user friendly first before worrying about the bots and etc... why are there products in main as well as sub categories? a well designed and thought out site eliminate the need of bandages and will index better... In my case I have only few subcategories and all products that figure in subcategories also figure in main categories. So I don't need Google to find my subcategories and I prefer my main categories to be found in search results. I also have a problem because I have for my most important keyword a subcategory listed on Google search results instead of the main category which correponds to this keyword. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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