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how to get music url? (In: General Search Engine Optimization)
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Stu-N
Joined: Jan 18, 2001
# Posts: 257
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Posted: 2005-Mar-15 16:49
I'm looking at a stie for somebody, and it seems that Google doesn't like the product pages they have.
They use Xcart php based shopping cart software, and it seems that google indexes the pages as URL only. The category pages have title and descriptions, but individual product pages are in limbo.
Any ideas folks?
I've googled for the problem and a thread here came up mentioning the same issue, but it was moved and I can't seem to access the thread now.
Cheers,
Stu
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bhartzer
Staff
Joined: Jun 08, 2000
# Posts: 7042
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Posted: 2005-Mar-15 17:10
It sounds like a classic case of duplicate content. The category pages have enough unique information on them so that they're not considered to be duplicates of each other. However, the product pages are considered to be duplicates. Each product page probably needs more text in order for it to be unique and not a "copy" of another product page.
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Stu-N
Joined: Jan 18, 2001
# Posts: 257
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Posted: 2005-Mar-15 18:37
Hmmm, I already thought dup content was part of the problem.
I was aleady considering some changes based on how thin some of the content is and how Google only shows a certain amount of pages before 'click here to see more results that are pretty much the same'.
BUT I just looked and many pages that have unique content are still URL only. What a puzzle. They do have a stupid issue with the same meta keywords and description on every page of the site, which can't help, but I still get a feeling that the shopping cart software has something to do with this.
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bhartzer
Staff
Joined: Jun 08, 2000
# Posts: 7042
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Posted: 2005-Mar-15 19:00
If the meta keywords and description are the same on every page then that's a very big factor in determing duplicate content. They basically are looking at the top part of the page, so you'll want to make sure that those meta tags are unique for each page--and that they accurately describe the content of that page.
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Stu-N
Joined: Jan 18, 2001
# Posts: 257
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Posted: 2005-Mar-15 19:20
Agreed. When I saw all the duplicate metas, as well as 'company name - product name' in the title tag for each page, I was concerned.
It's odd how google handles this. site:example.com brings up a heap of URL only results. Typing in site:example.com 'product' seems to list a page that was previously URL only, with the proper description snippet, but not in every case.
I guess I'll take out the duplicate crap, observe the results, and take it from there, since duplicate info is for sure not helping.
thanks again.
[ Message was edited by: Stu-N 03/15/2005 11:33 am ]
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seekaroo
Joined: May 28, 2004
# Posts: 8
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Posted: 2005-Mar-15 22:01
What version of x-cart are they using? We use version 4.0.12 (the most recent release) and it has the option of including the product info into the meta tags on the product pages so each page has unique meta info. I'm not sure if the 3.X.X versions of the software included this option or not.
But with that being said, Google still does not index our individual product pages. MSN and Yahoo will index the product pages.
I have also noticed something else wierd... We build static html pages along with our dynamic php pages and have noticed that Google and Yahoo will only index the static pages while MSN only indexes the dynamic pages.
Dave
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Stu-N
Joined: Jan 18, 2001
# Posts: 257
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Posted: 2005-Mar-15 23:27
Hmm, I was just going to comment that maybe using the 'build static html pages' feature would fix up all the problems I'm seeing (and of course working on the meta stuff).
Google's handling of this is what's throwing me the most.
For example: I can type in site:example.com 'product 1' and I'll see a few of their pages that refer to product 1, as well as the product page, with title and description snippet from the page.
I do the same with product 2, and I get the pages that mention it, but an URL only listing for the page.
It could still all boil down to dupe content though, since many of these non-descript products have the same generic product image, and the 'product 1' page has it's own photo. Maybe google doesn't have a cache of those pages because they are all too damn similar. Think of a product like 'nails' where the client only has the dimensions of the nail and a price listed for many pages.
The fact that 'product 1' page with 2% unique content is displaying properly, while 'product 2' with 1% unique content isn't is the most telling evidence so far.
If it were a matter of google choking on something technical, then 'product 1' wouldn't be indexed properly (I assume).
First thing I will do when under the hood is fix the meta stuff, just to clear the fog a bit.
Cheers guys, talking about this stuff out loud can help me think it through 
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hooter
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 1
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Posted: 2005-May-02 20:30
Hello,
I have created an xcart rewrite mod specifically for SEO purposes. More info can be found in my profile/home page - or feel free to PM
My apologies to moderators if this is not acceptable method of replying.
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g1smd
Staff
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10418
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Posted: 2005-May-14 15:18
If the code is fairly short, feel free to post the code here in the thread.
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