Product and category translation URL with falang

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8 years 6 months ago #214598

-- HikaShop version -- : 2.5
-- Joomla version -- : 3.4.4
-- PHP version -- : 5.4.44

Hi,

I have an issue with translation of categories and products when I'm on a product or category page and switch to other language by flag. I read a lot of documentation but I can't find a solution.
In my site I have two languages: italian and english

If I'm on page with this end of url: category/category-name-ita (or product/product-name-ita) and I click on english flag I land on the right page, translated, except for last part of url (category-name-ita) which remain the same.
Then in english version of site If I navigate to the same category page from homepage I get the correct url: category/name-category-eng.
The same issue is with products and changing language also in contrary (eng to ita)

I tried by turning on/off and combinations of the "Remove products and categories id in URLs" with "Force canonical URLs on listings" but issue still remain.

I notice that with articles pages of Joomla when I change language by flag it's everything ok and also all parts of url change.
In source code also rel="alternate" link has same problem I think cause of this issue but only for Hikashop pages.

You know how this bad for SEO and I didn't find a solution in similar topics.
Do you know how can I fix it?

Thanks for help.

Last edit: 8 years 6 months ago by simonev.

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8 years 6 months ago #214643

Hi,

The URL itself going wrong is not necessarily bad SEO as long as the canonical URL tag on the page has the correct URL. In that case, that won't penalize your SEO. Also, it won't be too much of a problem anyway, since no other page will point to the URL with the alias in the wrong language.
The switching of the language being done by Joomla, if you're already on a product page when you do it, Joomla doesn't ask for the new SEF URL. So it would require an additional system in HikaShop to switch the URL if the alias is not in the correct language. There is no mechanism for that at the moment. If that bothers you, the best is to make sure that you have a canonical URL for each language for each product for the SEO.

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8 years 6 months ago #214677

Thanks for your reply, I wrote about rel="alternate" url which doesn't match with canonical of next page. :(
By the way what you say is correct about SEO, I would like to have alternate link with canonical URL of other language and not others wrong url. So this is not possible right now?
Ok for no way at the moment to switch the url in browser... :( URL changes except for product name.
I sure would buy it as extension plug-in or would like to find in hikashop version in future. :)
It could solve both URL switching and rel="alternate" links for all languages.

I set already all canonical for both languages for SEO, I notice in source code only one strange thing (in products and categories pages): I have 2 canonical tag , one with the same wrong URL of browser (I think made from Joomla) and other correct with my hikashop canonical URL.

I would like to remove wrong canonical tag generated from Joomla and keep only hikashop canonical tag.
But I would like to preserve canonical for other pages out of hikashop such as articles.
What could I do?

Thank you.

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8 years 6 months ago #214778

Hi,

I'm not talking about rel=alternate but rel=canonical
What you want to do is configure the canonical URL for each language. Then, even if the current URL of the page is not the canonical URL for the current language, it will still work out, SEO wise.

If you have two canonical URLs, as you say the wrong one probably comes from Joomla. It's not supposed to add such canonical URL in HikaShop pages. I guess that you want to try to deactivate the SEF plugin of Joomla which does that.
If you need to have canonical URLs for articles, you can always use another plugin for Joomla developed by third party developers (you'll find many on the JED) to handle that and which won't affect HikaShop pages.

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8 years 6 months ago #214825

Thanks for all support, I solved by deactivating System - SEF plugin of Joomla and using third party plugin to manage canonicals URL for articles.

Best regards,
S

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7 years 8 months ago #244778

So on my site:
I have french and english.
If I choose french and click on a category, it changes automaticaly to english.
That is because I activated the generate canonical url automaticaly?

With sh404sef, I guess it would be possible to keep the language through clicks?
I would have to deactivate the generate canonical, remove any canonical of products and categories?

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7 years 8 months ago #244788

Hi,

That is because I activated the generate canonical url automaticaly?

Yes, that, and also because you have canonical URLs in the product but not in the translations of your products.

With sh404sef, I guess it would be possible to keep the language through clicks?

sh404sef or not, it's not related to the problem.

I would have to deactivate the generate canonical, remove any canonical of products and categories?

No. Just turn off the "force canonical URLs on listings" setting or enter canonical URLs in the translations of the products.
You don't have the remove the canonical URL of the products. Of course, that would also be a solution.

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7 years 7 months ago #248563

Very helpful topics for falang using sh404sef, because all my categories and products were displaying but couldn't go to the details of the product

So no order was possible, i have set the 'Force canonical urls on listings' to 'No, generate the urls' and then I was able to see the detailled product page and order.
It was set on 'set canonical urls if specified'

I'm gonna try to set all canonical urls for products and categories to see if the problem is solved even if i change the 'Force canonical urls on listings' to each settings but I don't understand very well how they are set in hikashop and in sh404sef I'm gonna dig the problem
For those who look for this setting it is in the main configuration > 'features' tab > sef url options

Last edit: 7 years 7 months ago by pouce.

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7 years 7 months ago #248582

Hi,

If the URLs don't work when you turn on the "force canonical URLs on listings", it means that the URLs you have in the "canonical URL" setting of your products/categories are wrong.
They can be wrong because of many things:
- you changed the menu structure
- you changed the alias of the element
- you clear the cache of the URLs in your SEF extension
In all these cases, simply removing the "canonical URL" will allow the link to work again as HikaShop will generate the link to the product page like when you set the "force canonical URLs on listings" to "no, generate the urls".
And if you have the "force canonical URLs on listings" setting to Use canonical URL and generate it if missing", after you empty the canonical URL field of your product, the next time someone tries to access the product page from a products listing, the generated URL will be stored as canonical URL and so you'll have a new functional canonical URL.

It's important to either have no canonical URL or a valid canonical URL, even if the "force canonical URLs on listings" is set to "no, generate the URLs", because otherwise, it will impact negatively your SEO.

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7 years 7 months ago #248590

Thank you Nicolas, that's true I had no canonical url in any categories or products that's why the problem was solved.

i'm gonna take my time to choose the canonical urls for my categories and products as i don't feel very confortable with sh404sef.

i have to check one more time but i didn't see any hikashop non-sef urls in this sef extension. I have to edit the sef urls generated by sh404sef and there are not many. but maybe i'm blind :pinch:

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7 years 7 months ago #248591

Just found one , shame on me

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