meta description and keywords

I made a menu, linked it too product listings. It seems it works all fine.

But I would like to change the keywords and meta desciptions from that page. Now it seems it takes them from the mainpage

There is indeed no meta description/keywords for categories, only for products. So if you go on a product page you can see the ones of the product.

If you want meta description and keywords for your menus, you should look at an external tool such as: extensions.joomla.org/extensions/site-ma.../seo-a-metadata/9830

I use joomla 1.6, I can set metadesciption and keywords for any menu item. But it seems hikashop not take accept that for the catagory listing

I know. It's normal. There is no meta description/keywords for categories, only for products in HikaShop, whether you're using joomla 1.5 or joomla 1.6.

If you want meta description and keywords for your menus, you should look at an external tool such as: extensions.joomla.org/extensions/site-ma.../seo-a-metadata/9830

Hi!

Can you recommend a extern tool for Joomla 1.7 - 2.5?

Regards,
Fredelius

Meta description/keywords for categories are handled since half a year now in HikaShop. You don't need an external tool for that.

For Joomla 1.7-2.5 I would recommend this tool if you want to handle meta tags of menus and much more:
extensions.joomla.org/extensions/site-ma...adata/meta-data/7124

Ooops... Thanks you for the info!

What's the current situation with this? I set a meta description on a products listing menu item and it's not being used. Thanks.

Hi,

As I said in my previous message, the meta description and keywords are to be added to the categories.
Adding them to the menu item won't do anything and you don't want that to work since you can display different categories with the same menu item and you want the meta description and keywords to change for each categories of the listing.

I see, thanks for clearing that up. It's difficult sometimes to decipher what is going on when it requires reading long forum threads. The usual thing for software is to have a reference manual of some kind rather than having to do that, and the discussion forum only supporting people with edge cases and misunderstandings, rather than being the primary reference (and often years old so unclear if still relevant to current version, since only updated when questioned).

I can't say I agree with your statement that I don't want that to work. How is it better that it falls back to the global one? It makes no sense when I have set one on the menu item. If I don't provide them for the category, surely it should fall back to the ones on the menu item, if they are set, and not the global?

There is also the situation where I have two menu items using the same category. One for a products listing and one for a category listing (as I do have). In that case I cannot set a different one for each under the current setup. I take your point about setting different ones for sub-categories within the menu item, but the URL is also different in that case, so they can be handled differently.

Taking all that in to account, it seems clear to me that the priority order should be....

For menu items when it is the exact URL of the menu item (no sub-category used):

- Menu Item
- HilkaShop Category
- Global

And when it's a sub-category within a menu item:

- HilkaShop Category
- Menu Item
- Global

This takes care of the category issue you mentioned and falls back in a sensible way. Perhaps there are other use-cases where this does not work, but at the minimum there is no reason to fall back to global and completely ignore the menu item.

Thanks
Nigel

Hi,

The problem with what you're saying is that if you have different menu items displaying the same category, you will have different URLs to access the same content.
In that case, either:
- You don't set a canonical URL for the category and in that case, it would make sense to be able to have different meta description and keywords for both. However, you will be penalized by Google for these URLs as "duplicate content". And that's way worst for your SEO.
- You set a canonical URL for the category. In that case, you won't be penalized by Google but it will only reference that canonical URL for the category and thus only one set of meta description and keywords.
So in conclusion, this means that there is no need to be able to set different meta description and keywords for a category for different menu items.
Also, SEO-wise, it's not good to have different categories of a same menu item with the same meta description, or keywords. That will lower your ranking.
Really, it's a good idea to set one meta description and keywords per category and that's why we do it like that.

It's not true to say that if you have different menu items displaying the same category, you will have different URLs to access the same content. Two menu items based on the same HikaShop category can be very different based on modules they include and which HikaShop format they use to display that category. As an example, here are two pages of the same HikaShop category, one a products listing and one a categories listing:

JCB Parts Catalogue
www.swiftplantspares.com/jcb-parts-catalogue

JCB Parts Directory
www.swiftplantspares.com/jcb-parts

Only one of these has URLs beneath it for the sub-categories. The products browser does not have that feature.

So that is a use-case where there is good reason to have different meta description and keywords for two menu items on the same HikaShop category. If you offered the choice, which you can easily do using the fallbacks I suggested*, then users of the system can make their own choices on this. There is no need for you to dictate one particular way of using it.

Also, you have not answered the main point I made, which is that there is no good reason at all that you are falling back to the global settings and ignoring any that are provided on the menu item. If you don't agree with the first choice on a direct menu item being the menu item settings, there is certainly no reason that the fallback should be the global settings, and ignore the menu item completely.

* - leaving the menu item options blank would mean the category settings are used

Hello,

So, if you have two different URLs for the same kind of content ; you need to use meta data related to the menu and not the categories.
Regarding the HikaShop design, the HikaShop database, the Joomla eco-system ; I'm sorry but we cannot accept your feature request to be added into the HikaShop core.
A category can store one single set of meta data ; it cannot store multiple meta data per Joomla menu.

If you want to do so, you can but it would require to not use the HikaShop feature and use an add-on like the one Nicolas previously mentioned.
Otherwise, you can create a custom plugin in order to read such kind of data from different tables (new tables) in your database.
Afterwards, thanks to the HikaShop and Joomla triggers ; your custom plugin would be able to get the current displayed category, the current Joomla menu and then set the meta data you want.

www.hikashop.com/support/documentation/6...r-documentation.html

Thank you for your understanding

It's a shame you couldn't take the time to understand my suggestion before dismissing it. Joomla already provides a place to store meta data against menu items and globally. When no meta data is stored on a category, you are using that, but incorrectly, and falling back to the global. All I am suggesting is that the Joomla system is used properly, and you fall back to the menu item meta data (if it exists) before falling back to the global.

For my case all I need to do is force the metadata in my template for my menu items when using the menu item URL, I simply thought this was an oversight in your system that could be fixed, making my setup simpler and helping others using the system, but you appear to prefer not on basically dogmatic grounds, since you're not really listening to and understanding the criticism/suggestion before dismissimg it.

Hello,

We are not against improvements but we have some guidelines to follow in the HikaShop development.
Your request were not in these guidelines so we gave you alternatives.
Afterwards, you can make your suggestion clearer and synthesized.

Regards,

I also just encountered this - A menu item meta description isn't getting printed.
In my case, this happens on the following scenario:

1 Products Listing menu item - that shows from all the products.
1 Categories Listing with the root Brands category.

I am not able to set a meta description with the common Joomla way - that is through the menu item.

I didn't follow the whole discussion, but I also agree with @NigelPeck that a fallback to the menu item meta description is the way to go, as this is the way Joomla works.

Users can set meta data on the menu item level. A component should take these into consideration, as otherwise it bypasses the Joomla eco-system. Joomla users know that they can set a meta-description on the menu item and they expect to see it on their front-end.
So somehow this must be in place and working for hikashop too.

Hello,

I guess that I found an aberration in Joomla core.
They added "meta description" and "meta keywords" into the menus settings BUT, it is not something handle by the code, the components need to read and set the values.
It would be more logical to let the core set the values and then the component can override (re-write) the value afterwards....

In the HikaShop product "view.html.php" file, you will find that content : Just before, past the code : It will create the fallback that the Joomla core should do.