Best way to Selectively No Index Some Products

-- url of the page with the problem -- : iheartsin.com
-- HikaShop version -- : 2.3.5
-- Joomla version -- : 3.3.6
-- PHP version -- : 5.3.29

I keep reading articles that I should change the product descriptions that I get from manufacturers, as I could be SEO penalized due to duplicate content.

I am in the process of rewriting the most popular products, but for items that I don't want to invest the time in rewriting, articles are suggesting I set them up as no index. What is the easiest way to set some, but not all of the product as no index?

Also, for Hikamarket, if the product is listed on the Vendor page and on the main site, is that going to be considered duplicate content as well?

Hi,

1.
Create a custom product field via the menu display>Custom fields with two values rel="nofollow" and empty.
Then, in your products that you don't want to index, select the rel="nofollow" choice for the custom field.
In the file "listing_img_title" of the view "product" (supposing that you're using the "image and title" item layout), just change the line:
<a href="<?php echo $link;?>" title="<?php echo $this->escape($this->row->product_name); ?>">
to:
<a href="<?php echo $link;?>" title="<?php echo $this->escape($this->row->product_name); ?>" <?php echo $this->row->FIELD;?>>

where FIELD should be replaced by the column name of your custom field.

2. Pages which are accessed after a login/registration are not indexed by Google so no problem there.

If I paste the code below into the the file, I get a 404. When you say using a "image and title" item layout, where do I check that setting?

<a href="<?php echo $link;?>" title="<?php echo $this->escape($this->row->product_name); ?>" <?php echo $this->row->nofollow;?>>

To clarify, "nofollow" is the name of my column.

Hi,

A 404 ? Would it be possible to have an example ?
Your custom field "nofollow" should contain a full html tag, like otherwise it can break the HTML content and provide a non-working link.
It's the single idea I got.

Regards,

I am not sure I understand. I'll explain what I did. If that doesn't work, I'll set up a test server and make the changes so it will 404.

I have a custom field labeled "No Index" associated with a column name for my product called "nofollow"
I set the default value to equal rel="nofollow" (pic attached)

I then go to the listing_img_title file of PRODUCT under DISPLAY->VIEWS for the front end of my specific template

I replace

<a href="<?php echo $link;?>" title="<?php echo $this->escape($this->row->product_name); ?>">

with

<a href="<?php echo $link;?>" title="<?php echo $this->escape($this->row->product_name); ?>" <?php echo $this->row->nofollow;?>>

should the nofollow above be No Index?

Hi,

I don't see why that change would generate a 404 error since you don't change the href attribute of the link.
On top of that, your modification is correct so it should work fine.
The 404 error must come from something else.
Do you mean that if you remove the modification you don't get the 404 and if you add it back you get it again ?
That would be really strange.

I'm an idiot...not sure what I did differently, but it's working now. Sorry to waste your time.

One last question. Anyway to make sure that I set up the "nofollow" to actually working properly?

Hi,

Right click on the link and click on the "inspect element" (or something similar) choice and that will open your browser's debugger and you'll see the HTML of the link. There, see if you get the rel="nofollow" added to the link and you'll see if that works or not.

Doesn't look like what I did worked. I see "nofollow" for some social links, but not a product.

view-source:http://www.modelmisconduct.com/index.php/shop/product/hosiery-1565

Hi Nicolas,

I just wanted to follow up on my prior post, as it does not look like the changes I made are working.

Doesn't look like what I did worked. I see "nofollow" for some social links, but not a product.

view-source:http://www.modelmisconduct.com/index.php/shop/product/hosiery-1565

Create a custom product field via the menu display>Custom fields with two values rel="nofollow" and empty.
Then, in your products that you don't want to index, select the rel="nofollow" choice for the custom field.

Also stupid question, but if the purpose is to not receive penalty for duplicate content, don't I want "noindex", rather than "nofollow"?

Hi,

You're editing the view "listing_img_title", right ?
So I don't understand why are you giving a link to a product page which does not contains any product listing module ; the modification you made won't be visible in the product page.

Regards,

Hi Jerome,

Thank you for responding. Perhaps I am unclear.

I keep reading articles that I should change the product descriptions that I get from manufacturers, as I could be SEO penalized due to duplicate content.

I am in the process of rewriting the most popular products, but for items that I don't want to invest the time in rewriting, articles are suggesting I set them up as no index. What is the easiest way to set some, but not all of the product as no index?

The content (specifically the product description) that I want to control whether is index/crawled by search engines are on the product page like the one below.

www.modelmisconduct.com/index.php/shop/product/hosiery-1565

My question is what is the best way to no have some,but no all my products not get crawled?

If I need to clarify further, please let me know.

Regards,

Marco

Hi,

See : developers.google.com/webmasters/control...docs/robots_meta_tag

About the duplicate content, use Canonical url
See : moz.com/learn/seo/duplicate-content

Regards,

Hi Jerome,

My Question is if there is a way to set <meta name="robots" content="noindex" /> on individual products? Perhaps using the method you guys suggested with custom fields?

Hi,

To add a meta tag on some products, you can indeed use custom product fields, create one for example meta_noindex with a default value set as "false", then in the product edition page change the field value to "true" for the desired products. Don't display it on frontend.

And edit the view "product / show_default", then add code like:

Just to confirm, if we WANT the product to be indexed/crawled, the the noindex value should = "false"?

Hi,

The code Xavier gave you will add the metatag to the page only if the value of the custom field is "true". So if you set anything else in it, including false, it won't add it.

What is the best way to confirm we did this correctly?

I set item 4016 to true



but when I view source, I don't see anything that states noindex
<meta name="robots" content="noindex" />
view-source:http://www.modelmisconduct.com/hikashop-menu-for-brands-listing/lacy-satiny-chemise-sexy-after-dark-4016

Hi,
In the code I can read "true" and not "TRUE" ; which are for a code aspect, different strings.

Regards,