Microdata rating lost in Google in 2.6.1

-- url of the page with the problem -- : hielspoorinfo.nl/webshop/product/strassburg-sock
-- HikaShop version -- : 2.6.1
-- Joomla version -- : 3.4.8
-- PHP version -- : 5.6
-- Browser(s) name and version -- : All
-- Error-message(debug-mod must be tuned on) -- : Field ratingValue cannot not be empty

I just noticed today that I lost the rating stars in the Google search results for my products. When I checked my URL in the structured data testing tool from Google I indeed saw validation errors, stating that "Field ratingValue cannot not be empty".
Moreover I noticed that before the upgrade the number of votes was listed next to the stars, and now these are gone.

Please compare the cached view of the page in Google to the actual URL"
- webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=...&hl=nl&ct=clnk&gl=nl
- hielspoorinfo.nl/webshop/product/strassburg-sock

Hi,

In the views "vote / form" and "vote / mini", you can add the line:

<span class="hikashop_total_vote">(<?php echo JHTML::tooltip($row->hikashop_vote_average_score.'/'.$row->hikashop_vote_nb_star, JText::_('VOTE_AVERAGE'), '', ' '.$row->hikashop_vote_total_vote.' '); ?>) </span>

I am not a coder, which is why I deliberately NEVER touch any of the Hikashop views to prevent issues like this. This is why it is hard to imagine anything else but the latest upgrade causes this issue.

To test this I took one of my local dev sites, which never used Hikashop, installed the latest release set up a testproduct and a menu, activated the microdata plugin and ran the code through the testeing tool again at developers.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/ . Same result! Also I tried different templates, including the Protostar template: no difference....

I guess this proves that the issue is in the latest Hikashop release, right?

Hi,

If you add the code I gave you, it will solve all your issues at once.
But I agree that we missed this part when doing the modifications on the latest release.

Thank you for this report.

I know that I can fix this using the code you gave me, but I think this should be fixed structurally. This is obviously broken functionality, and even though I can fix this by editing my views (which I take pains to avoid to prevent later issues), many other users that use microdata will have the same issue. Especially since the broken code is not that obvious, people have to notice that rating stars have been lost in Google before they even realize something is not right.
So my suggestion is that a fixed version is released. This sounds reasonable, right?

Hi,

Please install this version of the microdata plugin:

Hi Xavier, sure I don't mind to test. Unfortunately though, the update did not work. I tested both on my local dev site and production, and the issue still exists. I also noticed that by the update the plugin was renamed from "HikaShop Microdata on Product Page plugin" to "Hikashop Product Tag".

Hi,

I tried on my local with the default version of the views and the same version of the plugin than the given one and I have no errors in the Google structured data testing tool. All the itemprop are present and correctly filled.

Could you provide a backend and FTP access to your website via our contact form ?
Don't forget to give the link of this topic in the message.
www.hikashop.com/support/contact-us.html

Hi Xavier, ok, I have sent the credentials

Hi,

I just fixed the issue on your end, we will publish the hot fix on the current package.
Thank you for your help.

Ok, the microdata is valid again, thanks.
One more little thing though, the number of votes that was displayed next to the stars still does not show up as it used before, can you also check that?

Hi,

Unfortunately this will require the view edition as indicated before.
Now all the informations are displayed in the tooltip when hovering the stars, no more displayed next to the stars.

So you just have to add the code given before, no worry for the view override we have updated all the vote system in the last release and we will not update that view unless for very minor things. So you can do the override.

When updating, you will still be able to compare the views to get the latest modifications. But once again they will not be mandatory.