How (or if) to apply re canonical tags to Shopify?

[muzzmoz]

Anyone familiar with Shopify will understand the problems of their directory structure. Every time you add a product to a 'collection' it essentially creates a duplicate. For example...

• https://www.domain.com/products/product-slim-regular-bikini

may also appear as:

• https://www.domain.com/collections/all/products/product-slim-regular-bikini
• https://www.domain.com/collections/new-arrivals/products/product-slim-regular-bikini
• https://www.domain.com/collections/bikinis/products/product-slim-regular-bikini
• etc, etc

It's not uncommon to have up to six duplicates of each product.

So my question is twofold:

1. Firstly, should I worry about this from an SEO point of view? I understand the desire to minimise potential duplicate content issues and also in focussing the 'juice' on just one page per product. But I also planned on trying to build the authority of the collection pages. If I request Google not to index the product pages which link off the collections, does this not devalue these collections pages?
2. Secondly, I understand the correct way to fix these is using 'rel canonical' tags, but I'm not clear about HOW to actually do this. Shopify support has not been very helpful. They have provided two different instructions, so just added to the confusion (see below).

Shopify instruction #1: Add the following to the theme.liquid file...

<title><br />{{ page_title }}{% if current_tags %} – tagged "{{ current_tags | join: ', ' }}"{% endif %}{% if current_page != 1 %} – Page {{ current_page }}{% endif %}{% unless page_title contains shop.name %} – {{ shop.name }}{% endunless %}<br /></title>
{% if page_description %}

{% endif %}

Shopify instruction #2: Add the following to each individual product page...

So, can anyone help clarify:

1. The best strategic approach to this inherent SEO issue with Shopify (besides moving to another platform!)? and
2. If 'rel canonical' tags is the way to go, exactly where and how to apply them?

Regards,

Murray

[DmitriiK]

Howdy,

I assume that in your case it doesn't happen automatically. In this case you'll need to use an IF statements in the head/header file. Basically, it would be this:

IF current page url = url you want THEN display canonical tag with wanted url

Repeat that for all needed url and you are good.

If there are many of those, CASE might be better.

[Insightful_Media]

Good answer!

I have a question! If I just wanna add one or two canoncial tags on specific page(s), how I can do it on shopify coding?

[jeffpape]

How can I fix this problem with Shopify? Shopify does not seem like it is a problem. One of their solutions is to no index the other pages, but I want all the google juice and google love going to the main page.

Current Setup:

https://wrestlinggear.com/collections/wrestling-shoes rel canonical - https://wrestlinggear.com/collections/wrestling-shoes

https://wrestlinggear.com/collections/wrestling-shoes/accessory rel - https://wrestlinggear.com/collections/wrestling-shoes/accessory

https://wrestlinggear.com/collections/wrestling-shoes/adidas rel canonical - https://wrestlinggear.com/collections/wrestling-shoes/adidas

I want it like this:

https://wrestlinggear.com/collections/wrestling-shoes - rel canonical - https://wrestlinggear.com/collections/wrestling-shoes

https://wrestlinggear.com/collections/wrestling-shoes/accessory - rel canonical - https://wrestlinggear.com/collections/wrestling-shoes

https://wrestlinggear.com/collections/wrestling-shoes/adidas- rel canonical - https://wrestlinggear.com/collections/wrestling-shoes

Of course there are a lot more pages like this that I would like to rel cannoical back to the main collections pages.

[DmitriiK]

Use tools like SEO Frog

[DmitriiK]

Well, if it automatically doesn't work, then you gotta do it manually, right

[muzzmoz]

I don't believe this is the answer. I have several other clients on Shopify who do not have goals for macro conversions, but we are seeing conversion data in GA.

Besides, I was always under the impression that if you have ecommerce enabled, it's better not to use goals for transactions as it might duplicate. Is this not the case?

[muzzmoz]

I know how to check whether the code is there. But how do you check whether or not specific pages have been indexed by Google?

As far as I can see Google Search Console only reports on the number of pages indexed, not which pages have been indexed. Is there any way to get an actual list of indexed pages?

I know running a site: query will show up all the results, but I just want a list (eg CSV) of the URLs indexed.

[DmitriiK]

Yes, I am. Here is a link with answers to your troubles: https://help.shopify.com/manual/reports-and-analytics/google-analytics/google-analytics-goals-and-funnels

[DmitriiK]

Yes, it is supposed to. Try it, check it - it's pretty easy

[muzzmoz]

Are you familiar with Shopify?

I have another issue where GA tracking code is not firing on the Thank_You page. I have double checked GA config with the GA implementation twice! But the problem seems to be with Shopify, since this page sites on their site (checkout.shopify.com) and they seem unable to fix it.

[muzzmoz]

Thanks Dmitrii,

So will that one line of code fix the issue for ALL products and ALL collections?

[DmitriiK]

Howdy.

Shopify does canonicals automatically. Basically all the collections products urls will have canonical to product url. Like this: https://www.domain.com/collections/all/products/product-slim-regular-bikini will have canonical to
https://www.domain.com/products/product-slim-regular-bikini

If it doesn't happen for you automatically, simply insert this:

In the main theme.liquid file in the head section.