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

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

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
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    • muzzmoz
      muzzmoz last edited by

      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

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • DmitriiK
        DmitriiK @Insightful_Media last edited by

        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.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Insightful_Media
          Insightful_Media @DmitriiK last edited by

          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?

          DmitriiK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • jeffpape
            jeffpape last edited by

            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.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • DmitriiK
              DmitriiK @muzzmoz last edited by

              Use tools like SEO Frog

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • DmitriiK
                DmitriiK @muzzmoz last edited by

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

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • muzzmoz
                  muzzmoz @DmitriiK last edited by

                  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?

                  DmitriiK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • muzzmoz
                    muzzmoz @DmitriiK last edited by

                    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 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • DmitriiK
                      DmitriiK @muzzmoz last edited by

                      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

                      muzzmoz 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • DmitriiK
                        DmitriiK @muzzmoz last edited by

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

                        muzzmoz 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • muzzmoz
                          muzzmoz @DmitriiK last edited by

                          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.

                          DmitriiK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • muzzmoz
                            muzzmoz @DmitriiK last edited by

                            Thanks Dmitrii,

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

                            DmitriiK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • DmitriiK
                              DmitriiK last edited by

                              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.

                              muzzmoz Insightful_Media 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 3
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