Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How (or if) to apply re canonical tags to Shopify?
-
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:
- 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?
- 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:
- The best strategic approach to this inherent SEO issue with Shopify (besides moving to another platform!)? and
- If 'rel canonical' tags is the way to go, exactly where and how to apply them?
Regards,
Murray
-
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.
-
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?
-
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.
-
Use tools like SEO Frog
-
Well, if it automatically doesn't work, then you gotta do it manually, right
-
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?
-
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.
-
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
-
Yes, it is supposed to. Try it, check it - it's pretty easy
-
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.
-
Thanks Dmitrii,
So will that one line of code fix the issue for ALL products and ALL collections?
-
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-bikiniIf it doesn't happen for you automatically, simply insert this:
In the main theme.liquid file in the head section.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Canonical and Alternate Advice
At the moment for most of our sites, we have both a desktop and mobile version of our sites. They both show the same content and use the same URL structure as each other. The server determines whether if you're visiting from either device and displays the relevant version of the site. We are in a predicament of how to properly use the canonical and alternate rel tags. Currently we have a canonical on mobile and alternate on desktop, both of which have the same URL because both mobile and desktop use the same as explained in the first paragraph. Would the way of us doing it at the moment be correct?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JH_OffLimits3 -
Rel=canonical and internal links
Hi Mozzers, I was musing about rel=canonical this morning and it occurred to me that I didnt have a good answer to the following question: How does applying a rel=canonical on page A referencing page B as the canonical version affect the treatment of the links on page A? I am thinking of whether those links would get counted twice, or in the case of ver-near-duplicates which may have an extra sentence which includes an extra link, whther that extra link would count towards the internal link graph or not. I suspect that google would basically ignore all the content on page A and only look to page B taking into account only page Bs links. Any thoughts? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | unirmk0 -
Does Google Read URL's if they include a # tag? Re: SEO Value of Clean Url's
An ECWID rep stated in regards to an inquiry about how the ECWID url's are not customizable, that "an important thing is that it doesn't matter what these URLs look like, because search engines don't read anything after that # in URLs. " Example http://www.runningboards4less.com/general-motors#!/Classic-Pro-Series-Extruded-2/p/28043025/category=6593891 Basically all of this: #!/Classic-Pro-Series-Extruded-2/p/28043025/category=6593891 That is a snippet out of a conversation where ECWID said that dirty urls don't matter beyond a hashtag... Is that true? I haven't found any rule that Google or other search engines (Google is really the most important) don't index, read, or place value on the part of the url after a # tag.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atlanta-SMO0 -
Partial duplicate content and canonical tags
Hi - I am rebuilding a consumer website, and each product page will contain a unique product image, and a sentence or two about the product (and we tend to use a lot of the same words in different ways across products). I'd like to have a tabbed area below the product info that talks about the overall product line, and this content would be duplicate across all the product pages (a "Why use our products" type of thing). I'd have this duplicate content also living on its own URL's so they can be found alone in the SERP's. Question is, do I need to add the canonical tag to this page, since there's partial duplicate content on the product pages? And if I did that, would my product pages go un-indexed?? I understand how to handle completely duplicated content, it's the partial duplicate that I'm having difficulty figuring out.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jenny10 -
Lowercase VS. Uppercase Canonical tags?
Hi MOZ, I was hoping that someone could help shed some light on an issue I'm having with URL structure and the canonical tag. The company I work for is a distributor of electrical products and our E-commerce site is structured so that our URL's (specifically, our product detail page URL's) include a portion (the part #) that is all uppercase (e.g: buy/OEL-Worldwide-Industries/AFW-PG-10-10). The issue is that we have just recently included a canonical tag in all of our product detail pages and the programmer that worked on this project has every canonical tag in lowercase instead of uppercase. Now, in GWT, I'm seeing over 20,000-25,000 "duplicate title tags" or "duplicate descriptions". Is this an issue? Could this issue be resolved by simply changing the canonical tag to reflect the uppercase URL's? I'm not too well versed in canonical tags and would love a little insight. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GalcoIndustrial0 -
Should canonical links be included or excluded in a sitemap?
Our company is in the process of updating our sitemap. Should we include or exclude canonical links.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebRiverGroup0 -
Should I remove Meta Keywords tags?
Hi, Do you recommend removing Meta Keywords or is there "nothing to lose" with having them? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
Canonical & noindex? Use together
For duplicate pages created by the "print" function, seomoz says its better to use noindex (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/complete-guide-to-rel-canonical-how-to-and-why-not) and JohnMu says its better to use canonical http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=6c18b666a552585d&hl=en What do you think?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline1