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 -
Spammy page with canonical reference to my website
A potentially spammy website http://www.rofof.com/ has included a rel canonical tag pointing to my website. They've included the tag on thousands of pages on their website. Furthermore http://www.rofof.com/ appears to have backlinks from thousands of other low-value domains For example www.kazamiza.com/vb/kazamiza242122/, along with thousands of other pages on thousands of other domains all link to pages on rofof.com, and the pages they link to on rofof.com are all canonicalized to a page on my site. If Google does respect the canonical tag on rofof.com and treats it as part of my website then the thousands of spammy links that point to rofof.com could be considered as pointing to my website. I'm trying to contact the owner of www.rofof.com hoping to have the canonical tag removed from their website. In the meantime, I've disavowed the www.rofof.com, the site that has canonical tag. Will that have any effect though? Will disavow eliminate the effect of a rel canonical tag on the disavowed domain or does it only affect links on the disavowed website? If it only affects links then should I attempt to disavow all the pages that link to rofof.com? Thanks for reading. I really appreciate any insight you folks can offer.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brucepomeroy2 -
H Tags in Menu
Hi I am checking the H2 tags on this page https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/dollies-load-movers-door-skates I have noticed my dev team have implemented H2's on the categories in the menu. Will this completely confuse Google as to what that page is about? In my opinion those links shouldn't be heading tags at all
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Changing title tags - any potential issues?
Hello all, I am planning to change the title tags throughout a site and am vaguely aware (perhaps wrongly!) that changing title tags across a site is a risk factor - can be a spam flag if changes (to a specific title tag) are implemented too regularly, for example. Would you change title tags across a site in one go, or implement changes gradually - to avoid any risk of upsetting Google. Do you have any insights/tips on the implementation of title tag changes?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart1 -
Proper Title Tags for ecommerce
In terms of E-commerce title tags. We are a manufacturer of our own clothing products. We are new to the SEO landscape so if this question is an obvious answer, then i apologize for wasting any one times in advance. We Manufacture our own clothing. Each item has a name. The names are American womens names such as amanda or lori or jenniffer etc. When we create the title tag for them should we include the name of the item itself at the beginning or end. For example should it be Item Name - Keyword - Keyword - Brand Name(aka manufacturer) or Keyword - Keyword - Item Name - Brand Name (aka manufacturer) The reason we ask this is because we think it would be a waste to rank for actual American names such as Jennifer and Jessica. All that we have read on Moz suggests that it seems to be better to have pertinent keywords in the beginning of the title as opposed to the end. In terms of our brand name we already rank number 1 for every combination of our brand. So we would like to start picking up traffic for the different product types we sell and there respective synonyms. Not sure if i am making any sense. Sorry in advance, and any help is very very much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Imagination0 -
Do I need to re-index the page after editing URL?
Hi, I had to edit some of the URLs. But, google is still showing my old URL in search results for certain keywords, which ofc get 404. By crawling with ScremingFrog it gets me 301 'page not found' and still giving old URLs. Why is that? And do I need to re-index pages with new URLs? Is 'fetch as Google' enough to do that or any other advice? Thanks a lot, hope the topic will help to someone else too. Dusan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chemometec0 -
Exact Syntax for Canonical to PDFs for Windows Server
Hi There, I have got in my web several PDFs with the same content of the HTML version. Thus I need to set up a canonical for each of them in order to avoid duplicate content. In particular, I need to know how to write the exact syntax for the windows server (web.config) in order to implement the canonical to PDF. I surfed the web but it seems I cannot find this piece of info anywhere Thanks a lot!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Midleton0 -
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