SEF (product in different categories creates duplicate content)

[freshfranky]

Hy Guys

I have some Products which are in different categories. This gives me lots of duplicated contents. First i had the issue that i have duplicaze contents with in /component/virtuemart and /virtuemart/. This i just fixed my writing the /component/ to the robots.txt. As far as i know, google doent care then. Now I have the product in all categories and the URL showes one category. I can change the category name in the URL to another existing and I'll find the same product again.

I want all my Products to be shown without category (SEF URL's). I could do it with a redirect statement in my htaccess but thats not realy what i want.
How can I make sure, that clicking on a product link, the product -detail page opens without any category in my url?

The best woild be, if it exists only there and only once!!!

[freshfranky]

Sorry Guys:
I'm using Joomly 2.5.6 and VM 2.0.8e with the icetheme template IT TheStore 4.

[freshfranky]

No ideas?
Its realy a comon issueaa!!!

[PRO]

do you want to use SEF urls or not?

If you have NO category in the url, then you will have a "canonical" url that does not match the url they are on (or google is on)

AND to NOT have component/virtuemart  in the url, you should have a menu link to the virtuemart frontpage layout.

I dont have duplicate issues at all.

the product link WILL always have the same category in the url though

[freshfranky]

Hy

Thanks for your reply. The component in the url i solved the same way you told me.

Actualy I have always one category in front of ever product. I dont even know, why he choses this particular category but i guess its the first one added to the product.
Now i'd like to have it without category, this makes sence no?
Is canonical not only for Google? Is it also the changing the url, when I click on a Product on my homepage?

I could do it with canonical but isn't it just fixing a bug? I would prefer, if the Product just exists once.

[freshfranky]

Here the Homepage if you wana Have a look at my disaster
www.gpsvision.ch

[Milbo]

it should always show the first category, or u can just use it without any category. Imho

[freshfranky]

Hy

Thanks for your reply. But how can I tell the product which category to use?

[ivus]

Hi freshfranky,

You contradict yourself?

Canonical means:
if your url is http://www.yoursite.com/category-name/product-name.html I'd expect your products to exist as Product Name in the Category Name category.

You want to change it to http://www.yoursite.com/product-name.html, but also exist in Category Name category, or even Category Name Two category. To then only display each product (regardless of displaying the category) would make it non-canonical. It's not regarded as duplicate content if the same product exists in separate categories.

My SEF URLs work perfectly. Perhaps it's something to do with your configuration. Be sure to check that Joomla! SEF URL's are turned on (friendly urls). You're using VM SEF URLS. You've correctly set up your .htaccess files.

Also you look like you have language packs installed. When I first went to your site i could see that the default language set was EN... but the content isn't.

[freshfranky]

Hy

Thanky for your reply.

My favourite solution would be  http://www.yoursite.com/all-products/product-name.html but this doesn't realy mater. As soon as I have my shop once working properly and I do anything (add a product, install a module), the urls change. This is crap. Now I have the problem again with /component/virtuemart/product-name. Maybe already the 10nth time. What is this.

Just once for all, I want my products to be in only one place, wherever this place is. But only once. And then they stay there. But now something. I do this only cause of duplicated contents and you say "It's not regarded as duplicate content if the same product exists in separate categories." Is that so?
I still believe it would be better to have it just in one single place.

My default language is german, but i guess it takes the one you've set in the browser. Anyway, I think this language package is the worst nightmare and creates all this problems.

[freshfranky]

Again

So let me tell you what happened now. I had the component/virtuemart in the url. So I went to the Main Menu called "Shop", which is the default page. I changed from Menutype from "Viruemart Category" to "Virtuemart Default Layout". Then It showed the categories on my start page, not anymore the products from the category, this is clear. Now the component/virtuemart issue is solved. If I click on the category "all-products", nothing hapens. All the other categories work fine. So I went to the backend to vm Product-Categories, opened the "all-products" category and changed the settings "Category Overview Layout" from default to not overwrite. saved. This setting automaticaly changes back to default but i guess thats ok. Now the category "all products" was working properly. Now I changed the "Shop" menu again to "Virtuemart Category" and chosed the category "all products" and now all is find. No more component/virtuemart in the url and even the categories are smooth. But for how long? I basicaly did nothing, but with a big impact on my urls.
This url's for me are a pain. Does somebody understood what I did, or maybe even what happened?

[jjk]

My default language is german, but i guess it takes the one you've set in the browser. Anyway, I think this language package is the worst nightmare and creates all this problems.

It takes what you set in Joomla configuration. And the german language pack certainly is not related to your problem (I did the german translation). My english/german urls are perfect 

BTW - I think a category "all-products" is poor SEO. It doesn't tell the search engines anything about your content.

[freshfranky]

Hehe

Thanks. 

I set the languange in "Erweiterung"->"Sprachen" as default. This should be enough no?

SEF:
And now exactly same story again. After a while the component/virtuemart mess again. But i saw now. I must select the "virtuemart startseite" to the menu which is default. There is no other way. If i do that, he's happy. But not me, cause I want the customer not to see the categories on the startpage but the products. One click less to money. Hmmm. Slowly I get things. They are not logic but i get them.
Am I right?
Why is this?
What next if I want the "all-products" to be shown? on the default page without messing all urls again.

[jjk]

Well...looking at your website, your language setup doesn't look correct.
It looks like you have English and German installed and you tried to configure one english and one german homepage. But the Joomla language setup is incomplete. Also, your german language VM2 products seem to be in the english language category and product database tables.

Concerning your URLs and categories:
If you have an URL
...vision.ch/de/alle-geraete/tk101-detail
compared to
...vision.ch/de/gps-tracker/tk101-detail
guess which one will be ranking higher in the search engine results if a customer searches for "GPS Tracker". Both urls are approximately of the same length, but the first one doesn't tell the seach engine anything about the page content. It might get lost somewhere on page 100+ of the search engine results.

[ivus]

Hi freshfranky,

I helped someone with this exact same problem yesterday.

Please check that you have assigned a menu item to > VirtueMart > Front Page. This is the first thing you're instructed to do. If you don't want the menu to show, create a new Menu called HIDDEN, and then create an item in that. LEAVE IT ALONE... don't assign it to any pages or modules. THIS WILL ELIMINATE YOUR /component/virtuemart/ PROBLEM ONCE AND FOR ALL...