Product not listed on Google

[sjstv]

Well thought I would come back to this just to update.

Tried everything recommended but no change. It is actually worse. GJC is quite right in that it is something fundamental that is wrong.

I'm sure that Studio 42 is clever but just plugging his products doesn't help me in this case.

[AH]

"but just plugging his products doesn't help me in this case. "

I think that studio42 was trying to help -

His FREE plugin might not help you - but it might get you a sitemap - that google will be able to traverse with more ease than it seems to be doing now

[sjstv]

That's fair enough. I thought a sitemap was just a sitemap. I didn't realise there were different versions.

[AH]

I don't think that joomla natively produced a sitemap for VirtueMart products/categories

This is studio's attempt to help with this case. 

I do not use it, but maybe there is some feedback on it somewhere in the forums.

[Studio 42]

My sitemap is not better then another(perhaps faster), but if you don't use a sitemap, google need to have some reference to get the link to your products.
So if you don't have a sitemap. Google do:
>HOMEPAGE
Search for
>HOMEPAGE>first Level links
then get
>first Level link>2nd level links
...
If he found at first bad SEO links, this have priority and perhaps you never have the right link added in google results, because this was found before.
It's why it's important to use a sitemap.
Because right link are send to google and google have not to follow all your internal links.
If you have already bad links in Google then you need to add .htaccess rules to redirect each to the right link, so google stop to use the poor links or/and add this in the Google black list.

[AH]

If you have bad/old links - I found this tool very useful for handling the redirects - I use it myself

https://www.selfget.com/products/redj.html

[sjstv]

They used JSitemap. Not sure if it is a good idea or not as it looks complicated. Maybe getting rid of that and using Studio 42s would be a better idea?

Hadn't thought about the .htaccess file. The selfget looks good. Would using that do away with the need to edit .htaccess?

[jenkinhill]

I use JSitemap Pro with its VirtueMart plugin enabled and have no problems.

[AH]

Would using that do away with the need to edit .htaccess?

It will handle most things but is not a direct replacement for all .htaccess redirects

[sjstv]

OK thanks. I will check out both and see where I get with it.