Re: Virtuemart 3 canoncial URLs for child variants

[GuidoS]

Mod comment: splitted post

Oke. I read you're post. It tells that is also can reload with javascript but the example is showing a new url for every child, hope this is not the only way to go.

I use the plugin now to have stock control and the user can select the size of a product. How would you solve this with the generic child variant, I don't see it. I can only choose between name, SKU etc but I want them to choose a size and not to reload the page.


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I have read it many times but the things is that I don't want separate urls for every size of a product. I want one url to the parent product and then choose a size, but I want to keep the stock control. I can't think of a situation you want a separate url for every product per size. I can imagine you want to get rid of the plugin but isn't there any function which can update the information underneath, without changing the url? The text on the site would give you the impressions that you have this choice but I didn't found that option.

[Milbo]

uuhm. What is the disadvantage to have an own URL per variant? and what are the positive effects? Can you explain? We may can add some tag, saying searchengines, that this is a variant of (if existing).

[GJC Web Design]

My 2 pennies worth

What is the disadvantage to have an own URL per variant? and what are the positive effects?

My thought as well - this fixation with url construction has never impressed me as valid... Google isn't dumb - the url is just a small part of it's indexing/ranking system.

e.g. Google 'T-shirt' -> look at the top returned t-shirt shops and then at their urls for a t-shirt.. pretty they aren't - change often between product details and the product link in cart or wishlist save, category views etc - and always different between sizes and colours...

And these are the top returned sites for this search

IMHO good SEO is about content that lets Google understand what it's looking at and organic back linking - not endless url fiddling

[GuidoS]

The site you refer at are using variables like ?size=, the size is not in the url like it will be now. And what about duplicate content, when you index all the child products as separate products. A color or pattern/print for a t-shirt is a different product in my opinion, a long sleeve t-shirt in White or black are different but in size it stays a white or black t-shirt. So I think you really have to see the different between what kind of custom variable you are using.

[AH]

different urls where the content / product name / meta description etc remain the same are not a good thing for seo

[GuidoS]

uuhm. What is the disadvantage to have an own URL per variant? and what are the positive effects? Can you explain? We may can add some tag, saying searchengines, that this is a variant of (if existing).

Well, in my example, with the sizes, the disadvantage is that the childproducts are not unique and don't earn to have a unique url. When you have a unique url you also want to have unique content, etc. You are not going to switch picture or something else when you select another size. If you take color, yeah, than I could agree with you. The positive effects? Don't get to many different product pages / urls that don't make sense, you need to have you're canonical setup perfect if you are going to do this. But than, why refresh the whole page for only the size and maybe 2 other things? Hope it helps:)

[Milbo]

What is with the idea to set the canonical URL of the parent?

[GuidoS]

That could be an option, but I still think it's better to not have different url's, what it the effort to have separate url's, it's not nice to have them indexed in search engines, you have to exclude them in sitemaps, you have unneeded reloads of your page and extra bandwith and in my opinion not a nice user experience with reloading a page with just selecting a size.

I hope you can reconsider this and I am also curious why you choose to not use ajax reload but with a whole page reload.

[bunglehaze]

I think I understand the issue Guido is trying to put across, the individual URL for each variant isn't really the issue but more that when you are not using the stockable plugin and choose child variants instead it does a full page load per custom field rather than AJAX load like the stockable plugin. Being honest it is something that bugs me a little too as I like the idea of each child having it's own URL and content but for me at least the full page load means I do not use that side of the config in favour of fast AJAX loading

[Milbo]

Bunglehaze, did you try vm3? I doubt it, cause we have the ajax there, exactly the reason we removed the stockable

To clarify, the stockable and the generic child variant are for the same purpose and they use the same idea. List children in a dropdown!

The generic child variant was missing the ajax, while the stockable was missing to load the products correctly. So we have now in general the ajax for the productdetail, therefore we dont need the stockable anylonger.

Having the same link for a product with 50 variants is actually, very, very bad. For example your customers cannot give a link to a friend and say "what do you think aobut it", no they have to say, click on the link. do this and that, what do you think about it.

Furthermore in a real store, an own variant should have an own SKU. So it is physically another product and should be treated like that. Variants are just like minicategories, actually.

[bunglehaze]

I have only tried vm3 a few times but not earlier on in the builds and with limited success to be honest Milbo and could never get it working right,  I have been waiting patiently for stable before I get testing again as I am too busy to afford the time currently.

I am glad to hear that AJAX is now working and removed the need for stockable though.  As soon as I can get chance I'll try the latest release on a copy of my site

[Milbo]

Check here please http://dev.virtuemart.net/attachments/download/764/com_virtuemart.2.9.9_extract_first.zip
and since vm2.9.8a our own store is running with vm3.

Please read here for more info about variants http://docs.virtuemart.net/tutorials/product-creation/186-derived-products-product-pattern-child-products.html

[GuidoS]

I havn't seen any other shop that has product links for every size of a product and how are you going to name it, every child product will get the name size M, Size L? I really think you have to make a difference between the usage of custom fields. In my opinion it's a step back in usability. Also the migration from VM2.6 to VM3 will be a lot of work, but that's something else.

[Milbo]

why it is a lot of work? There is almost no work todo? I think you do misunderstand there something.

The stockable and the generic dynamic variants are interchangeable. If you want to change this for 50k products, I do it for a 10 minutes ticket.

As long I can see no facts and no knowledge. Actually it is not something you need to bother about. and you do not even answer the suggested solution http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.de/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html

[GuidoS]

I have to change all names of my child products because that are the ones you show in the selection box in something like "my boots size 9", "my boots size 10", etc. Second I have to make a generic child variant and assign it to every parent product I have. Third deleting the plugin at every product. And offcourse changing the templates, urls, etc, but that is something I can live with.

Canonical urls can indeed be use to tell google that you have duplicate content and that you have a parent page which you have to get the information. But I would use this kind of stuff like when the same product is in different categories or when you add some more information like the tracking. And how are you going to do it when people are not using size like in my case but colors? Than the child product is different and maybe they do not want a canonical to the parent product. You really have to look at the kind of custom field you use. Colors makes a different product, sizes not. Like when you have another color t-shirt you also want to make you're meta description different from other colors.

Maybe we could find a way we both could live with. Like adding an extra size variable to a child product that can be choosen on the parent product page. Why not look for solutions in other e-commerce systems, how do they handle this.