Virtuemart creating multiple pages for every product can't find a solution

[six gun]

Joomla 3.9.18
Virtuemart 3.6.10

Hi,

My site is in 4 languages and has around 300 pages total across the 4 languages with 74 products in the shop. I hadn't been paying attention to the stats in Google Search Console until quite recently, The stats in GSC are;

Date                      Valid with warnings      Valid.       Excluded
2020-05-23            105                            7933        23082

I can only see back to the end of Feb but the numbers have not changed significantly over this time.

Exporting a couple of 1000 urls from the Valid column in GSC I have been able to review them and a large percentage of them come from the Virtuemart shop. I have used a temperory removal on as many as I can but I recognise this will expire in the future and this does not solve the issue of having so many urls, not to mention where they are coming from for Google to index.

Here are some examples of the urls

These examples when you use URL inspection in GSC report them as "URL in available to Google"
https://www.c60inoliveoil.com/shop/pick-n-mix/by,`p`.product_sales/dirDesc/results,2-31
https://www.c60inoliveoil.com/es/tienda/escoger-y-mezclar/by,product_name/dirDesc/results,2-151
https://www.c60inoliveoil.com/component/virtuemart/by,product_price/results,17-166?Itemid=0
https://www.c60inoliveoil.com/es/tienda/escoger-y-mezclar/by,product_name/dirDesc/results,5-19

There are also examples where the URL inspection returns "URL is not on Google"
https://www.c60inoliveoil.com/es/tienda/escoger-y-mezclar/escoger-y-mezclar/by,`p`.product_sales/dirDesc/results,2-2
https://www.c60inoliveoil.com/de/geschaeft/c60-in-hanfoel/dirDesc/results,1-15
https://www.c60inoliveoil.com/es/tienda/c60-en-aceite-de-coco/dirDesc/results,1-60

I have used canonicals where I can but as many of these pages are not ones I have control over the canonical is not one that I have set
E.g.,
https://www.c60inoliveoil.com/shop/pick-n-mix/by,`p`.product_sales/dirDesc/results,2-31 has a canonical of
<link href="https://www.c60inoliveoil.com/component/virtuemart/?Itemid=673" rel="canonical" />
https://www.c60inoliveoil.com/es/tienda/escoger-y-mezclar/by,product_name/dirDesc/results,2-151 has a canonical of
<link href="https://www.c60inoliveoil.com/es/component/virtuemart/?Itemid=671" rel="canonical" />

Some of the urls that Google reports that are "not on Google" load and the canonicals are of the right format

https://www.c60inoliveoil.com/de/geschaeft/c60-in-hanfoel/dirDesc/results,1-15
<link href="https://www.c60inoliveoil.com/de/geschaeft/c60-in-hanfoel" rel="canonical" />

I have read dozens of questions on the forum reporting similar issues but none that has given me a clear solution. Answers have included menus, htaccess, robots.txt, canonicals. Many of the suggested solutions have been around how to block the urls but not how to prevent the urls occurring in the first place. It can't be a common problem as 1000's of users of virtuemart would not put up with this.

Does anyone have any feedback from someone who has resolved the cause of the creation of the urls or is it the case that these pages are always created because of the nature of how Joomla and Virtuemart work and you have to work around it.

Thank you for any help on this.






https://www.c60inoliveoil.com/de/geschaeft/c60-in-hanfoel/dirDesc/results,1-15


I have, where I can see to do so added Canonicals for pages in the shop to direct Google to the url I want Google to index. When I check some of the urls they

[Studio 42]

https://www.c60inoliveoil.com/component/virtuemart/by,product_price/results,17-166?Itemid=0 is certainly a problem in your menu or a module.
`p`.product_sales curious

[six gun]

Thanks for replying Studio 42.

I have seen some other references to the menu but I'm not clear what I would need to change on how I have them setup, can you advise on what I should be looking at?
With regard modules I assume its a case of turning them off one at a time to see which one(s) is causing the conflict?

Thanks again

[Studio 42]

Strange is tath the canonical URL is <link href="https://www.c60inoliveoil.com/de/geschaeft/c60-in-hanfoel" rel="canonical" />
So google should not get the link https://www.c60inoliveoil.com/de/geschaeft/c60-in-hanfoel/dirDesc/results,1-15
I tested other links and canonical are right. Perhpas this was found by google for some months already ?