Category SEO

DeSaaD37 · 2 Joined: 18 May 2011 Posts: 103 Location: Wheat Ridge, CO

I have updated the title and meta desc on our category pages but for some reason the changes aren't showing up after generating the store. Is there somewhere else that I need to make changes? I've checked under SEO > SEO Naming Rules and it looks like nothing is selected for Categories. Should this be set up a certain way in order to take changes for content put in the AUTO_Generated_Header sections?

mpetrov@searchfit · 2 Joined: 07 Jul 2009 Posts: 199

Hello,

Could you give an example?
I tried http://www.securitycameraking.com/security-camera-systems-214-ctg.html
and i found same meta tags and title as in the category in the admin panel.

Regards.

DeSaaD37 · 2 Joined: 18 May 2011 Posts: 103 Location: Wheat Ridge, CO

Custom Built Security Camera System - http://www.securitycameraking.com/custom-build-your-own-security-camera-system.html

these sub category pages are not showing the same meta titles and desc as are listed in the AutoGeneratedHeader section.

mpetrov@searchfit · 2 Joined: 07 Jul 2009 Posts: 199

In this particular case the file for this category is custom-built-security-camera-system-260-ctg.html
It's timestamp is from today.
I found 2 more files that are similar by name that are older (July 31th)

Also i fount strange rule in your .htaccess file:
Redirect 301 /custom-built-security-camera-system-260-ctg.html /custom-build-your-own-security-camera-system.html

If you want to use build-your-own-security-camera-system.html as file for this category you should put it in the WebPage Name field with the html extension. In this case our generation engine automate the rest and you wouldn't need to use .htaccess

Let me know if you have more questions.

Best regards.

DeSaaD37 · 2 Joined: 18 May 2011 Posts: 103 Location: Wheat Ridge, CO

That .htaccess reference was in there because I began re-naming urls and creating redirects in order to have cleaner URLs, however, I was told to leave them alone so I commented out that section of the .htaccess. They were older pages so I created the 301 so we don't lose any backlinks.

as for duplicate pages to that category, I may have missed another area where that cat may have been created, I'll double check and come back here when I find the issue.

DeSaaD37 · 2 Joined: 18 May 2011 Posts: 103 Location: Wheat Ridge, CO

May I ask where you saw those pages with duplicate Urls [custom-built-security-camera-system-260-ctg.html]? I'm only seeing the one category with that page name? I'm not seeing it under custom pages either. Where else should I be looking?

mpetrov@searchfit · 2 Joined: 07 Jul 2009 Posts: 199

This is the default name of this category if you don't use Page Name field for this category. If you want i may change the page name and regenerate so you can see what i have in mind.

Regards.

main@searchfit · Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2015 9:21 am GMT Post subject:

Just to clarify that those dup pages are probably phantom pages that remained in the past due to page name changes.

Please work together to clarify what is the desired page name, so we can suggest a way and remove the old ones.

In addition, .htaccess is most likely needed to make sure it 301 redirects from old pages to new page names.
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DeSaaD37 · 2 Joined: 18 May 2011 Posts: 103 Location: Wheat Ridge, CO

We want to keep the original URL of the categories. I was going to change them but was informed not to and that it could cause the pages to no longer have the same ranking they once had. I was trying to rename the pages so that we could remove the -260-ctg.html from the URLS and keep them more user friendly.

Do you think re-naming these pages and creating 301 Redirects is going to cause all of our pages to drop in ranking?

For example, the Url's should be like these at the moment:

http://www.securitycameraking.com/custom-built-security-camera-system-260-ctg.html

http://www.securitycameraking.com/4-channel-security-camera-systems-216-ctg.html

http://www.securitycameraking.com/8-channel-security-camera-systems-218-ctg.html

However, None of these pages that are SubCategory pages are using the meta data I'm putting into the Auto_Generated_Header section. I didn't think it was possible that ALL of these sub categories would have duplicates.

Is there a way to clear out old "phantom" pages?

mpetrov@searchfit · 2 Joined: 07 Jul 2009 Posts: 199

Sure there is a way. So we will keep the default page names and remove the others, right?

If we do that, then we will need 301 redirect from the old names to the default one, so we would keep page ranking.

Regards.

main@searchfit · Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2015 3:29 pm GMT Post subject:

Talking about the auto generated meta tags.

If you have meta data in the AUTO_GENERATED_HEADER text area then it will override any automatic SEO configuration that you are trying to configure unless you configure it with the "force" option to replace whatever you already have in that field.

For example, at the SEO configuration, you have dropdowns like:

Override Existing Title
Override Existing Meta Description
Override Existing Meta Keywords

Does that make sense?
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DeSaaD37 · 2 Joined: 18 May 2011 Posts: 103 Location: Wheat Ridge, CO

main@searchfit · Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2015 1:45 pm GMT Post subject:

Yes, just keep in mind that now you can't override with your custom meta tags on a per category basis since you always override with the auto SEO.

If you ever want to override then:

1. Turn off override
2. Clean ALL meta tags for all categories
3. Customize only those that you want
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DeSaaD37 · 2 Joined: 18 May 2011 Posts: 103 Location: Wheat Ridge, CO

Thanks! I spoke with Gabriel the other day because we noticed that all of the settings in SEO Naming rules got wiped out from the SCK store. We aren't sure how that happened since there's no RESET button that would have caused that by accidentally clicking it. Someone would have had to have gone in there and deleted each one manually right? I have two stores so I was luckily able to copy the settings over again from the second store. I took screen shots in case this ever happens again.

However, We also noticed that the mobile store link structure didn't get fixed after generating. I emailed Gabriel back about it but haven't heard a response. It's really important that we get those mobile category links working again. Right now if someone tries to use the category menu it's taking you to an empty page, possibly 404 error page on the mobile site.
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-Dro Simoes
Webmaster at Security Camera King and Techpro Security Products, LLC.

main@searchfit · Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 11:37 am GMT Post subject:

I asked Gabe to look into this.
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gabe@searchfit · SearchFit Guru Joined: 23 Jul 2013 Posts: 95

Hi Dro,

I did get your support ticket and it looks like the issue has been addressed. If there is still an issue, you can continue the dialog through the support ticket.

Thanks,

DeSaaD37 · 2 Joined: 18 May 2011 Posts: 103 Location: Wheat Ridge, CO

yes, we got it all figured out, thank you guys for the great support.
_________________
-Dro Simoes
Webmaster at Security Camera King and Techpro Security Products, LLC.