Googlebot sees my product pages thru 2 different links

[LuckyEyesOnline]

Hello,

today I was checking on Google Webmaster Tools has was my website doing. I found that I have Pages with duplicate title tags and the reason of that is because there are 2 different ways to access a product page, as shown below:

FROM THE CATEGORY PAGE: /page/L/PROD/04-evil-eye-baby-pin/evil-eye-babypin-P
FROM ANY OTHER PAGE:
/page/L/PROD/evil-eye-babypin-P

Of course that it is the same product but Google thinks that are different so it is warning me that 2 different products has the same TITLE TAG.

Is it possible to have only 1 link to the product page, for example, like
www.luckyeyesonline.com/page/L/PROD/evil-eye-babypin-P
?

Thank you in advance and please help me.
Carina

[dotCOM_host]

This is caused precisely by how I described it in another thread where we've been discussing "duplicate content penalty"... same product, but assigned to multiple categories. Since the links to this one product are different, they are considered to be "different pages" (different destination URLs), yet they end up with identical content once you reach them. This sends the link to the Google duplicate-page hell, ie: the product doesn't get indexed.

The solution is to skip the category code in all URLs. How you accomplish this will depend on many factors - whether you use stock Miva Merchant, any short links modules, v5.5 stock short links options, custom .htaccess rewrites, etc, but ultimately you'd want to remove all references to the category name in all product links. A product is a product is a product - it shouldn't matter which category it's in - when you display the PROD page the CTGY info should not be in the URL.

[dotCOM_host]

Oh, before I forget, here's the other thread...

http://extranet.miva.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17080

[LuckyEyesOnline]

Thank you and I understand what you are saying. I have been told that this is caused by the miva how miva works. I know that if you have 1 product in 2 different categories i will have 2 different links but even when the product belongs only to one category you'll have 2 different links, as shown below. One link included the category (as shown on the first row) and the other without the category (as shown on the second row)


/page/L/PROD/04-evil-eye-baby-pin/evil-eye-babypin-P

/page/L/PROD/evil-eye-babypin-P


If you access a product from its category, the link will include the category code.
If you access a product from any other page like THE PRODUCT LIST (PLIST), the link won't include the category; the link will be (for the product code "evil-eye-babypin-P")

/page/L/PROD/evil-eye-babypin-P

I did my best explaining my problem.

thank you,
Carina

[Gilbert]

Having read both threads carefully and checked my account on Google Webmaster Tools I have decided to strip the category from the URL – indeed I am stripping –p-CTGY

However can anybody assist in the .htaccess rewriting as I do not have the faintest idea from were to start ? I basically need to have a temporary redirect for all URL from

http://www.domain.com/store/product-p-category.html

to

http://www.domain.com/store/product.html

Many thanks

[LuckyEyesOnline]

The solution is to skip the category code in all URLs. How you accomplish this will depend on many factors - whether you use stock Miva Merchant, any short links modules, v5.5 stock short links options, custom .htaccess rewrites, etc, but ultimately you'd want to remove all references to the category name in all product links. A product is a product is a product - it shouldn't matter which category it's in - when you display the PROD page the CTGY info should not be in the URL.

I have miva 5.0; can somebody tell me how to do this?

thanks

[Gilbert]

Why you don't upgrade to v5.5. ?

Anyhow I had achieved this by using Sebenza's Ultimate SEO Links (which I continue to use)

http://www.sebenza.com/products/SS-USL5.html

Also using Latu's Metatags Helper v5

http://store.latu.net/miva-modules-5/LATU-METATAGS.html

[LuckyEyesOnline]

Also using Latu's Metatags Helper v5

http://store.latu.net/miva-modules-5/LATU-METATAGS.html

I do have Latu's Metatags and short links.

[Gilbert]

If by short Links you mean the Sebenza's Ultimate SEO Links then follow the short instructions in the enclosed PDF "manual" Quite clear with examples...

[LuckyEyesOnline]

If by short Links you mean the Sebenza's Ultimate SEO Links then follow the short instructions in the enclosed PDF "manual" Quite clear with examples...

No, I don't have that module and I think that I am not using any module for short links...Somebody else did that job for me 2 years ago and don't remember how.

Anyway, what I need to do is to take the category code from my URLs so those products that belong to more than 1 category appear with the same URL.

[Gilbert]

I assume then it has to do with rewrites and your .htaccess file. Unfortunately I cannot assist on this as it is out of my league, however there is an extensive thread on subject matter and how to achieve it on this forum