Magento SEO Issues

**Kimura** · 10-06-2013, 08:48 PM

We're using Magento as our ecommerce platform. We've run into some issues which affected our home page rank in the SERPs, but not other parts of the site, such as our category pages. It's very strange.

We we're #1-#5 in the SERPs - on Google, Bing and Yahoo - for around 5-6 keywords phrases (we actually rank for about 20 or so, but I'm only concerned with good CTR and conversions). Over the past four months, we dropped for these main keywords phrases from the first page, to pages 2&3 on Google. We only dropped for a few keywords on Yahoo and Bing. I determined we weren't being penalized by Google and used Majestic SEO to look at our link profile versus the competition in our niche. We have a better link profile, as a good portion of our competition are using spammy, useless blogs for deep linking, links, etc.

Problem #1: We switched review systems from Magento's default system to a 3rd party plugin. There were 200+ instances of products reviews in the Google index from this comment system. However, it took the title tag from our home page (with all of our keyword phrases) and inserted it into the title tag of some 200+ review pages. We had over 200+ instances of the homepage version of our title tag. We fixed it by having our developer swap them out from "Home Page Title Tag Keyword Phrases" to "Product Review". Problem solved.

Problem #2: Our developer apparently has a development site which was indexed and it's an exact duplicate of our website. I had him use the X Robots tag, so hopefully this will resolve any potential cross-site duplicate content issues. Problem solved.

Here is/was Problem #3: Google keeps indexing weird string variations of our homepage. I had our developer use the canonical tag on the homepage, so that it will perhaps tell Google that www.hompage[dot]com/?12345 is actually the same as our homepage.

Here's what Google shows me under duplicate title tags:

www.homepage[dot]com/?dir=asc&order=name
www.homepage[dot]com/?gclid=CN7C1rrK < ------- why is it indexing a Google Click Identifier?
www.homepage[dot]com/?order=msrp_price&dir=asc

Any thoughts as to how I can resolve this?

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**speed2x** · 11-06-2013, 01:58 AM

Some of my comments:

You are right to use canonical to solve this problem #3. You should give Google sometimes to update the problem again, it should be 3 days before Google remove the duplicated issue.

About "why is it indexing a Google Click Identifier?", sometimes it is not come from google but it come from other robots, I mean is if another page have a link to google click identifier then google have to index it. But I believe canonical will solve this problem good enough.

Hope it help

**david** · 11-06-2013, 02:03 AM

@Kimuara: I think you are doing the right way, just wait some days to see. I know it 's really a nightmare to see our keywords down in search engine but not much we can do here more than waiting

**Kimura** · 11-06-2013, 05:06 AM

Originally Posted by speed2x

Some of my comments:

You are right to use canonical to solve this problem #3. You should give Google sometimes to update the problem again, it should be 3 days before Google remove the duplicated issue.

About "why is it indexing a Google Click Identifier?", sometimes it is not come from google but it come from other robots, I mean is if another page have a link to google click identifier then google have to index it. But I believe canonical will solve this problem good enough.

Hope it help

Thanks. I should have said Google Webmaster Tools. This gclid parameter was somehow indexed.

**Kimura** · 11-06-2013, 05:17 AM

Originally Posted by david

@Kimuara: I think you are doing the right way, just wait some days to see. I know it 's really a nightmare to see our keywords down in search engine but not much we can do here more than waiting

It's beyond a nightmare. I had no idea about some of the Magento canonical issues, some of the default settings, etc. I spent the whole weekend reading up on Magento SEO best practices. I sort of took it for granted that all the on-pages factors and site architecture were fine. I mainly focused on link building, content development, keyword research; basically, all off-page factors. Even though we were getting more and more links, we kept dropping in the SERPs for very good quality/high volume keywords.

I didn't even realize our developer had a duplicate dev site down to the last piece of text.

I fixed the issues, so all I can do is wait for Google to do its thing.

**david** · 13-06-2013, 04:15 AM

I want to share another tips to take care your brand here. You should use Google Alert to realize right away anywhere on internet telling about your brand.

http://www.google.com/alerts

The great thing is if a dupplicate content happen and was detected by Google somewhere Google will send to you notification and you are the first people fix it. You can use this tool for you and your competitors.

**serpyre** · 06-07-2013, 12:36 PM

Actually Google are moving from bottom-up implementation to top-down techniques, this are why sites are being delisted in favour of enterprise class sites with high performance and product counts -or- very niche sites, either product based or content. Almost all sites are developed on the bottom-up reactive approach to implementation, Google are removing these sites progressively starting with Micro Enterprise (<$2million per year revenue). In 1-2years it will move to Small Enterprise (<$10million per year revenue) once 80% of the Micro Enterprise have been delisted. Then on to Medium Enterprise (<$50million per year revenue) in 3-5years once 80% of the Small Enterprise are delisted, and so on. Google know everything, you hosts whether dedicated or shared, page load performance for cached and non-cached, platform used, number of products, etc. They reward associations, the more high quality associations you have the better the ranking (using a top celebrity bypasses all this but most of us do not have them available to endose our sites), it is that simple. We were provided all this by some enterprise consultants who produce top-down strategy for the large multi-nationals on projects in $10-$100s millions. Yes, we understand everyone will find many details why this cannot be true, but that is the bottom-up approach and the ones Google are progressively punishing. Not many will be left standing at the end of each cycle, and these wonderful SEO services, you buy time, Google will move much faster as they have knowledge. We saw these same consultants list a 2month old Magento CE site first page on Google next to eBay, Amazon, Net-A-Porter, Saks purely based on top-down techniques, matching Google every step of the way.

**ShawnPaul18** · 17-07-2013, 05:00 AM

sometimes it is not come from search engines but it come from other spiders, I mean if another web page have a web link to search engines just click identifier then search engines have to catalog it. But i believe canonical will fix this issue excellent enough. . .

How to custom website?

**kristenhanna** · 01-08-2013, 01:19 PM

The magento rich snippets review system doesn't create this kind of issues. You can give a try with this. Your recent reviews will be listed in the sidebar and average rating also displays with star rating. It pulls out your data from your from websites and displays in search engine results which shows all your product details. Find more at http://www.apptha.com/magento/reviews-ratings-extension

**coupon067** · 23-08-2013, 06:24 AM

Yes, we understand everyone will find many details why this cannot be true, but that is the bottom-up approach and the ones Google are progressively punishing. Not many will be left standing at the end of each cycle, and these wonderful SEO services,