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Legacy URL for changed product name not returning 301
Rank: Member
Joined: 12/19/2006(UTC)
Posts: 153
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Hi there,
BV has a feature that I never realized, but unfortunately it is not working the way that I think it should (or that the search engines think it should.) I stumbled upon this in Google webmaster tools by noticing some duplicate title tags.
If you change a product name, then the old name is still accessible! For example, ~/item001.aspx is dynamically named for item001; if we change the name of item001 to item001_Free, then the Url changes to ~/item001_Free.aspx, but the original URL and the updated URL are both still active.
Great that the legacy URL's are still there, but horrible that we now may get duplicate content penalty for the duplicate pages. Thoughts? Any developers have some insight on how to implement a 301 in this case? Thanks.
On a side note, I did notice 54 votes in feature voting: 301 Redirects for Custom Urls and on Changes to Names
When a custom URL changes or a product name changes, record the old URL and add an optional 301 redirect to the new one so that SEO ranking isn't lost. (This 'suggestion' seems to be asking for a similar thing, but I feel that the way things are right now is somewhat a bug in that we are getting an seo penalty.)
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Rank: Member
Joined: 12/19/2006(UTC)
Posts: 153
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Wow! Just figured something out that I bet none of you knew:) except Marcus of course. As per my previous post, these were not legacy url's, as BV doesn't have that ability, which I originally suspected. What is happening is as follows: If you have an item with sku SKU001, and name My Product Name, then the url rewriter will build the url as such: www.example.com/category...roduct-Name__SKU001.aspxNow, the kicker...try the following (try it in your site too): www.example.com/category/My-Product-Name[red]-Any-Text-Here[/red]__SKU001.aspx and the exact same page opens. For me, this is a bug, even if it was done intentionally. It may give benefit to the customer, as it maximizes their ability to find a product from an outdated link, but it is disaterous for SEO as it is duplicate content penalty. (And yes, Google webmaster tools flagged this issue with 'duplicate titles' warning/suggestion) Can you guys post some feedback?
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Rank: Member
Joined: 1/10/2005(UTC)
Posts: 714
Thanks: 14 times
Was thanked: 1 time(s) in 1 post(s)
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I think I posted this a while back. I had the same issue and went the isapi rewrite route.
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Rank: Administration
Joined: 4/2/2004(UTC) Posts: 2,393 ![United States]( "United States") Location: Hummelstown, PA Thanks: 6 times
Was thanked: 163 time(s) in 158 post(s)
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Yeah, I was aware of that. We've customized several of our client sites to force manual URL creation on the product edit page. We added a button to the admin that generates the URL based on the product name (so you don't have to type it unless you want to customize it). Using a defined URL instead of an auto-generated one prevents a user from breaking URL's if they update the product name. Additionally, if a user changes the URL, they are given the option of automatically creating a 301 redirect. Unfortunately it's far from a drop-in mod to BV otherwise we would release it as part of our free toolkit. |
Aaron Sherrick
BV Commerce
Toll-free 888-665-8637 - Int'l +1 717-220-0012 |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 12/23/2003(UTC)
Posts: 909
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I haven't auto-rewritten since BV2004 and will be hard pressed to ever do it again. If the shoe fits, maybe, but it's going to have to be one darn good shoe. |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 12/19/2006(UTC)
Posts: 153
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Yeah, we have been adding all the outdated links to .htaccess for a 301 redirect, but an automated solution would be nice.
We normally don't rename items anymore to avoid this issue, but aperently some url's from many years ago are still indexed.
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Rank: Member
Joined: 12/23/2003(UTC)
Posts: 909
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I've had my wrist slapped a few times when I've stated how many lines are sometimes in my isapi file....lol...
The new rewrite/redirect feature (records old urls/301 redirects to most recent) to be in BV6 looks promising in terms of automated URL control. |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 11/5/2003(UTC)
Posts: 1,786
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BV 6 Generates a url based on the first product name you enter. It does not change the URL automatically after that point. Any manual change in the URL generates an automatic 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. You can manually remove old URLs as needed if they are not linked anywhere anymore.
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Rank: Member
Joined: 5/14/2005(UTC)
Posts: 398
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even if old urls are tracked, remembered, and 301s created for them, that still wouldn't solve this problem Originally Posted by: "Mark H"  instead of tracking all old urls or manually adding 301 I've handled this in the past by comparing the currently requested url and what the system says the correct url should be in page init. if the url doesn't match then a 301 is returned for the new url. |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 11/5/2003(UTC)
Posts: 1,786
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BetterBuilt,
BV 6 URLs do not work like BV 5 urls. Only the exact URL slug (or remembered ones) will work in BV 6.
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Rank: Member
Joined: 5/14/2005(UTC)
Posts: 398
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Sorry Marcus, i didn't notice you started talking about bv6.
Mark H: you might try this added to this to you Product Template :
[code] |
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