Documentation o wtyczce "SEO Meta Robots"
Demonstration of the features and settings of the “SEO Meta Robots” plugin.
Settings plugins (exactly as in the admin panel)
Settings plugins are presented for demonstration purposes only. You can test how plugins works only after purchase. Please note that the display of plugins settings is poorly adapted to mobile devices (as well as on the plugins settings page in the admin panel).
- Hidden products
- Hidden categories
- Pagination pages
- Article pages
- Trash pages
- Product review pages
- Technical pages
- Test mode
- Tag output method
Hidden products
The tag will be displayed on product pages with the status "Hidden from storefront" (including subpages of hidden products, hidden reviews pages, hidden product article pages and hidden product trash pages).
Configuration instructions for plugins
Important information! If you are the owner (or representative) of an online store with a large product range and / or high traffic from search engines, and you are not sufficiently competent in SEO, we recommend that you seek the advice of an SEO specialist when making decisions about changing the website, especially when it comes to closing pages from indexing.
The following instructions are intended for inexperienced users, mainly owners of small online stores, who have not previously worked with SEO specialists. In some projects, SEO specialists may use non-standard methods of internal website optimization, so by following the standard recommendations in this instruction, you may only harm your site.
The creator of plugins is not responsible for improper use of plugins. Please remember that any plugin SEO is not a "magic button", but only a tool that can be used correctly to gain an advantage over competitors, or used incorrectly and cause losses.
- Install the plugin
- Go to plugins settings («Shop» --> «Plugins» ---> «SEO Meta Robots»)
- Enable the plugin
- Make sure all settings are disabled by default (there is a "Do not output" setting everywhere). Do not use separate "yandex" and "googlebot" meta tags for any page type unless you understand why you are doing it. These settings are intended for experienced SEO specialists. The instructions below only apply to outputting the "robots" meta tag. In the "Tag output method" field, leave the default "Use hook" setting and do not change it to "Use helper". The helper should only be used if the hook does not exist in the project theme or is displayed in a custom location. For more information, see the section "Instructions for checking the operation of plugins".
- Make configurations for hidden products:
- If most hidden products in the store have empty information (e.g. no description, features, photos, prices, etc.) - set the "robots" meta tag for hidden products: <meta name="robots" content="noindex" />.
- If most hidden products in the store are well designed, and the pages of hidden products may be useful to users even if the product is not available for sale (e.g. if hidden products have been discontinued, but the product pages clearly state this and contain selection fields for similar or newer product models), I recommend not placing the "robots" meta tag on them, allowing search engines to index hidden products.
- Enter settings for hidden categories:
- If most hidden categories in your store are empty categories without products or only products that for some reason should not be indexed, set the "robots" meta tag for hidden categories: <meta name="robots" content="noindex" />.
- If most hidden categories in your store are service categories (e.g. imported from other platforms) and are not intended for users - set the "robots" meta tag for hidden categories: <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow" /> In general, it is a good practice to get rid of hidden categories. Simply delete hidden categories that have no traffic, and for those that do have traffic, set up a 301 redirect to other pages of the site (the most relevant ones) and then delete them as well. Hidden categories, unlike hidden products, cause significant inconvenience when administering the site.
- For pages with pagination, set the "robots" meta tag: <meta name="robots" content="noindex" />
- For product article pages, set the "robots" meta tag: <meta name="robots" content="noindex" /> The article page feature was only introduced in the application :Shop" version 8.11. At present it is rather of little use for SEO, and >Web System Pro< has no tools for optimizing product article pages for SEO. Moreover, in 90% of themes, article pages are not needed at all for SEO promotion.
- For junk pages, set the "robots" meta tag: <meta name="robots" content="noindex" />
- If your store has useful and unique product reviews, and the product review pages are well designed (in particular, the review pages at least let you see which product the review refers to and buy that product) - set the option: Do not output
- If your store has almost no reviews, the product review pages are poorly designed, there is no basic SEO optimization of review pages, or the demand for product reviews in your theme is very low - set the option: <meta name="robots" content="noindex" />
- The value of the "Defining technical pages" setting should not be changed. In most cases this is not necessary.
- Change the value of the "Robots meta tag for technical pages:" setting to <meta name="robots" content="noindex nofollow" />
Instructions for checking how plugins works
- Enable test mode in the plugins settings
- Go to each type of page in your website and check whether the tag is displayed correctly in the page source code. List of pages to check:
- hidden product page
- hidden category page
- pagination page (e.g.: site.com/category/tv-set/?page=2) "Pages with the first pagination" ("?page=1") in the "SEO Meta Robots" plugin are treated the same as pages with other GET parameters, because these pages are in fact duplicates of regular pages without GET parameters. Check all pagination pages, starting from the second page. "Product pagination pages" ("?page=X" on product pages) in the "SEO Meta Robots" plugin are treated the same as pages with other GET parameters, because these pages are variations of regular product pages. Such pages are quite rare. However, sometimes after SEO specialists improve product pages, links to such pages appear in the source code of product pages and are indexed by search engines. Plugin "SEO Meta Robots" helps prevent this situation, even if you leave pagination pages in categories, brands, tags, etc. open for indexing.
- article product page (e.g.: site.com/product/iphone-8/?sku=12345) If your store has no article pages, simply open any product, add the fragment "?sku=12345" to the end of the page URL and refresh the page.
- page with other GET parameters (e.g.: site.com/category/tv/?price_min=200)
- Log in to the website with an administrator account (plugin checks whether you have administrator rights to the Shopy-Script application.
- Open any page you are checking
- Make sure the "Meta Robots testing" block is displayed in the lower left corner of the page being tested. Note that this block should only be displayed on pages handled by plugin. This block will not be displayed, for example, on regular (without GET parameters) pages of non-hidden categories, non-hidden products, as well as on brand pages, tag pages, the home page, etc.
- Make sure the page type is correctly defined by the plugin (displayed in the "SEO Meta Robots testing" block)
- Make sure the meta tag is correctly displayed (or not displayed) in the "SEO Meta Robots testing" block according to the plugins settings.
- Copy the meta tag from the block "Testing plugins SEO Meta Robots"
- Open the page source code (CTRL+U)
- Open the code search field (CTRL+F)
- Paste the meta tag into the code search field
- Make sure the meta tag is present on the page and is displayed between the <head> ... </head> tags.
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What to do if the meta tag is displayed on the page but not between the <head> ... </head> tags?
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Make changes in the plugins settings:
- In the setting "Using the "frontend_head" hook to handle plugins", select the option "Use helper".
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Make changes in the theme code:
- Go to Shopy-Script --> "Design" --> "Themes"
- In the "head.html" file, right after <head>, on the next line, add the code {shopMetarobotsPlugin::altFrontendHead()} In some themes, the file may be available in another section "Site" --> "Design" --> "Themes"
- If you have several design themes installed (different design themes on different storefronts, or separate design themes for mobile devices), make similar changes in the other design themes.
- Check the meta tag output after the changes. If the meta tag still does not appear, disable the plugin and contact technical support, providing access to the store admin panel.
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Make changes in the plugins settings:
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What to do if the meta tag is not displayed on the page?
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Make changes in the settings of plugins:
- In the group of settings "Tag output method", in the setting "Use the "frontend_head" hook to work plugins", set the value "Use helper"
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Make changes in the code of the project theme:
- Go to the section Shopy-Script --> "Design" --> "Themes"
- In the file "head.html", right after <head>, on the next line, add the code {shopMetarobotsPlugin::altFrontendHead()} In some design themes the file may be available in another section "Site" --> "Design" --> "Themes"
- If you have several project themes installed (different project themes on different storefronts or you have separate project themes for mobile devices) - make similar changes in the other project themes.
- Check the output of the meta tag after the changes have been made. If the meta tag is still not displayed, disable the plugin and contact technical support, providing access to the storefront admin panel.
- In the source code of the page, reopen the code search field and enter <meta name="robots" in the code search field (you can search with quotation marks)
- Make sure that there are no other meta tags, such as <meta name="robots" ... > in the source code between the <head> ... </head> tags that are displayed. If you notice another meta tag <meta name="robots" ... > - this means that it is output by another plugin or design theme. Try to find and remove it yourself or write to technical support, we will help you remove it for free, as part of the support for plugins.
FAQ. Replies Frequently asked questions
Problem. Plugin is configured according to the instructions, test mode is enabled, but the "Testing plugins "SEO Meta Robots" block does not appear on the page and/or the "robots" meta tag does not appear in the page source code. What can I do?
- Make sure that plugin is enabled
- Make sure you are checking the store page that plugin interacts with
- Check whether the following hook is present in the design theme:
- frontend_head
- If the hook is not present in the design theme, add it. If you do not know how to do this, try to do it yourself by following the instructions in this article. If you are sure that the hook in the design theme is displayed correctly, but plugin still does not work - disable it in the installer and contact technical support.
Question. Can the plugin be configured with different plugins settings for different storefronts?
No, plugin does not support multi-storefront setups. Plugin works on all storefronts at the same time or is disabled on all of them.
Problem. In the "Testing plugins SEO Meta Robots" block, the current page is not defined correctly. What can I do?
- Try refreshing the store page (F5)
- If the page is still not detected correctly, disable the "SEO Meta Robots" plugin in the installer and contact technical support.
Question. Why do I need settings for "yandex" and "googlebot" if the plugins configuration instructions say not to use them?
These settings are intended for SEO experiments by SEO specialists only. For some projects, it is interesting to see what results can be achieved, for example, prohibiting indexing of hidden products for Yandex but allowing indexing of hidden products for Google, etc. If you are not an SEO specialist, we recommend that you do not touch these settings and follow the standard instructions.
Question. Why can't plugin be used to place <meta name="robots" content="noindex nofollow" /> for pagination pages?
This setting is hidden in the plugin to prevent inexperienced users from selecting it by accident. On websites with a large number of products, this setting can significantly worsen the indexing of product pages, because search engines will not be able to follow links on pagination pages.
Question. Will other meta tag directives be supported? For example: "max-snippet", "noarchive", "notranslate"? All of these are supported by Google.
Google does indeed support many directives in the "robots" meta tag. They can be used to set the maximum length of snippets, prevent images from being indexed, or prevent a page from being shown in search results at specific times and dates. However, I currently see no point in supporting them in pluginch, because for online stores they have no practical application.
If you have arguments in favor of adding the ability to output additional directives for specific pages in the plugin, please contact technical support.
Question. Why can't plugins be used to place <meta name="robots" content="index follow" />?
It is not necessary, because the presence of this meta tag is equivalent to its absence. Search engines assume by default that they may index a page and follow links on it, unless they are forbidden to do so.
Question. The "Link Canonical" tag is already displayed. Do I need to use the "robots" meta tag?
Yes, that's right. Especially if you want to promote yourself effectively in the Yandex search engine.
On July 4, 2019, the official Yandex blog confirmed that Yandex indexes non-canonical pages.
Quote from the post: "Our research shows that pages marked as non-canonical may be useful, and their presence in search results may affect the quality and completeness of the answer to the user's query."
What does this mean for Yandex? That the search engine, according to the "Yandex" metric, responds slightly better to user queries.
But what does this mean for an online store that uses only "Link Canonical" to set the priority of a page for indexing? Our opinion on this matter: all canonical pages of an online store are much worse because of the appearance of their copies in search results, since behavioral factors "get blurred" across all the pages the user visits. Moreover, many non-canonical pages can mislead a user who has just landed on the site.
Question. How do I configure different rules for the "robots" meta tag for different storefronts?
In no way. Right now Plugin does not support multistorefront.
Question. Which types of URLs does plugin work with? My categories do not display "/category/" in the URL, and my products do not display "/product/" in the URL. Will plugin work correctly?
Plugin works on site pages with any page URL type (natural, mixed, flat). Category and product pages are not defined by reading the page URL, but by using hooks in the design theme.
Question. Is this plugin compatible with the plugins "Brands" and "Brands Pro"?
Yes, compatible. Plugin does not conflict with the pages of the "Brands", "Brands PRO" plugins, or with the pages of other plugins that create "their own page types": "robots" meta tags are correctly placed according to the plugin settings on pagination pages and on junk pages, regardless of the parent "page types".
Question. Is this plugin compatible with the "SEO-filter" plugin?
Plugin does not conflict with plugins "SEO-filter" and with other plugins that convert specific pages with GET parameters into optimized SEO URL pages: if a page is technically a page with GET parameters, then plugin additionally checks whether the "?" symbol is present in the page URL and, if it is absent, does not apply to such a page the settings that should work for junk pages.
Question. I want to exclude all junk pages from indexing, except for pages with the GET parameter "sort". I want the sorted pages to be indexed. How can I do this?
There is no way to do this. Plugin does not support the ability to exclude pages with specific GET parameters from the list of junk pages, and it is unlikely that such a modification will appear in plugins updates.
We do not recommend leaving any pages with GET parameters open for indexing. If you want to index sorting pages - programmatically change the GET parameters of such pages to an SEO URL address. Then this plugin will stop treating such pages as junk pages and will not apply the corresponding settings to them.
Question. Why are the settings for pagination pages not applied to the page "site.com/category/bokaly/?page=1"?
Plugin treats the page with a single GET parameter "?page=1" not as a pagination page, but as a junk page and applies the settings to it accordingly.
This page is a complete duplicate of the normal page without the GET parameter, and in our opinion it should not be indexed. It would be a good idea to set up a 301 redirect from the page with "?page=1" to the page without "?page=1", but this goes beyond the scope of plugins.
Question. Why are the settings for pagination pages not applied to the page "site.com/category/bokaly/?page=2&sort=total_sales"?
If the GET parameter "page" exists, plugin checks the total number of GET parameters of the page, and if there are multiple GET parameters, it defines the page not as a pagination page, but as a junk page and applies the corresponding settings.
Question. Why do the article page settings not apply to the page "site.com/product/iphone10/?sku=2123&price=123"?
If the GET parameter "sku" exists, plugin checks the total number of GET parameters on the page, and if there are multiple GET parameters, it defines the page not as a product article page but as a garbage page and applies the appropriate settings.
Question. Why do the article page settings not apply to the page "site.com/product/iphone10/?page=123qwerty"?
If a single GET parameter "page" exists, plugin checks the value of the GET parameter, and upon detecting foreign characters in the value (any characters other than digits), it defines the page not as a "pagination page" but as a garbage page and applies the appropriate settings.
Question. Why do the article page settings not apply to the page "site.com/product/iphone10/?sku=123qwerty"?
If a single GET parameter "sku" exists, plugin checks the value of the GET parameter, and upon detecting foreign characters in the value (any characters other than digits), it defines the page not as a "product article page" but as a garbage page and applies the appropriate settings.
Question. Plugin correctly embeds the tag on the page, but Yandex still sends an error notification "Duplicate pages with GET parameters found". Why? And what should I do?
In this case, most likely Yandex last visited the pages listed in the error examples before you added the noindex tag to them. Try submitting the pages for accelerated re-indexing in Yandex.Webmaster. If you have many pages with errors, copy and save the list of pages, and then submit as many correct pages as possible for re-checking each day. Once Yandex has re-crawled all the pages, the error should disappear.