Hi

We're running a Magento store which doesn't have too much stock rotation. We've implemented a plugin that will allow us to give products custom canonical URLs (basically including the category slug, which is not possible through vanilla Magento).

The sitemap feature doesn't pick up on these URLs, so we're submitting URLs to Google that are available and will serve content, but actually point to a longer URL via a canonical meta tag.

• The content is available at each URL and is near identical (all apart from the breadcrumbs)
• All instances of the page point to the same canonical URL
• We are using the longer URL in our internal architecture/link building to show this preference

My questions are;

• Will this harm our visibility?
• Aside from editing the sitemap, are there any other signals we could give Google?

Thanks

Thanks for the PM, I can now appreciate the problem a little more.

I think it's something that you should not rush. What you've done seems the best thing you can do for now.

Longer term, I'd look at your CMS options!

Hmm, this sounds very strange.

If removing the places page will fix your problem temporarily then perhaps this is something to do then, but continue to look online to see whether there are any other things you can do to get those listings back!

If you could put a conditional meta tag in to the source code, that will show the nofollow tag if the URL contains more than 3 GET elements, then that might help?

You seem to have already thought hard about your options, and they sound ok. Let's just wait to see whether any Gurus are about to shout stop!

If I were you I'd keep the same URL structure. You're correct in thinking this won't be a quick fix.

First, use the robots.txt to disallow robots access to the search pages.

Don't remove all results just yet from GWT, this will be a long task and might damage your sites performance.

Could you provide some links to your site? I'll have a closer look.

Technically, yes, removing the Google Page will remove the results, but I'd think twice before doing it personally.

Have you checked all of your on page content to make sure your page is fully optimised for your location? I've found that our Google Places listing compliments ours, but yes the places listings get a lower click through rate.

There was a post on the blog really recently about this if I recall correctly. Although some people say that through embedding a single video from YouTube onto a relevant high PA page will do the trick, the best method is to host your own videos on your website. A quick search online for HTML5 video hosting (with flash fallback) should be your answer! With doing so, you will makes up your content so that Google knows the content is of the type 'video' and will display as such.

I'd be wary of that community page, however it's extremely unlikely that one page will have a negative impact across the whole website, so it's not a high priority

As mentioned below, reducing the footer on internal pages might be an option?

John,

41 links for a footer area, whilst it is a large number, isn't too many really. You should be careful on the total number of links on the page however. I believe you should try to cap it at 100, but I think I've read somewhere 200+ is classed excessive

Hope this helps!

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/maps-archive/thread?tid=4fa32594aadb2e9f&hl=en

It looks like you'll have to use the real address!

They're still good for links! Plus, as a company you need to be producing Press Releases weekly anyway to give to other various sources. For the extra 10 minutes it takes to upload it to the site you may as well just for the high PR links!

Technically, yes, removing the Google Page will remove the results, but I'd think twice before doing it personally.

Have you checked all of your on page content to make sure your page is fully optimised for your location? I've found that our Google Places listing compliments ours, but yes the places listings get a lower click through rate.

John,

41 links for a footer area, whilst it is a large number, isn't too many really. You should be careful on the total number of links on the page however. I believe you should try to cap it at 100, but I think I've read somewhere 200+ is classed excessive

Hope this helps!

If I were you I'd keep the same URL structure. You're correct in thinking this won't be a quick fix.

First, use the robots.txt to disallow robots access to the search pages.

Don't remove all results just yet from GWT, this will be a long task and might damage your sites performance.

Could you provide some links to your site? I'll have a closer look.

Well if you want a keyword you have to just go for it! If your site has loads of unique content, the likelyhood is that you'll start seeing benefits from long tail searches coming in with not too much work.

Check out the PRO campaigns on here, I'm assuming you're aware that SEOmoz utilizes some Google API's to serve up their own keyword difficulty score. Unfortunately the site I'm link building to is in a super competitive market!

Hope this helps.

Tom

You'll need to assess which keywords are actually a possibility for your site. Ranking isn't down to just the keyword you're going for. Domain age, authority, trust etc are all factors used in calculating your position in the SERPs. Don't get scared off by a 'Highly Competitive' keyword though!!