SEF and canonical urls (feature request?)

Hi

I am having quite a time trying to generate sef urls and was wondering if a small change to Hikashop might allow for more flexibility.

My client has a bilingual site (english, french) and sells about 160 products online...with a product details page for each language (I use Falang).

The menus allow for different filters on the products, so that the product details page becomes accessible through different urls...so my site is getting penalized by google.


For instance:

http://domain/filter1/product1.html
http://domain/filter2/product1.html

Since I cannot seem to get Joomla 2.5, Hikashop and ACESef to play well together, I was hoping to try the "Canonical" link keyword...however I cannot add this through Hikashop.

2 questions:

1) Has anyone in my scenario corrected this seemingly common problem using the "Canonical" instruction?

2) If so, would it be possible to allow us to add a *canonical url* when filling in the product details page in the backend? It would need to be added as a "link" section when generating the html page.

Thanks

I thought of another possibility:

Would it be possible for me to create static html pages for the product details...and have Hikashop use those when requested, instead of building them dynamically?

No responses?

I'm guessing that anyone that uses Hikashop and has a multi-lingual site would need URL management functionality...otherwise your site is getting penalized.

I'm sorry, nicolas, could you give me a simple example please? This is my first time with hikashop.

I have 130 or so products (they are dahlias/flowers)...they can be filtered(menu choices) alphabetically, according to size, color etc....I have 4 filters(menus) and each creates its own url to the same product. Also, I have a separate set of menus(filters) for both english and french.

How would you approach this?

the website is: www.productionstanicet.com

(you may have to use a proxy, I have whitelisted only north america in my FW, atm)

thank you

Hi, thank you for the canonical url feature!

I installed it this morning and have a question:

For the website above, it is in 2 languages. I was hoping to create 2 canonical urls for each product (one in each language), for instance:

french default url: www.productionstanicet.com/duet (for the french version)
english url: www.productionstanicet.com/en/duet


Each product has two descriptions, one in english, the other in french.

However, I was not able to add a canonical url for the translation....I have falang installed as well.

Is this possible?

Thank you Nicholas for this new feature.

I have 2.1.2 installed and was hoping to resolve this issue with my client, but I think I may have found a bug.

The canonical url for the translation (using the tab in the product page) will not let me save anything other than the canonical url of the product in its original language.

For instance:

Target url in french: www.productionstanicet.com/duet
Target english version: www.productionstanicet.com/en/duet

In the product *duet*, I add: */duet* for can. url
In the trans tab, I add: */en/duet*

When I save, the trans tab reverts to */duet* (which is what is rendered in the page source too)


I do have a workaround, I can go through the Falang component, locate my products and update the canonical urls there (which are saved properly). However, I must publish them to complete the process. I thought Hikashop directly used the Falang tables...but after considering my workaround, I am a little confused.

Anyhow, just a heads up - and thanks again for the feature!

Hi,

There was a missing element in the view "product / edit_translation" (backend template), thanks to add:

					$this->product_canonical_input = "translation[product_canonical][".$language_id."]";
					$this->element->product_canonical = @$translation->product_canonical->value;
					if(isset($translation->product_canonical->published)){
						$this->product_canonical_published = $translation->product_canonical->published;
						$this->product_canonical_id = $translation->product_canonical->id;
					}

					$this->product_alias_input = "translation[product_alias][".$language_id."]";
					$this->element->product_alias = @$translation->product_alias->value;
					if(isset($translation->product_alias->published)){
						$this->product_alias_published = $translation->product_alias->published;
						$this->product_alias_id = $translation->product_alias->id;
					}

This code is already present in the following file: .../public_html/administrator/components/com_hikashop/views/product/tmpl/translation.php. I am running Essential 2.1.2.

Thanks to check the file "edit_translation" and not "translation"

There was a missing element in the view "product / edit_translation" (backend template)

A quick followup, while I was lurking:

After having used the canonical url feature in Hikashop, this website's rankings have improved immensely.

Thank you, guys.