Enable simplified URLs
A simplified URL is a URL that is readable by a visitor (and consequently easier to type into an address bar). Furthermore, it also contains key phrases that are beneficial for the SEO of PrestaShop. However, for this, they must be activated (they should be enabled by default). If your site does not support them, it is a server-level configuration that needs to be amended. To enable simplified URLs, click on the menu on Store Settings, then on Traffic, and finally on SEO & URLs.
Optimize the simplified URL of the product page.
You can settle for PrestaShop's default approach. Otherwise, remove empty words such as "of", "by", "for", etc. from the simplified URL.
Hunt down false URLs, hence the 404 errors.
A 404 cis an error page that does not exist or no longer exists. You must avoid having them on the site, as it is a signal of poor quality. To chase them away, there are two solutions: to prevent them and to track them. To prevent them, you must find a solution before creating one! A product that leaves the store is a potential 404 page, just like a category. Fortunately, PrestaShop has anticipated everything and allows you to choose the behavior of a product that you deactivate. I had already proposed a solution by archiving, but failing that, a 301 redirect is a clean solution. PrestaShop also offers a 302 redirect, which is temporary: to be used if you think you will bring the product back online in the coming weeks. If you are not sure, a 301 that you will later cancel is acceptable. The only two mistakes not to make are to display a 404 or even to remove the product (which is worse than anything: no going back possible and immediate 404...)
As for 404s, no one is perfect, so you will inevitably encounter some. Google Webmaster Tools can assist you with that. The other option is to browse the site as a search engine would, using appropriate software. Screaming Frog (free and paid) or Xenu (free) are two options. It is not perfect (they may get lost in the labyrinth of the site's URLs, hence a somewhat complex configuration) but you will be able to find a few and possibly see why they were created.
Configure the canonical URLs.
A canonical URL is one that refers to the case (frequent!) where multiple URLs lead to the same page. The search engine is instructed (this is completely transparent to a visitor) which URL should be indexed for the current page. This prevents duplicate content. PrestaShop supports this natively.
You have three possible settings:
- no redirection, it is the worst option.
- 302, to be used when creating the store,
- 301, to be used once your site is launched. If you need to add products later, still stick to the 301 setting.
Prohibit accented URLs.
Accented URLs are not necessarily a hindrance to natural referencing, but they remain marginal and may ultimately disrupt your visitors. Forget about them!
What is a Sitemap?
The Sitemap is a file in xml (or txt) format which will contain all the URLs that you want to be indexed by search engines.
A Sitemap file is limited to 50 000 urls and a maximum size of 10MB.
If your store has a very large number of pages and your Sitemap file exceeds the authorized quotas, it is then necessary to generate several Sitemaps as well as a "sitemap index" which will be responsible for listing the different "sub-sitemaps" that you have created.
In addition to listing the pages, images, and videos on your site, a Sitemap file can contain additional information about each URL, such as how often it's updated, how long a video is, and more.
What is the purpose of the Sitemap?
The Sitemap is not intended to improve the SEO of your site. Its role is to assist search engines in better indexing the content of your store.
Indexing a page means ensuring that search engines are aware of its existence and that they add it to their "index"!
If a page is not indexed, it will never be properly positioned in the search results.
Do I need a Sitemap?
The real question to ask is, "Does Google know all my pages, images, and videos?"
If that is not the case, then one must try to understand why.
If you cannot find out why the indexing of your site is not complete or if you cannot fix the problem, then you need a Sitemap.
How can I know if Google has properly indexed my pages?
You just need to go to Google, type "site:votresite.com" and look at the number of results obtained.
You can also log into your Google webmaster tools account and then go to the menu "Google Index / Indexing Status". You will then see the "Total number of indexed pages."
Please be careful to check the date of the last indexing, as there may be several days of delay. To find this out, simply hover over the last point of the curve represented on the graph you see on this page.
Now that you know the number of pages that have been indexed by Google, you just need to compare it with the total number of pages on your site.
Why does Google not index all the pages of the site?
Here are some classic reasons why Google (and other search engines) may not be aware of all your pages (images or videos).
- Your site is new and/or has very few inbound links.
- Your site is very large.
- Some pages are not accessible via standard links.
- Some pages are blocked by an htaccess file or robots.txt.
- Some pages have a "noindex" meta tag.
- Links to your pages are set to "nofollow."
- You have too many pages with error 404.
- You have pages with duplicate content.
- Your site is too slow.
How to create a Sitemap on PrestaShop?
By default, the sitemap is automatically created by PrestaShop and integrated into the footer.