URLS and Sitemap

Activate simplified urls

A simplified url is one that is readable by a visitor (and therefore easier to type into an address bar). It also contains key expressions that are useful for SEO de PrestaShop. But to do this, they need to be activated (by default). If your site doesn't support them, it's a server configuration that needs to be modified. To activate simplified urls, click on Shop settings in the menu, then on Traffic and finally on SEO & Urls

Optimize the simplified product page url

You can make do with the default approach at PrestaShop. Otherwise, remove empty words like "from", "by", "for", etc. from the simplified url.

Eliminate false urls and errors 404

A 404 c'is a page in error, which does not exist or no longer exists. You should avoid having it on the site, as it's a poor quality signal. There are two ways to hunt them down: prevent them and track them down. To prevent them, you need to find a solution before you create one! A product that leaves the store is a potential 404 page, as is a category. Fortunately, PrestaShop has thought of 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 redirect 301 is a clean solution. PrestaShop also offers a temporary 302redirect: use this if you plan to put the product back online in the next few weeks. If you're not sure, a 301 which you can then cancel is acceptable. The only two mistakes not to make are putting a 404 or even removing the product (which is the worst of all: no going back and immediate 404 ...).

404, no one being perfect, you're bound to have some. Google Webmaster Tools can help. The other option is to browse the site as an engine would with ad hoc software. Screaming Frog (free and paying) or Xenu (free). It's not perfect (they can get lost in the intricacies of the site's urls, making the settings a tad complex), but you'll be able to find a few and see why they were created in the first place.

Configure canonical urls

A canonical url is one that refers to the (frequent!) case of where several urls lead to the same page. We tell the search engine (it's totally transparent to a visitor) which url should be indexed for this page. This avoids duplicate content. PrestaShop supports this natively.

There are three possible settings:

• no redirection is the worst option.
• 302to be used when creating the store,
• 301to use once your site is up and running. If you need to add products at a later date, keep the 301setting.

Ban accented urls

Accented urls are not necessarily a hindrance to SEO, but they are still marginal and can ultimately confuse your visitors. Forget about them!

What is a Sitemap?

The Sitemap is a file in xml format (or txt) containing all the urls you wish to have indexed by search engines.

A Sitemap file is limited to 50 000 urls and to a maximum size of 10MB.

If your store has a very large number of pages and your Sitemap file exceeds the authorized quotas, then you'll need to generate several Sitemaps, as well as a "sitemap index" which will be responsible for listing the various "sub-sitemaps" you've created.

In addition to listing your site's pages, images and videos, a Sitemap file can contain additional information about each url, such as update frequency, video duration, etc.

What's the Sitemap for?

Sitemap is not designed to improve your site's SEO. Its role is to help search engines better index the content of your store.

Indexing a page means ensuring that search engines are aware of its existence and add it to their "index"!

If a page is not indexed, it can never be correctly positioned in search results.

Do I need a Sitemap?

The real question is, "Does Google know about all my pages, images and videos? »

If that's not the case, then we'll have to try and understand why.

If you can't work out why your site isn't being fully indexed, or if you can't correct the problem, then you need a Sitemap.

How do I know that Google has indexed my pages correctly?

Just go to Google, type in "site:votresite.com " and see how many results you get.

Alternatively, log into your Google webmaster tools account and go to the "Index Google / Indexing status" menu. You'll then see the "Total number of indexed pages".

Be sure to check the date of the last indexation, as it may be several days late. To find 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 indexed by Google , simply compare it with the total number of pages on your site.

Why doesn't Google index all the pages on your site?

Here are some classic reasons why Google (and other search engines) may not be aware of all your pages (images or videos).

1. Your site is new and/or has very few inbound links.
2. Your site is very large.
3. Some pages are not accessible via conventional links.
4. Some pages are blocked by an htacess or robots.txt file.
5. Some pages have a meta "noindex" tag.
6. Links to your pages are "nofollow".
7. You have too many pages in error 404
8. You have duplicate content pages.
9. Your site is too slow.

How do I create a Sitemap on PrestaShop ?

By default, the sitemap is automatically created by PrestaShop and integrated into the footer.