url issues when product renamed & category ignored

Hello,

I've found a very very serious issue with urls for renamed product which are causing duplicate urls/duplicated content, and also an issue with subcategories being ignored all together in product urls. I'm not sure what I should even search in this forum to find if a solution has been posted or if anyone else has discovered this issue, so please forgive if it's been posted elsewhere in the forum.

I've provided you administrator access at the bottom of this post, please log in and have a look. While I don't think I've done anything incorrectly, if I have, I'll post as much to this post and I do apologize in advance.

Joomla Version: 3.6.5
Eshop Version: 2.4.0

I have very few extensions installed and no extensions or modules installed that manage SEO or urls.

Inside my eShop configuration, I have Category names set to be part of the urls of each product.

The explanation below is very detailed and long as there is no other way to explain what is happening without providing a step by step. Please read this in full as the issue needs immediate attention and be corrected.

Before I explain the problems, I want to give you a visual how I have things setup. I have 4 main categories setup, and under 2 of those main categories, I have 4 subcategories setup. Following I am listing only one of the main categories and its subcategories, and a few products under each of the subcategories and will use these as examples as I explain the problems further below:

Window Display Kits (main category)
Portrait (8.5 inch x 11 inch) (subcategory)
Product:
- Window Cable Display System Portrait Orientation (1x1) SKU: CW11
- Window Cable Display System Portrait Orientation (1x2) SKU: CW12
- Window Cable Display System Portrait Orientation (1x3) SKU: CW13
Landscape (11 inch x 8.5 inch) (subcategory)
Product:
- Window Cable Display System Landscape Orientation (1x1) SKU: CWL11
- Window Cable Display System Landscape Orientation (1x2) SKU: CWL12
- Window Cable Display System Landscape Orientation (1x3) SKU: CWL13
Portrait (11 inch x 17 inch) (subcategory)
Product:
- Window Cable Display System Portrait Orientation (1x1) SKU: CW11-17
- Window Cable Display System Portrait Orientation (1x2) SKU: CW12-17
- Window Cable Display System Portrait Orientation (1x3) SKU: CW13-17
Landscape (17 inch x 11 inch) (subcategory)
Product:
- Window Cable Display System Landscape Orientation (1x1) SKU: CWL11-17
- Window Cable Display System Landscape Orientation (1x2) SKU: CWL12-17
- Window Cable Display System Landscape Orientation (1x3) SKU: CWL13-17

As you can see, not only are the subcategories named differently, each product under each subcategory have different SKU's.

The problem that occurs, happens both when clicking the eShop menu to view all product within a specific subcategory, OR when doing a product search, they just happen differently, so below I am discribing both separately:

When clicking to view all product for a specific subcategory from the eShop menu and then clicking to view the details for a specific product from the list:

- If I click the eShop menu to view all product for any of the above subcategories, the products show correctly in the list, however, if I click to view the actual product detail page for any of the products, the product details for the product I clicked on are not showing, instead, the details for a product in one of the other subcategories shows.

for example:
- I click to view all product in the "Portrait (8.5 inch x 11 inch)" subcategory.
- I then click to view the details for the first product showing which is "Window Cable Display System Portrait Orientation (1x1) with the SKU: CW11"
- And even though the URL that pulls up is for this product that I clicked on, the detail page that pulls up is for a product in a different subcategory with a different SKU number - "Window Cable Display System Portrait Orientation (1x1) with the SKU: CW11-17"

ie:
I click the link in the subcategory list to view the following product:
window-display-kits/portrait-8-5x11/window-cable-display-system-portrait-orientation-1x1.html

The detail page that pulls up is for a product in a completely different subcategory:
window-display-kits/portrait-11x17/window-cable-display-system-portrait-orientation-1x1.html

When doing a search for a product and then clicking on a product in the search results to view its detail page:

- If I perform a search for all product that contains CW11, all product across all subcategories that contain CW11 should appear in the search results, but they do not. One product is missing in the search results.

ie:
The product named "window-display-kits/portrait-8-5x11/window-cable-display-system-portrait-orientation-1x1.html" should be the first product to appear in the search results for CW11, but instead, it doesn't show at all. Instead, the " window-display-kits/portrait-11x17/window-cable-display-system-portrait-orientation-1x1.html" is the first one that appears in the search results, but what's even weirder is that when you click on that link, the detail page for " window-display-kits/portrait-8-5x11/window-cable-display-system-portrait-orientation-1x1.html" that didn't show up in the search results, is the detail page that shows.

I spent 5 full days going back through each and every one of my products to insure I didn't do something wrong…and I found nothing wrong.

Using the above 2 products as an example, the "ONLY" thing that is similar between them is the actual product name being the same:

/window-display-kits/portrait-8-5x11/window-cable-display-system-portrait-orientation-1x1.html
/window-display-kits/portrait-11x17/window-cable-display-system-portrait-orientation-1x1.html

But because they are in different subcategories, the name should never have been a factor. Therefore, I concluded that the subcategory name is being completely ignored and the last product entered into the system is what pulls up.

This is happening across all subcategories for product that share the same name as another product in a different subcategory.

Knowing this was going to negatively affect our Google Adword Campaigns and PPC campaigns, not to mention what Google was going to do to our generic listings, I desperately went to work renaming all product and aliases so that no product shared the same name or aliase which is used for the product url.

The above 2 product names were changed as well as their aliases which become their urls to:

/window-display-kits/portrait-8-5x11/window-cable-display-system-portrait-orientation-8-5x11-1x1.html
/window-display-kits/portrait-11x17/window-cable-display-system-portrait-orientation-11x17-1x1.html

Okay, so you would think at this point everything was okay, the product detail pages are now pulling up correctly when the links are clicked, as well as now showing up when searched, but everything is not okay.

Because I renamed the product and gave them different aliases for the urls, the "OLD url" should produce a 404 not found page when visited, but it does not, instead, both URLs now exist for the same product:

NEW URL: /window-display-kits/portrait-8-5x11/window-cable-display-system-portrait-orientation-8-5x11-1x1.html
OLD URL: /window-display-kits/portrait-8-5x11/window-cable-display-system-portrait-orientation-1x1.html


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Google is seeing this as duplicate content.

Google only issues warnings for 404 pages, but as google continues to index your site, those 404 pages disappear from their results over time if no permanent redirects are setup.

But duplicate content which are "Errors" and Never disappear with Google until the errors are corrected.

This is NOT a simple browser cache issue. Just to be sure I've tested the urls from computers and devices that have never even been to the site before.

I am providing you with access to the administrator below, and although you will not be able to test or look at the issue with regards to search results and/or clicking a link from the eShop menu and see that the incorrect detail page is pulling up as I've described at the beginning of this post, it would not be difficult for you to duplicate the issue in a test cart that you have setup by giving two products under two different subcategories the same name.

But certainly something can be done about the duplicated urls when a product is renamed. I can't let the duplicated urls just set there and not corrected. Yes, I could sit here, and do plan, to create permanent redirects, but first I would like to know that this issue is resolved so that I do not have to worry about any that I may miss in getting a redirect setup for. This just should not be happening.

Again, after logging in, if I've missed a setting somewhere that is causing this, by all means I apologize for this post...but I just don't see anything wrong myself.

Please help.

Thank you for your assistance with this.

Brandy

Hello Brandy!

You have a very long post. Please go to EShop -> System -> Tools, then click on Purge Urls tool to clean/reset the Urls of EShop, then the links of products/categories will be updated.

Hope that this will resolve your problem.

Sincerely, Giang