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#1 12-22-2007 05:32:13

directfuture
Member
Registered: 05-06-2007
Posts: 6

Very Important issue that’s costing traffic and sales

Hi all

I have asked this question in the past but not had a real answer, I would like this to be resolved as I feel it’s a major issue that’s costing traffic, customer confidence in our site and ultimately sales.

Scenario

Creating a new category

Create a new category and use html code in the description

Select the option True (1) to indicate that the description has XHTML tags.

Once this new page has been indexed by MSN and Yahoo and is viewed in search results html code can be seen in the description, but in Google its fine. Please see screen shots 1, 2 and 3.

1.
http://www.bellabathrooms.co.uk/screenshots/msn.gif

2.
http://www.bellabathrooms.co.uk/screenshots/yahoo.gif

3.
http://www.bellabathrooms.co.uk/screenshots/google.gif


At first I thought it could be something that I am doing wrong, but unfortunately it’s not, I have looked at many CCP sites and they are the same.

The bottom line is

If I am lucky enough that the searching customer actually wants to view my site after seeing all that html code do you think they are going to enter their credit card details?

Sorry to be blunt and sound negative but this issue is costing money, and should be resolved asp as it is a very important issue.

Thanks for your help with this in advance.

James

Last edited by directfuture (12-22-2007 05:40:46)

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#2 12-22-2007 13:13:15

Perkster
Member
From: Parksville BC Canada
Registered: 10-05-2004
Posts: 349
Website

Re: Very Important issue that’s costing traffic and sales

Hi James.  I am curious about this.  What site are you talking about.  Cant read images??  What search terms again..


Mike Perks
Linux CD Shop - /shop for Linux distributions

ReviewLinux.Com - Linux OS News & Review Site

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#3 12-22-2007 13:32:16

Perkster
Member
From: Parksville BC Canada
Registered: 10-05-2004
Posts: 349
Website

Re: Very Important issue that’s costing traffic and sales

Ignore my last question.  I downloaded image and zoomed in on your problem.

Yes this is a problem with CCP6 and I too didnt like what I saw.

I posted a question about this and got an answer from dh783

https://forum.kryptronic.com/viewtopic.php?id=19471

I now have unique descriptions for all categories and I think this will probably make its way into CCP6 in a near update.. smile

Last edited by Perkster (12-22-2007 13:34:44)


Mike Perks
Linux CD Shop - /shop for Linux distributions

ReviewLinux.Com - Linux OS News & Review Site

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#4 12-22-2007 13:34:01

Dave
Member
Registered: 07-05-2003
Posts: 11233

Re: Very Important issue that’s costing traffic and sales

directfuture wrote:

Once this new page has been indexed by MSN and Yahoo and is viewed in search results html code can be seen in the description, but in Google its fine.

Sorry to be blunt and sound negative but this issue is costing money, and should be resolved asp as it is a very important issue.

James, this is not an issue with CCP at all and you actually proved it by providing the 3 screen shots.  You are using quite a bit of HTML in your category description and that description ends up as the meta description tag with all of the tags replaced by their entity values as they must be (the meta tags may not contain HTML).

MSN and Yahoo seem to be doing the wrong thing and not taking out the HTML or ignoring it like Google is obviously doing.

An observation on the page in question (http://www.bellabathrooms.co.uk/mira_showers.html). There are 55 HTML validation errors on that page including two body tags and a style tag that is in the "wrong" place.  A number of the validation errors are severe enough that, I suspect, any bots that visit the page would get very confused.

I would suggest taking a look at your skin.php file and see if you can figure out where the double body tags are coming from, the style tag that is in the wrong place then work on getting your pages validating cleanly.  Doing so can only help things.

If you believe there is something CCP is doing incorrectly or wrong please detail what you believe it is.

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#5 12-22-2007 13:35:57

Dave
Member
Registered: 07-05-2003
Posts: 11233

Re: Very Important issue that’s costing traffic and sales

Perkster wrote:

Yes this is a problem with CCP6 and I too didnt like what I saw.

What is the problem Mike?  CCP is doing exactly what it's been designed and coded to do WRT the meta description for categories.

Or have I just been working too long already today?

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#6 12-22-2007 13:55:08

rachaelseven
Member
From: Massachusetts, USA
Registered: 01-23-2006
Posts: 3169
Website

Re: Very Important issue that’s costing traffic and sales

Looks right to me, Dave.  This would seem to be a case of different search engines just treating things differently.  All you have to do to make it cross-engine compatible, if that's an important consideration, is take the HTML out of the category descriptions.  For that matter, as you pointed out Dave, it might even be fixed simply by making the page have proper code.


Rachael Katz
- Custom Focusing Screens for DSLR Cameras

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#7 12-22-2007 14:01:20

Perkster
Member
From: Parksville BC Canada
Registered: 10-05-2004
Posts: 349
Website

Re: Very Important issue that’s costing traffic and sales

smile  Nope just started... smile  Well I first noticed the html code in the meta descriptions and thats what made me ask original question.  I wanted to display html code in my category descriptions but not in meta description as I thought it looked bad.  dh783 gave a great way to eliminate this ugly html code and plus gave another way to better give at least my site nicer descriptions since I have only HTML code in my actual displayed categories at http://linuxcdshop.com

Go to Yahoo and search ==> Fedora Core Linux CD Shop and look at that search result.  Nothing to do with what I actually did on displayed pages but look how nice yahoo did it.. smile  Thats a unique description that describes what I sell and thanks to dh783 is a seperate DB entry.

yes CCP6 does the job but do you not think that all that html code in descriptions look bad??

I do not know I think it would be better if CCP6 either took out the code and not depend on Yahoo or any other SE to do it.  or like what I have done have a seperate entry for descriptions that you can have that will not contain html code.

I still stand by what I said.  CCP60 should allow for a seperate entry as just taking and placing html code into description doesnt look great..  Dave,  Just my thoughts.. smile  At least there is a workaround.


Mike Perks
Linux CD Shop - /shop for Linux distributions

ReviewLinux.Com - Linux OS News & Review Site

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#8 12-22-2007 14:05:42

Perkster
Member
From: Parksville BC Canada
Registered: 10-05-2004
Posts: 349
Website

Re: Very Important issue that’s costing traffic and sales

rachaelseven wrote:

Looks right to me, Dave.  This would seem to be a case of different search engines just treating things differently.  All you have to do to make it cross-engine compatible, if that's an important consideration, is take the HTML out of the category descriptions.  For that matter, as you pointed out Dave, it might even be fixed simply by making the page have proper code.

Come on...  CCP6 is a great configurable monster.. smile  All it takes is another entry like dh783 described.  Seperate META Description field box in category..  That simple..  No worries.. smile  All done.. smile

Last edited by Perkster (12-22-2007 14:06:24)


Mike Perks
Linux CD Shop - /shop for Linux distributions

ReviewLinux.Com - Linux OS News & Review Site

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#9 12-22-2007 14:17:59

Dave
Member
Registered: 07-05-2003
Posts: 11233

Re: Very Important issue that’s costing traffic and sales

Perkster wrote:

I do not know I think it would be better if CCP6 either took out the code and not depend on Yahoo or any other SE to do it.

CCP does take it out, in a manner of speaking, by making HTML markup consist of the HTML entities instead so it's valid for a meta description.  I'd make a small wager that if CCP *DID* take it out someone would complain about it doing that too smile

I'm not convinvced that having yet another field is the right solution Mike.  For most people they would simply be duplicating what's already been entered into the description without the HTML (if there was any to begin with).

Another way to approach this would be to tweak skin.php and reconvernt any entities back to their tags then strip the tags so the meta description is "clean".  PHP has functions available to perform both of those operations.

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#10 12-22-2007 14:33:16

Perkster
Member
From: Parksville BC Canada
Registered: 10-05-2004
Posts: 349
Website

Re: Very Important issue that’s costing traffic and sales

What is that code needed to strip html tags?  Would like to see it.

I understand your point.  But I hate to bring up the old days but... ATS had their SEO mod for CCP51 and Mark placed a cool bit of code in mine that allowed me to give unique Meta titles, meta descriptions and meta keywords in each category and product rather than just duplicating the stock descriptions.  Mark's code would only display the unique metas if I actually placed something in them

I think that giving Categories this extra field and stating in code if a merchant has used that extra field to use it in pages.  For that matter CCP6 already allows for seperate keywords meta's for each product that even a Meta Description box for products might be an option too.

Isnt it all about unique content and not duplicating up on description?  Also for that matter if a merchant uses a real short description like I do CCP6 uses the SHORTDESCRIPTION as its description for product..  That sucked for me and I changed it to LONGDESCRIPTIONS in my CCP_Prod.php too..

I think these 2 extra fields are neccessary to improve CCP6.  More configuration for each merchant keeps them ahead of their competition.  Not duplicating up on content has it's merits too.

Dave,  do not get me wrong.  I just want to improve CCP6 and posts like this are open to discussion and your points are well noted as I hope are mine.  But if ATS had the idea 3 years ago I think CCP6 should maybe have it too.  Even if a merchant does not use it,  it still is there for those that want it.  To experiment with and see what results they get..  That's all.  If it aint there,  we cant test.. smile


Mike Perks
Linux CD Shop - /shop for Linux distributions

ReviewLinux.Com - Linux OS News & Review Site

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#11 12-22-2007 17:21:58

Dave
Member
Registered: 07-05-2003
Posts: 11233

Re: Very Important issue that’s costing traffic and sales

Perkster wrote:

What is that code needed to strip html tags?

It's a PHP function named, appropriately enough, strip_tags.  Its description is: Strip HTML and PHP tags from a string

string strip_tags ( string str [, string allowable_tags] )

This function tries to return a string with all HTML and PHP tags stripped from a given str.

The other functions of interest are:

htmlentities --  Convert all applicable characters to HTML entities

htmlspecialchars_decode --  Convert special HTML entities back to characters

htmlspecialchars --  Convert special characters to HTML entities

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#12 12-23-2007 05:13:51

Dave
Member
Registered: 07-05-2003
Posts: 11233

Re: Very Important issue that’s costing traffic and sales

To follow up on my last post, if you look at skinfunc.php you'll see that the meta description tag is being stripped of tags, using strip_tags, and has any XHTML decoded before the tag is written.

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#13 12-23-2007 05:17:04

Dave
Member
Registered: 07-05-2003
Posts: 11233

Re: Very Important issue that’s costing traffic and sales

Perkster wrote:

For that matter CCP6 already allows for seperate keywords meta's for each product that even a Meta Description box for products might be an option too.

Technically there is already a meta description for products in the form of the product short description field (which may not contain XHTML).  In the case of products adding yet another field to an already detailed and long form for products probably wouldn't be a good idea IMO.

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#14 12-23-2007 05:32:49

Dave
Member
Registered: 07-05-2003
Posts: 11233

Re: Very Important issue that’s costing traffic and sales

Perkster wrote:

I think that giving Categories this extra field and stating in code if a merchant has used that extra field to use it in pages.

Since it's a couple of days before Christmas I have a little present for you and James smile  Included below is a rather easy mod that will add a meta description field to categories which will only be used for the meta description if you put something in it (it's an optional field).

(for you Mike smile)

In admin under Home > Hybrid X Core > Database: Connections, Backups and Raw Admin > Raw Database Admin click on  and enter the following statements :

Code:

ALTER TABLE `ccp0_cat` ADD `metadescription` TEXT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci NOT NULL AFTER `deschastags` ;

INSERT INTO `khxc_columndefs` VALUES('ccp0_cat.metadescription', 'KHXC', 'Meta Description', 'clob', '', 0, 'TEXTAREA-SMALL', '', '', 'TEXTAREA-SMALL', '', 0, 'This is the optional meta description for this category.  If nothing is entered here the category description will be used for the meta description tag when the category is displayed.', 'Category Keywords and Description');

In the {private}/apps/ccp0/CCP_Cat directory make a copy of CCP_Cat.php as a backup.  Edit CCP_Cat.php and look for

Code:

// +--
// | Set our display name and meta tags up if our 
// | namespace is 'catshow'.
// +--

if ($this->globals('khxc.namespace') == 'catshow') {

     $this->globals('khxc_display.metatitle',$result[0]['name']);
     $this->globals('khxc.ref_disp',$result[0]['name']);

     $this->globals('khxc_display.metakeywords',$result[0]['keywords']);
     $this->globals('khxc_display.metadesc',$result[0]['description']);
     
} // End of if statement.

Change that block of code to read:

Code:

// +--
// | Set our display name and meta tags up if our 
// | namespace is 'catshow'.
// +--

if ($this->globals('khxc.namespace') == 'catshow') {

     $this->globals('khxc_display.metatitle',$result[0]['name']);
     $this->globals('khxc.ref_disp',$result[0]['name']);

     $this->globals('khxc_display.metakeywords',$result[0]['keywords']);
     if (!empty($result[0]['metadescription'])) {
         $this->globals('khxc_display.metadesc',$result[0]['metadescription']);
     } else {
         $this->globals('khxc_display.metadesc',$result[0]['description']);
     }

} // End of if statement.

(for James)

In admin under Home > Hybrid X Core > Database: Connections, Backups and Raw Admin > Raw Database Admin click on  and enter the following statements :

Code:

ALTER TABLE `gbu0_cat` ADD `metadescription` TEXT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci NOT NULL AFTER `deschastags` ;

INSERT INTO `khxc_columndefs` VALUES('gbu0_cat.metadescription', 'KHXC', 'Meta Description', 'clob', '', 0, 'TEXTAREA-SMALL', '', '', 'TEXTAREA-SMALL', '', 0, 'This is the optional meta description for this category.  If nothing is entered here the category description will be used for the meta description tag when the category is displayed.', 'Category Keywords and Description');

In the {private}/apps/gbu0/GBU_Cat directory make a copy of GBU_Cat.php as a backup.  Edit GBU_Cat.php and look for

Code:

// +--
// | Set our display name and meta tags up if our 
// | namespace is 'catshow'.
// +--

if ($this->globals('khxc.namespace') == 'catshow') {

     $this->globals('khxc_display.metatitle',$result[0]['name']);
     $this->globals('khxc.ref_disp',$result[0]['name']);

     $this->globals('khxc_display.metakeywords',$result[0]['keywords']);
     $this->globals('khxc_display.metadesc',$result[0]['description']);
     
} // End of if statement.

Change that block of code to read:

Code:

// +--
// | Set our display name and meta tags up if our 
// | namespace is 'catshow'.
// +--

if ($this->globals('khxc.namespace') == 'catshow') {

     $this->globals('khxc_display.metatitle',$result[0]['name']);
     $this->globals('khxc.ref_disp',$result[0]['name']);

     $this->globals('khxc_display.metakeywords',$result[0]['keywords']);
     if (!empty($result[0]['metadescription'])) {
         $this->globals('khxc_display.metadesc',$result[0]['metadescription']);
     } else {
         $this->globals('khxc_display.metadesc',$result[0]['description']);
     }

} // End of if statement.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

PS: I've asked Nick to look at this thread to possibly consider adding this mod, in his own style smile, to CCP.

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#15 12-23-2007 14:23:59

Perkster
Member
From: Parksville BC Canada
Registered: 10-05-2004
Posts: 349
Website

Re: Very Important issue that’s costing traffic and sales

Thanks Santa Dave,  Merry Christmas!


Mike Perks
Linux CD Shop - /shop for Linux distributions

ReviewLinux.Com - Linux OS News & Review Site

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#16 12-23-2007 15:27:06

Dave
Member
Registered: 07-05-2003
Posts: 11233

Re: Very Important issue that’s costing traffic and sales

You're welcome Mike.  Where did you tell me to send the bill? wink

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#17 12-23-2007 16:06:24

Perkster
Member
From: Parksville BC Canada
Registered: 10-05-2004
Posts: 349
Website

Re: Very Important issue that’s costing traffic and sales

The check is in the mail.  smile


Mike Perks
Linux CD Shop - /shop for Linux distributions

ReviewLinux.Com - Linux OS News & Review Site

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#18 09-02-2009 05:13:52

Railex
Member
Registered: 09-04-2008
Posts: 24

Re: Very Important issue that’s costing traffic and sales

Hi Dave,

Is there an easy way that I can take this seperate meta description and also display it on the actual category details page at the top, and then move the original category description to the bottom of the page (underneath the subcategory block)?

Darren.

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