Funny links

Hi, I guess this post got somehow lost...
This unspecified linked pages are really a problem in the Google search results...
Rooney

Hello,

you reported 2 -different- issues

You do well to report them (your examples helped me understand),
but first please read the following carefully (and we will see what to do to fix issue1 and improve issue2)

Issue 1. Google has links that do not include the language code !!
so e.g. a German link without the language code when accessed by an External visitor e.g. from Google search will give you a 404 error if your default site language is English!
-- solution: must find where a link is created without the language code !! , so that we force the language code to be in the URL !!


Issue 2. You have categories or items or other views that are accessed via 2 different URLs (this is not really an issue since FLEXIcontent items have rel canonical tag)
- one url includes a menu item chain (of e.g. 3 menu alias segments in the URL)
- one url does not have the menu alias segments

This maybe normal if you have enabled menu item category override, which makes the category view behave differently on initial display. Is that the case in the example of 2 different URLs for same category ? (your last example)

You need to find the source of the links.
This may or may not have anything to do with FLEXIcontent.

You have limited control over what links Google displays.
Google indexes links from where ever they find them.
For example I just created this working link:
www.servoflo.com/157
As soon as Google crawls this page that link will be indexed.

Ever since J1.5 added the SEF feature this has been an issue.
Joomla core SEF does no checking of the validity of the link.
It has a simple set of rules it follows, blindly.
That is how I created the link above.

So Google indexed links can come from:
- crawling other websites
- crawling other modules
- old links on your website before you made changes
- some blackhat SEO techniques make bad links in the Google index
- some website hack techniques make bad links in the Google index
- etc.
Or from crawling FLEXIcontent component links on your own website .
Google bots have also been known to follow numerical sequences and other patterns.


Finding the source of the links ...

First, look on your own web pages.
If the links appear in your own pages, find the extension creating the links, and fix it.
Often another extension is creating "bad" links (usually modules).

Second, use Google to find the website(s) with the links.
Sometimes this will work, sometimes not.

Third, look at your website logs.
See where the links are called from.

Fourth, look at Google Analytics or other traffic tracking tool.
See where the links are called from.


The only way you can remove the "bad" links from Google SERPS is to:
(1) ask them via webmaster tools, or
(2) redirect them yourself.

For example use the Redirect component to redirect the "bad" links (301) or 404 them.
Then the next time Google crawls those links they will remove them from their index.
And the redirects will keep it that way.


So unless you can find where FLEXIcontent is creating these links (and show those links on a page of your website), this is probably a usual Joomla core SEF issue.
You will find similar posts in the Joomla forums for Joomla core components and other 3rd-party components.
There are a lot of "where are these links in Google coming from" type posts.

I did not find these links in your web pages on the few pages I looked at manually.
If you would like I can run a link scanner on the entire website to see if the links are present on any pages on the website, and hopefully identify the exact pages, and find the extensions creating the links.
That process will create substantial load on the website.

Hi,

thanks for the detailed answer.

ggppdk wrote: Issue 1. Google has links that do not include the language code !!
so e.g. a German link without the language code when accessed by an External visitor e.g. from Google search will give you a 404 error if your default site language is English!
-- solution: must find where a link is created without the language code !! , so that we force the language code to be in the URL !!

I have setup Jommla multilanguage that it is not including the German language code, because I migrated from an old 1.5 page using JoomFish also not using the code. So, this correct behaviour for the default language. Google also has the links with language code in the index, but this is a Joomla issue and I have internal redirects to eliminate the code in the link!

ggppdk wrote: Issue 2. You have categories or items or other views that are accessed via 2 different URLs (this is not really an issue since FLEXIcontent items have rel canonical tag)
- one url includes a menu item chain (of e.g. 3 menu alias segments in the URL)
- one url does not have the menu alias segments

This maybe normal if you have enabled menu item category override, which makes the category view behave differently on initial display. Is that the case in the example of 2 different URLs for same category ? (your last example)

In my last example www.servoflo.com/pressure-sensors/air/high/ is a linked menu item pointing to a category and the part 156-differential.html is coming from clicking a subcategory link. The link www.servoflo.com/156-differential.html is in the Google index and I do not know where it comes from.

Rooney

I have setup Jommla multilanguage that it is not including the German language code, because I migrated from an old 1.5 page using JoomFish also not using the code. So, this correct behaviour for the default language. Google also has the links with language code in the index, but this is a Joomla issue and I have internal redirects to eliminate the code in the link!

I am sorry but this will not work in J2.5 !!
The default language will be that of the visiting user according to their browser setting, so German speaking will see correct page, but other users will see error 404.

This maybe less of an issue because English speaking will not have this page in search results, because they will put english words in the search, so they will not get this page in search results,

-- but people searching German words and having english language as default in browser , they will get an Error 404

ggppdk wrote: I am sorry but this will not work in J2.5 !!
The default language will be that of the visiting user according to their browser setting, so German speaking will see correct page, but other users will see error 404.

This maybe less of an issue because English speaking will not have this page in search results, because they will put english words in the search, so they will not get this page in search results,

-- but people searching German words and having english language as default in browser , they will get an Error 404

Ok. But this is an FlexiContent issue, or? For native Joomla it works without language code!

Rooney