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[questbg Friend questbgJoin date: May 2008Posts: 1912Downloads:0Uploads:1 Thanks: 146 Thanked: 339 times in 197 posts]

#136430

Hi Everyone

I’ve just built a site for a client using Mesolite. The site is working fine and client is happy! 🙂

However, I’ve just submitted the site to Google and it appears in the listings as the URL only (not the title or description).

Here’s how it looks in Google:

And here’s my meta-data in Admin:

Does anyone know what is causing this? Or, more important, how to fix it.

The listing only appears in google if I type ‘british lion food store’ in the search, not any of the other keywords.

I’ve currently got SEF URL’s set to off, could this be the cause?

Many Thanks
Chris

[sfpkent Friend sfpkentJoin date: October 2008Posts: 829Downloads:0Uploads:100 Thanks: 310 Thanked: 75 times in 1 posts]

#283753

Hi,

How about Yahoo and MSN, you have to try three of them in order to check where the problem came from.

Kent

[questbg Friend questbgJoin date: May 2008Posts: 1912Downloads:0Uploads:1 Thanks: 146 Thanked: 339 times in 197 posts]

#283754

Hi Kent

Even stranger. The MSN and Yahoo bots have been in for a few weeks now, I searched for ‘British Lion Food Store’ on both, nothing! It doesn’t appear anywhere in the listings.

I just tried to install the sh404SEF plugin. I enabled it in the CP and clicked Save. One hour later and nothing, all I get is ‘Loading’ in the Browser.

Is this normal with this component that it takes so long to Enabme?

Thanks
Chris

[bennitos Friend bennitosJoin date: May 2008Posts: 1717Downloads:0Uploads:39 Thanks: 39 Thanked: 474 times in 407 posts]

#283762

Hello Chris,

I usually use this site to check if my site’s meta tags etc are correct:

http://www.seocentro.com/tools/search-engines/metatag-analyzer.html

I tried for your site (you can select wich bot to use i used google), and all meta tags show correctly.

Did you keep in mind that google only updates every 3-4 months?

2 users say Thank You to bennitos for this useful post

1. questbg
2. sfpkent

[questbg Friend questbgJoin date: May 2008Posts: 1912Downloads:0Uploads:1 Thanks: 146 Thanked: 339 times in 197 posts]

#283764

Hi bennitos

<em>@bennitos 96504 wrote:</em><blockquote>http://www.seocentro.com/tools/search-engines/metatag-analyzer.html</blockquote>

Thanks for that, a very nice tool. Bookmarked! 🙂

<em>@bennitos 96504 wrote:</em><blockquote>Did you keep in mind that google only updates every 3-4 months?</blockquote>

Yes, the strange thing is, they must have updated in the last month as before that, I had a correct Title showing and ‘Site Under Construction, please call back’ as my Description. Now it’s changed to just the URL which is even stranger considering I’ve now got all the tags in place!

Thanks
Chris

[bennitos Friend bennitosJoin date: May 2008Posts: 1717Downloads:0Uploads:39 Thanks: 39 Thanked: 474 times in 407 posts]

#283765

And if you keep having problems then i would recommend adding your site to the google webmaster tools:

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

It will show you how google reads your site, and it will also show if it has any errors reading your site. You can also submit your sitemap there to improve how it reads your pages.

If you need help on how to set this send me a pm 🙂

2 users say Thank You to bennitos for this useful post

1. sfpkent
2. nefar

[questbg Friend questbgJoin date: May 2008Posts: 1912Downloads:0Uploads:1 Thanks: 146 Thanked: 339 times in 197 posts]

#283766

Thanks again bennitos (oh, and a proper ‘thanks’ above!!).

I’ve already done this on my own site and was trying to avoid this on the clients site as I didn’t quote for this! 😉

However, I probabaly will just to see what the problem is.

Chris

[bennitos Friend bennitosJoin date: May 2008Posts: 1717Downloads:0Uploads:39 Thanks: 39 Thanked: 474 times in 407 posts]

#283768

Well i think it will be fine overtime 🙂

Seeing its not in google cache etc either it properly just takes time.

[sfpkent Friend sfpkentJoin date: October 2008Posts: 829Downloads:0Uploads:100 Thanks: 310 Thanked: 75 times in 1 posts]

#283773

<em>@bennitos 96504 wrote:</em><blockquote>Hello Chris,

I usually use this site to check if my site’s meta tags etc are correct:

http://www.seocentro.com/tools/search-engines/metatag-analyzer.html</blockquote>

Thanks for the info, I now have another one more tool to test my website. 🙂

[nefar Friend nefarJoin date: December 2007Posts: 434Downloads:0Uploads:2 Thanks: 78 Thanked: 42 times in 1 posts]

#283789

Google updates the PR rating every 3-4 months getting spidered is completly different. It normally takes me 24 hours to get google to begin to hit my site. Once that happens with in 7 days indivual pages will begin to show up in the search and that will continue to grow depending on how much content I have. PR rating dictates how many pages will get indexed.

I use sh404 for my all my sites & xmap, using virtuemart you need an additional plugin for the xmap component. I personally don’t use the Joomla global meta tags as I do not want every page to have the same title and description. I can care less about the keywords since they really do not help but can easily penalize you. I use sh404’s meta component and then further tune with the additional prefix and sufix options. For specific articles I may also go into paramaters and edit my own description to keyword load that specific page.

Once I get my base setup for sh404 and produce my sitemaps I go into google webmaster tools, msn webmaster tools & yahoo explorer. I verify my site(s) and then sumbit my sitemap(s) to them; I will also ping my sitemap with ask.com as well. (though I’ve had no luck geting listed with them as of yet)

Now if he/she does not want to take the time to create an account with google, yahoo et cetera (only takes a few minutes) then the best bet to get spidered quickly would be to find a blog or forum that has follow links on. Preferably something releated to his product but not really necessary if all he/she is trying to do is get a spider to his site. Also note using PPC via google works well to get your site spidered fairly quickly.

[questbg Friend questbgJoin date: May 2008Posts: 1912Downloads:0Uploads:1 Thanks: 146 Thanked: 339 times in 197 posts]

#283835

Hi Nefar

<em>@nefar 96539 wrote:</em><blockquote>I use sh404 for my all my sites & xmap
</blockquote>

I tried this component yesterday, in fact, I wasted all day on it.

Every time I set the config, set to ‘enable’ and save it just sat for an hour and then logged me out of admin! >:(

Does it always take an age to enable?

Thanks
Chris

[nefar Friend nefarJoin date: December 2007Posts: 434Downloads:0Uploads:2 Thanks: 78 Thanked: 42 times in 1 posts]

#283836

<em>@questbg 96606 wrote:</em><blockquote>Hi Nefar

I tried this component yesterday, in fact, I wasted all day on it.

Every time I set the config, set to ‘enable’ and save it just sat for an hour and then logged me out of admin! >:(

Does it always take an age to enable?

Thanks
Chris</blockquote>

Hmm, no I’ve never had that problem with it before. Once you set the configuration and enable when you save, it should popup a window asking if you want to clear the url cache. I normally say yes, and then it clears the cache in a second and brings you back to the configuration screen.

Are you running a lot of additional components or do you have joomla SEF urls turned on?

[questbg Friend questbgJoin date: May 2008Posts: 1912Downloads:0Uploads:1 Thanks: 146 Thanked: 339 times in 197 posts]

#283837

Hi Nefar

I tried to ‘enable’ both with Cache to clear and that timed out after an hour, and also cancelled the clear cache message, which also timed out after an hour!

Both took me back to the config screen but with a ‘transferring data’ message. Nothing happened after an hour and component was still not enabled.

I did think it could be problem with the number of items (600 products on site), so I duplicated the entire site to a subdomain, copied the database and deleted 500 products, leaving only 100. Same problem again, after an hour of ‘transferring data’ nothing!

I don’t have SEF turned on and I do have a few other components installed (SimpleCaddy and JoomSuite User).

Maybe I should uninstall and reinstall? Or try a ‘stable’ version, I’m trying sh404SEF-15_1.0.11_Beta_build_147.

Not sure what else to do!!

Thanks again
Chris

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