Previously I’ve published a method of redirecting review list pages to their corresponding product pages in Magento. In hindsight, this approach was incorrect and, with further insight into how Magento works, I’ve found a new and better method of reducing duplicate SEO content issues on Magento installs.
Through the powerful XML layout files Magento themes are powered by, you can insert meta robots tags into any page view. With this in mind, we can begin to reduce the number of views/templates that are openly asking Google and other major search engines to index them.
I know from experience that this solution works:
<review_product_list> <reference name="head"> <action method="setRobots"> <value>noindex,follow</value> </action> </reference> </review_product_list> <review_product_view> <reference name="head"> <action method="setRobots"> <value>noindex,follow</value> </action> </reference> </review_product_view>
This code belongs in the layout.xml file in your Magento theme, not the base theme. What we are doing is hooking into the correct page templates and inserting meta robots that will ask Google to visit the page and follow the links from the page, but not to insert the page into Google’s index.
You will only want to do this if you are showing your reviews on your product page in a custom theme. Doing this without a custom theme will be like asking Google to ignore all of your customer’s words. Typically user generated content is where Google can begin to differentiate content on large e-commerce websites, so this is extremely important.
If you’ve got any questions or comments, please let me know in the comment section below. Or, if you are interested in any of our services (SEO and PPC) then don’t hesitate to get in touch.
