Hi everyone,
I have a couple of issues I'd love to solve.

1. I'm sorry if this has been discussed before, I had a look through and couldn't find anything that seemed to suit.
Google is picking up duplicate meta tags for all my pages.

For example the following article:

How to prune a Frangipani tree (Plumeria rubra). Instructions for pruning a tree.

Google sees:

/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=75:frangipani-plants-how-to-prune-plumeria-rubra&catid=16:plant-garden-care-blog&Itemid=171

and

/plant-garden-care-blog/plant-garden-care-blog/frangipani-plants-how-to-prune-plumeria-rubra

Resulting in duplicate meta descriptions and title tags.

In JoomSEF, I looked up this article, to see if I could change meta for 1 of those, but it only shows 1 column with 1 meta description for:

plant-garden-care-blog/plant-garden-care-blog/frangipani-plants-how-to-prune-plumeria-rubra and
index.php?option=com_content&catid=16&id=75&view=article&Itemid=171 . I cannot change just one, it's listed as both on one line.

Could anyone help me remove all the duplicate meta's & title tags?

Same for the shop, for example my product Philodendron:

/shop/all-nursery-plants-for-sale/philodendron-imperial-green
/shop/buy-exotic-tropical-plants/philodendron-imperial-green
/shop/buy-exotic-tropical-plants/philodendron-imperial-green?limit=int&limitstart=0
/shop/buy-foliage-plants/philodendron-imperial-green
/shop/buy-pot-plants/philodendron-imperial-green
/~lushplan/shop/all-nursery-plants-for-sale/philodendron-imperial-green
/~lushplan/shop/buy-foliage-plants/philodendron-imperial-green

All the same meta descriptions and title tags....

For this one:

Buy Bamboo online at Lush Plants Australia! A range of Bamboo plants coming soon.... Bamboo is one

there are a whopping 28 pages with the same meta's....:

/component/virtuemart/buy-bamboo
/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=10&limitstart=0&orderby=%60p%60.modified_on
/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=2&limitstart=0&orderby=%60p%60.modified_on
/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=2&limitstart=0&orderby=product_price&order=DESC
/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=20&limitstart=0&orderby=%60p%60.modified_on
/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=20&limitstart=0&orderby=product_price&order=DESC
/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=20&limitstart=0&orderby=product_price
/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=3&limitstart=0&orderby=%60p%60.modified_on
/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=3&limitstart=0&orderby=product_name
/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=3&limitstart=0&orderby=product_price
/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=4&limitstart=0&orderby=%60p%60.modified_on
/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=4&limitstart=0&orderby=product_name
/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=int&limitstart=0&orderby=%60p%60.modified_on
/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=int&limitstart=0&orderby=product_in_stock
/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=int&limitstart=0&orderby=product_name
/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=int&limitstart=0&orderby=product_price&order=DESC
/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=int&limitstart=0&orderby=product_price
/~lushplan/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=10&limitstart=0&orderby=product_in_stock
/~lushplan/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=10&limitstart=0&orderby=product_name
/~lushplan/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=10&limitstart=0&orderby=product_price&order=DESC
/~lushplan/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=2&limitstart=0&orderby=product_in_stock
/~lushplan/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=20&limitstart=0&orderby=%60p%60.product_sku
/~lushplan/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=3&limitstart=0&orderby=product_in_stock
/~lushplan/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=3&limitstart=0&orderby=product_name
/~lushplan/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=4&limitstart=0&orderby=product_name
/~lushplan/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=4&limitstart=0&orderby=product_price
/~lushplan/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=4&limitstart=0
/~lushplan/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=int&limitstart=0&orderby=%60p%60.created_on


2. I don't know where the /~lushplan/ url's come from, but I would like to know if I can use Joomsef to remove them / migrate them to their corresponding 'normal' urls so Google doesn't pick them up as separate pages. I cannot find any of the /~lushplan/ urls in joomsef!

I would very much appreciate your help!

Hi,

1) As regards the first non-SEF URL:
/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=75:frangipani-plants-how-to-prune-plumeria-rubra&catid=16:plant-garden-care-blog&Itemid=171

It should be automatically redirected to:
/plant-garden-care-blog/plant-garden-care-blog/frangipani-plants-how-to-prune-plumeria-rubra

by JoomSEF, so Google should just stop reporting it after some time.


For different SEF URLs like:
/shop/all-nursery-plants-for-sale/philodendron-imperial-green
and
/shop/buy-exotic-tropical-plants/philodendron-imperial-green

you can manually modify your meta tags using JoomSEF's URLs Manager.

However for SEF URLs with some non-SEF variables like:
/shop/buy-exotic-tropical-plants/philodendron-imperial-green?limit=int&limitstart=0
or
/shop/buy-bamboo?limit=2&limitstart=0&orderby=product_price&order=DESC

you can't set different meta tags in JoomSEF, but you can check if you have automatic canonical link generation enabled in JoomSEF's Configuration on the Advanced tab (it should be enabled by default). That way JoomSEF will generate the canonical link to the pure SEF URL, so Google should know that it's preferred.

You can also use the Options -> URL Parameters in Google Webmasters Tools to set up non-SEF variables that should be ignored.


2) To automatically redirect URLs starting with /~lushplan to their corresponding URL without it, you will need to create custom RewriteRule for mod_rewrite in your .htaccess file. For more information about mod_rewrite see its documentation at: httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/mod_rewrite.html