SEO Templates

SEO Templates - a title, a description and an H1 for the whole catalog without manual work

A catalog has thousands of pages, and on most of them the title repeats the name and there is no description at all. The add-on fills in the SEO fields of products, categories, pages, brands and vendor stores from templates: the text is written once, the data of every object is inserted automatically, and new products get their meta data on schedule.

Why a store needs meta data templates

A search engine shows a page by its title and description. When they are empty or identical across the catalog, pages compete with each other and lose to the ones with written titles. Nobody has time to fill in thousands of product cards by hand, and every import adds more.

A category page: the H1 "Buy Camcorders at Cart-Power Demo Store" is built by the template from the category name and the storefront name.

The template is written once

A template belongs to an object type and fills in the selected fields. The text holds placeholders such as {{ product }}, {{ category_path }}, {{ price }}, {{ brand }}, {{ feature_12 }}; the full list for the object type is shown next to the form, and a click inserts a placeholder into the field.

• •  Products: name, code, price, price in the secondary currency, stock, brand, category and category path, descriptions, promo text, tags, dates, any feature; in Multi-Vendor - the vendor, its city and country.
• •  Categories: name, parent category, path, level, description, number of products, minimum and maximum price.
• •  Pages and blog posts: name, parent page, description, date. Brands: the value and the feature, number of products, prices.
• •  The dynamic placeholders {{ storefront }} and {{ pagination }} are inserted on the storefront - the page number and the storefront name land in the title without another run.
• •  Filters: {{ product|upper }}, {{ description|strip|truncate(160) }}, {{ full_description|words(20) }} and the standard Twig filters - case, slicing, rounding, replacing.
• •  Template texts are set per store language, and generation runs for every language.

The product template page: fields with placeholders and the placeholder list next to the form; a click inserts the placeholder into the field.

Selection conditions and preview

One template for the whole catalog rarely fits: branded products need one text, a sale needs another, and empty product cards just need something. Conditions limit a template to the right objects, and the priority decides which of the matching templates is applied last.

• •  Products: selected products, categories (with or without subcategories), brand, price range, status, in stock, "name contains", "field is empty", vendor.
• •  Categories: selected categories with or without subcategories, nesting level.
• •  Several conditions at once - all of them or any of them.
• •  Preview on the template page: the current value, the value by the template and its length for the first five matching objects. It uses the unsaved text and writes nothing.
• •  A mistake in a placeholder shows up when the template is saved and in the preview, not after a run.

The "Condition" tab: in stock, price from 10 and the "Active" status - the template applies to such products only.

Preview: the current value, the value by the template and the length of every field for the first objects.

Generation: incremental, on schedule, with a log

The add-on remembers which revision of the template processed each object. The next run takes only the objects saved, imported or changed through the API since then, and every object of a template whose text or conditions changed. On a catalog of hundreds of thousands of products the daily run takes minutes, not hours.

• •  A run from the admin panel with a progress bar and a summary: processed, updated, skipped, errors.
• •  A CRON job with an access key: the command is ready on the "CRON" tab of the settings. The --limit, --time_limit and --template_id parameters; a run stopped by a limit continues with the remaining objects on the next start.
• •  The run log: time, duration, template, where it was started from, status, counters and the first errors with the object number and the field.
• •  A second run does not start while the first one is working. When a run is short of memory it stops, writes that to the log and continues on the next start.
• •  "Apply to all objects again" - for data changed indirectly, for example a renamed parent category.

The run log: a run of all templates with a row per template, a run stopped by a limit and the counters of each.

The CRON tab of the settings: the ready command with the key and the limit parameters.

The template list: object type, priority, status and the last run of every template.

H1 and the breadcrumb title

• •  Products, categories, pages, brands and vendors get two extra fields: "Custom H1" and "Custom breadcrumb title". They are filled in by a template or by hand.
• •  On the storefront the H1 replaces the page heading and the breadcrumb title replaces the last breadcrumb. The product name stays as it was - in the cart, orders and feeds.
• •  Optionally the H1 is shown instead of the name in product lists and in invoices.
• •  The fields are available in the product and vendor export and import.
• •  Multi-Vendor: vendors can be forbidden to edit the H1 and the titles.

A product page: the "name - category" H1 from the template and a shortened breadcrumb title; the product name does not change.

Multi-Vendor: vendor stores and vendor categories

A category page inside a vendor store is a separate page with an address of its own, and since 2.15 it has SEO fields of its own. The text is set once per category, and the vendor name is inserted by the {{ vendor }} placeholder: "GPS navigators at {{ vendor }}" shows the name of each vendor on their page.

• •  The "Vendor store" template type: the page title, description, keywords, H1 and breadcrumb of the vendor page from its name, description, city, country and number of products.
• •  The "Categories in vendor stores" template type and the "Category in the vendor store" section on the category page - five fields, available to the marketplace administrator.
• •  SEO-friendly addresses of vendor categories like /vendor/category-path/ with pagination; the previous addresses answer with a permanent redirect.
• •  Vendor categories go to the standard sitemap and to the Cart-Power Extended XML Sitemap.
• •  Templates are created and applied by the marketplace administrator, including for the common products of vendors.

A category in a vendor store on the storefront: the "Camcorders (Gadget)" breadcrumb and the "Camcorders - Gadget" H1 with the vendor name.

The "Category in the vendor store" section on the category page: title, description, keywords, H1 and breadcrumb with {{ vendor }}.

Settings, storefronts and integrations

• •  A length limit for every field: the excess is cut at a word boundary with an ellipsis.
• •  The brand feature for the {{ brand }} placeholder; all feature values separated by commas; removal of extra spaces.
• •  Keep dynamic placeholders out of the product export.
• •  CS-Cart Ultimate: a set of templates for every storefront, the CRON command for a storefront is ready in the settings.
• •  Integrations: Extended Tags (tag pages), Power Blog (categories and posts), Power Reviews, the CS-Cart blog, Extended XML Sitemap.

Add-on settings: a length limit for every field.

What is new in 2.15-2.17

• •  Multi-Vendor: SEO fields of categories in vendor stores, the "Categories in vendor stores" template type, the {{ vendor }} placeholder, addresses like /vendor/category/ and a sitemap for these pages.
• •  Generation is incremental for every object type and any number of templates; simultaneous runs are excluded.
• •  The run log and the preview on the template page.
• •  New selection conditions: categories with subcategories, brand, price, status, in stock, "name contains", "field is empty", vendor, category level.
• •  New placeholders: brand, code, tags, promo text, dates, price in the secondary currency, category path, level, number of products, vendor city and country and more.
• •  The truncate, strip and words filters; the "Length limits" settings for every field.
• •  CRON: the --limit and --time_limit parameters, continuation with the remaining objects, a start by URL with the key from the settings only.
• •  Template validation on save: syntax, unknown placeholders, field selection.
• •  The "Apply to all objects again" button.
• •  2.16: the template list and the template page open when the Blog add-on is installed but disabled.
• •  2.16: the "Pages" template no longer counts blog posts and polls, which it does not process, as pending and no longer logs them as skipped.
• •  2.17: the currency symbol is inserted as text, not as the markup of old Russian builds; the upgrade replaces that markup in titles, descriptions and keywords already written.
• •  2.17: the default templates no longer write a zero price or a dangling "+" without a description.
• •  2.17: VIVAshop theme - the category H1 from the template is shown in the theme title block, a custom product H1 uses the theme markup; without a custom H1 the theme title is left as it is.

Frequently asked questions