SEO Duplicate Title & Meta Tags

CrazyCritters · ‎02-02-2021

I'm currently addressing SEO on my website. It is a new website so traffic is minimal.

www.crazycritters.com.au

The main issue I want to address is duplicate SEO title tags.

I am using SEO Now (app) to show me some of the SEO errors on my website that need fixing.

This error is coming up for almost every page on my website.

Can someone please explain why the duplicate tags are being created with my Business Name and how to fix this?

An identical duplicate meta tag is also showing up in the SEO errors.

Thanks in advance for any help 🙂

KieranR · ‎02-03-2021

So based on that I would suggest:

Do either:

If you want to let the default theme code handle the title tag, then delete (1).
If you want to let seonow app control the title tags, then delete (2)

Then test if the dupe <titles> have gone.

It's possible (though unlikely) to break things with typo, or similar. If that does happen you should be able to rollback to a prev version of theme.liquid. However this is a risk, just caution you to be aware if you're not familiar.

Full time Shopify SEO guy, based in NZ. Sometimes freelance outside the 9-5.

View solution in original post

KieranR · ‎02-03-2021

There are two <title> tags present.

Looking at source code:

and:

Likely to fix, someone needs to get a bit hands on to edit code, exact change will be theme dependent. I'd suggest start by looking in the themes.liquid template file, that is the most common place where the <title> is inserted inside the <head>.

Full time Shopify SEO guy, based in NZ. Sometimes freelance outside the 9-5.

CrazyCritters · ‎02-03-2021

@KieranR Thank you for your reply!

I’ll get someone to look into editing the code.

Also, so I am not having this issue repeatedly do you know if it is likely an app I use (e.g. SEO Now) would be the reason for the change to code?

KieranR · ‎02-03-2021

It's possible the SEO app has inserted a duplicate <title> tag. Might not be this though.

Looking at app config, docs, and maybe even dry running an install then diff checking the theme you could get a picture if this is the cause or not.

That code in themes.liquid is global across all pages, so if the issue is in there, and it is identified and fixed, then it should fix on all pages yes.

To get a better picture of what is happening someone needs to get in there ultimately, otherwise we are just speculating.

Full time Shopify SEO guy, based in NZ. Sometimes freelance outside the 9-5.

CrazyCritters · ‎02-03-2021

@KieranR

I really don't know much about website coding, app config, docs or dry running an install.

I have copied the code from theme.liquid and can see that in the <head> section it refers to the SEO Now app. I have copied the code for theme.liquid and the seo.liquid below.

If this doesn't shed some light on whether the app is the cause then I'll have to wait to get someone to look into the coding properly.

I can see there is still some leftover code from apps that I have removed from the website so it needs a cleanup anyway, just not something I can address at the moment.

This is the code from theme.liquid <head> section:

<!doctype html>

<head>

{% include 'seonow' %}

{% if settings.favicon %}

{% endif %}

<title>

{{ page_title }}{% if current_tags %}{% assign meta_tags = current_tags | join: ', ' %} – {{ 'general.meta.tags' | t: tags: meta_tags }}{% endif %}{% if current_page != 1 %} – {{ 'general.meta.page' | t: page: current_page }}{% endif %}{% unless page_title contains shop.name %} – {{ shop.name }}{% endunless %}

</title>

{% include 'eggflow-script' %}

{% if page_description %}

{% endif %}

{% include 'social-meta-tags' %}

document.documentElement.className = document.documentElement.className.replace('supports-no-js', 'supports-js');

var theme = {

mapStrings: {

addressError: {{ 'homepage.map.address_error' | t | json }},

addressNoResults: {{ 'homepage.map.address_no_results' | t | json }},

addressQueryLimit: {{ 'homepage.map.address_query_limit_html' | t | json }},

authError: {{ 'homepage.map.auth_error_html' | t | json }}

}

</script>

{% if request.page_type contains 'customers/' %}

{% endif %}

{% include 'booster-common' %}

{% include 'previewer-head-template' %}

{{ 'ndnapps-contactform-styles.css' | asset_url | stylesheet_tag }}

</head>

The section in bold italics in the code above - does this mean that it will use the rules created by the seo.liquid file? I have pasted this below...

code from seo.liquid (that relates to the title and meta tags):

<title>{{ page_title | escape_once }}</title>

{% if template contains "index" or template contains "product" %}

{%- if ldjson.enableStructuredData -%}

...Does this account for the second title tag and meta tags?

I will get someone to go through and clean up the code for the website soon hopefully but I was just hoping to try and fix this myself if possible first.

I understand coding is beyond me and more than likely I'll need someone to do this but I appreciate the time you have taken to explain this.

KieranR · ‎02-03-2021

So based on that I would suggest:

Do either:

If you want to let the default theme code handle the title tag, then delete (1).
If you want to let seonow app control the title tags, then delete (2)

Then test if the dupe <titles> have gone.

It's possible (though unlikely) to break things with typo, or similar. If that does happen you should be able to rollback to a prev version of theme.liquid. However this is a risk, just caution you to be aware if you're not familiar.

Full time Shopify SEO guy, based in NZ. Sometimes freelance outside the 9-5.

CrazyCritters · ‎02-03-2021

@KieranR

Thank you so much! I will give it a try.

Just to clarify, letting the default theme code handle title tags, this would be edited using the edit website SEO section on the product pages?

KieranR · ‎02-14-2021

letting the default theme code handle title tags, this would be edited using the edit website SEO section on the product pages?

Sortof. So for example you might set "Red Roses" as the product title, "Fragrant Red Roses - a perfect Valentines day gift" as the SEO title. Then the theme code (or SEO app) might conditionally append extra information like your brand for /product/ pages.

So the actual output in <title> might end up being "Fragrant Red Roses - a perfect Valentines day gift | FlowerShop"

That output may or may not be what you are expecting, or what you want, or what's best for search. A lot of flexibillity and a number of different approaches to decide text patterns end up in <title> tags. Most common approaches I see are either via app or via theme edits.

Also, worth considering a couple more things:

Google will algorithmically decide to use (or not to use) the <title> tag that you have defined.
A title tag to Google is really just a suggestion. If you make it too spammy, or too long or too short, or not relevant, or otherwise then it's likely to be auto-replaced and overridden in organic SERPs.
After you update a title tag, it usually takes some time (varies by what crawl frequency Googlebot is assigned to you) to re-crawl a page. Then some more time to update the search result index.

Full time Shopify SEO guy, based in NZ. Sometimes freelance outside the 9-5.

CrazyCritters · ‎02-14-2021

@KieranR

Thank you so much for explaining that to me 🙂 I appreciate all the help!

I have decided to continue using an external SEO program to identify SEO issues on my website (which lets me know if my title and meta tags are too long or short) and just manually edit the SEO information on the Shopify product pages.

This is just for the sake of simplicity for moment and to eliminate any duplicate tags on the website.

...for example you might set "Red Roses" as the product title, "Fragrant Red Roses - a perfect Valentines day gift" as the SEO title.
Then the theme code (or SEO app) might conditionally append extra information like your brand for /product/ pages.
So the actual output in <title> might end up being "Fragrant Red Roses - a perfect Valentines day gift | FlowerShop"

When looking at the duplicate tags I did notice that the one set of tags had " - Crazy Critters" at the end.

You mentioned being able to use theme edits to address SEO... is this something that a theme edit could remove?

I would prefer being able to create the SEO title tags without any unseen extra information being added.

When the business is a little bit more established I will hire someone to address SEO properly but for the time being, I have to work within the limits of what I can do myself.

On this note, can you please send me a PM with your information - including the tasks you can assist with and relevant costing (I see on your signature you handle SEO) - you have been so helpful! so when we reach the stage of hiring someone who actually knows what they're doing I'd like to get in touch.

KieranR · ‎02-14-2021

When looking at the duplicate tags I did notice that the one set of tags had " - Crazy Critters" at the end.
You mentioned being able to use theme edits to address SEO... is this something that a theme edit could remove?
I would prefer being able to create the SEO title tags without any unseen extra information being added.

Yeah I would say a theme edit could possibly be a fix for the dupe title thing. Do you have more specific examples? Really need more context.

The Shopify Admin UI has a number of limitations and the SEO title/meta fields are one. Wrong lengths, no rule based logic exposed within the UI etc. So kinda just need to understand the limits. 3rd party apps (as you've discovered) are one workaround to viewing the "full" <title> tag outputs. However personally I prefer a combination of external SEO tools and hardcode any title tag pattern/logic directly into the theme with liquid.

Full time Shopify SEO guy, based in NZ. Sometimes freelance outside the 9-5.

CrazyCritters · ‎02-14-2021

@KieranR

Yeah I would say a theme edit could possibly be a fix for the dupe title thing. Do you have more specific examples? Really need more context.

The duplicate tags seem to have been removed once I deleted the SEO app but I believe Shopify is adding the additional text at the end of our SEO title tags to include "- Crazy Critters" which I'd prefer to remove if we can. This is an issue we can address anytime though, I'm not in any real hurry.

For example, if one title tag was " Reptile Food | Large Live Crickets" the other tag was " Reptile Food | Large Live Crickets - Crazy Critters ". They were exactly the same, just one tag would have
" - Crazy Critters" added to the end. I believe this is Shopify, but I could be wrong... it's been known to happen from time to time 😛 especially with things I know little about!

The Shopify Admin UI has a number of limitations and the SEO title/meta fields are one. Wrong lengths, no rule based logic exposed within the UI etc. So kinda just need to understand the limits. 3rd party apps (as you've discovered) are one workaround to viewing the "full" <title> tag outputs. However personally I prefer a combination of external SEO tools and hardcode any title tag pattern/logic directly into the theme with liquid.

My understanding of SEO is very basic. I didn't realise you could use pattern/logic within the website code but this makes sense now that you have said it.

I suppose this is why we would definitely need to hire someone to address SEO in the future lol.

We'd probably just get a review of our SEO and work off any recommendations. I don't know enough about SEO to put-forward my own suggestions on how to address it.

KieranR · ‎02-14-2021

The duplicate tags seem to have been removed once I deleted the SEO app but I believe Shopify is adding the additional text at the end of our SEO title tags to include "- Crazy Critters" which I'd prefer to remove if we can. This is an issue we can address anytime though, I'm not in any real hurry.

In my experience it's the theme code that modifys the seo.title. Most seo apps will actually operate this way on the back, by auto-modifying the theme code to filter or pre/ap-pend things

Shopify itself just stores a global seo.title field per product, page, blog, collection etc. This value is actually what you edit directly in the Shopify Admin UI.

But yeah really hard to speculate, usually just get into the theme read the code and see what's happening, fix it & test it's fixed.

Full time Shopify SEO guy, based in NZ. Sometimes freelance outside the 9-5.

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