J-BusinessDirectory - 4SEO Not Compatible with JBD

I paid for a subscription to 4SEO for $95.00

I can confidently say that the two are not compatible.

I thought to mention this as I do not want you to waste your money unnecessarily.

Weebler, the maker of sh404SEF, indicated the problem was as follows:

1. A JBD directory listing has a link 'www.abc.com' (browser address)
2. JBD adds a canonical link to the above link and CHANGES it to: 'www.abc-state-country.com' (Page Source).
3. Because 'www.abc.com" is NOT a canonical link it will never get scanned by Google.
4. Now Google will never find 'www.abc-state-country.com as it is NOT linked to your website only on the page source.

As I understand, the above happens even if you do not install 4SEO as it is a JBD issue only, according to Weebler.

It is an awful shame that we cannot use 4SEO as it is an advanced version of sh404SEF for Joomla 4.

I opened a ticket on the issue with JBD but nothing ever came of it.

I ended up using Aimy Canonical as it has a feature to override JBD canonical links, however, I have not tested if the issue is resolved, likely not.

Have you tried to disable the SEO in the directory general settings?
The URL for a listing should be the same with the canonical one.

I did try that.

It makes everything much worse as all the listings become numbers/codes for web addresses and that is worse for SEO purposes as I understand things.

If you turn that feature off your listing web address become something like:

   -https://www.example.com/122344656543444/444566776655/555445544

Something like the above.

"The URL for a listing should be the same with the canonical one."

Weebler confirmed and provided you with screenshots showing that the front-end browser address is not the same as the source code web address.

Unfortunately, this is not accurate.

All the listings URLs are created using the JBusinessUtil::getCompanyLink function.

Event the canonical URL uses the same function.

If you disable SEO the URL is generated using
$url = JRoute::_('index.php?option=com_jbusinessdirectory&view=companies&companyId='.$id, false, -1);

There should be no differences.
If they have no solution, you can remove the canonical URL from the header.php file in the companies folder.

See Here:

   - https://imgur.com/a/Nkmylx1

The above screenshot is from Weebler.

Yes, that is the code/number website address I am talking about:

   - $url = JRoute::_('index.php?option=com_jbusinessdirectory&view=companies&companyId='.$id, false, -1);

Versus, with JBD SEO turned on:

   - www.example.com/bussiness

When you are using an external SEF mechanism, JBD SEO has to be disabled.

"When you are using an external SEF mechanism, JBD SEO has to be disabled."

1) Agree, however, all JBD links would not be search friendly links and the business name is not added to the listing URL, please confirm.

2) JBD SEO must be off on all websites as the canoical listing  links are not the same as front end URL

4) Even if JBD SEO is turned off the same issue would exist if canonical links are added when JBD's SEO is turned off. May I confirm if canonical links are added if JBD's SEO is turned off?

5) A JBD admin cannot rust turn off JBD SEO as all listing links would change and whatever links scanned by search engines would be lost.

6) Will there be anything done to fix this or do I just live with it?

Thks Joe and George to sort this out bcs this is existential for a business listing directory to have 100% Google SEO SERPS optimised for success.

Without this working 100% accourate no JBD site owner will have a chance to survice with its directory.

I believe that this bug affects admins who have selected 'URL Fields' found here:

   - JBD Admin Path: JBD Admin Panel > General Settings > SEO > URL Fields

When either 'Province', 'Region', or 'State' are selected they are only added to the canonical link, not the front-end URL:

   - Image URL: https://imgur.com/a/hkxFyPc

As a result, TWO Different URLs are created:

   1. First URL: Front end non-canonical link WITHOUT 'Province', 'Region', and/or 'State'.

   2. Second URL: Source code canonical link WITH 'Province', 'Region', and/or 'State'.

Thus, the front-end non-canonical links are not indexed as Google is looking for canonical links, and the canonical links are not published on the front-end (only source code).

Weebler's, final conclusions were:

   1.  "These canonical pages must be found and have regular links on your site. How do you expect Google to find them otherwise? and give them value????"

   2. "In other words, you are killing your SEO because your main component is taking a good page, linked from your site and adding a canonical to another page, that's not linked from anywhere it seems. You should fix that. Either have that canonical removed, or make the other page available somewhere on the site, so that search engines (and 4SEO) can find it."

We have added the all URL fields and checked this on our server.
On all URL the form is the same. There is no difference.
The difference can come only if one URL is generated outside and the canonical URL by the directory.
Of course, if the URL's are not the same this will cause issues on indexing the listings.

Please create a ticket on our store and provide us the page with the listing link that is different from the canonical link to investigate the issue.

I have found a workaround and do not want to make changes to a live site.

With the workaround, I went from 24 to over 1,000 Google indexed links in one month.

Basically, all directory listings had double links except the ones where the 'state' and 'city' were not added to the listing.

I am happy to recreate the problem if you provide me with admin access to your local copy.

Basically, you have this problem if Google has only indexed a couple of dozen listings on your website, 24 in my case.

When testing on your end, make sure you select 'Province', 'Region', and 'State' in the 'URL Fields' in the 'SEO" tab.

Also, create NEW listings as making the change to existing listings will likely not produce the Bug.

Hello,

i am interested to buy 4seo extension & JDB-sh404SEF addon.
Is there any news for the compatibility for JDB / JDB-sh404SEF and 4SEO?

Thanks

I am facing this problem where Google indexing has now dropped ALL of my Business Listings and Offers. I have been trying several solutions without success. Am I correct in understanding the above conversations as meaning if I leave "JBD Admin Path: JBD Admin Panel > General Settings > SEO > URL Fields" without any values, that should solve the problem? I have noticed if I try to turn off JBD SEO and put SEO to Joomla, I get E404 errors when trying to call up individual business listings. Please help, as my Business Directory has become completely useless!

@Farai what changes have you performed before the indexing has dropped?
Have you changed the URL structure?