Is there a way to completely disable the manufacturer page?

Hello,

I want to disable the manufacturer category while keeping the manufacturer assigned to the product (for google feed purposes). For example,
Lets say you sell sportswear and your categories are based on brands, so category 1: Pioneer, 2: adidas, 3: Nike
If you assign the manufacturer, for all products in category 1 will be pionner,for category 2 all manufacturers will be adidas etc etc..

At the end, you'll end up having 2 pages competing (indexing) for the same products... one which will be accesed through the category, and the other through the manufacturer.... there is no cannonical links into that because you are actually populating 2 different pages with the same content.

Any way to diable manufacturer page creation?

What "pages" are you talking about?

"Pages" are generated dynamically, so where do you get the idea that you will have two independent "pages" showing the same data? Google is not stupid (though many wish it were) and understands how dynamic content sites work.

And just where is this "manufacturer page"?

Are you perhaps talking about the Manufacturers sidebox?

antoniobb:

Hello,

I want to disable the manufacturer category while keeping the manufacturer assigned to the product (for google feed purposes). For example,
Lets say you sell sportswear and your categories are based on brands, so category 1: Pioneer, 2: adidas, 3: Nike
If you assign the manufacturer, for all products in category 1 will be pionner,for category 2 all manufacturers will be adidas etc etc..

At the end, you'll end up having 2 pages competing (indexing) for the same products... one which will be accesed through the category, and the other through the manufacturer.... there is no cannonical links into that because you are actually populating 2 different pages with the same content.

Any way to diable manufacturer page creation?
I think you're mixing up the meanings of brands, categories, manufacturers, and pages so much that I can't even follow what you're talking about.

You'll need to be much more clear about what you're doing, why you're doing it, what problems you're encountering because you've done it that way, and more.

I think you're asking the wrong questions. But to help you we need to know A LOT MORE information.

Can't antoniobb just go to admin > Tools > Layout Boxes Controller > sideboxes/manufacturers.php and turn the Manufacturers sidebox off? I believe that is what antoniobb is talking about, or at least trying to accomplish.. ???

Yes, he/she could turn off the sidebox. But I'm pretty sure the inquiry goes way deeper than that. However, without more information it's not possible to give an accurate answer that applies to the particular need.

thanks to all.
I am not talking about the sidebox.

Let me rephrase my question (hope to make myself clear this time :o) )

When I add a manufacturer to a product, I'll then be able to populate a page for all items under such manufacturer, for example (manufacturer is "fox"):
https://www.numinix.com/development/ajaxcart/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=4

If I have a category that is built using manufacturers as the generic name of the category, (using the previous example) I'll have a category with named "Fox" with all "Fox" products, which at the end will end up being the same items listed under the previous link

I'll end up having 2 different links that are listing the same products (one through the selection of the manufacturer) and the other through the selection of the category itself.

What I want is to disable the possibility of Zen cart calling the "manufacturer" in order to build a page. I do not want Zen Cart to be able to create a link such as: https://www.numinix.com/development/ajaxcart/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=4 because I do not need it

Very simple: don't assign a manufacturer to your products, since you're not using that feature .. ie: you're using category-names instead.
And, yes, as suggested by others, it would be smart to also then turn off the Manufacturers sideboxes.

DrByte:

Very simple: don't assign a manufacturer to your products, since you're not using that feature .. ie: you're using category-names instead.
And, yes, as suggested by others, it would be smart to also then turn off the Manufacturers sideboxes.

the problem with that is that I need to assign the manufacturers in order to have the google base feed include the brand (manufacturer), otherwise it will violate Google's data quality minimum requirements and therefore get the products delisted....

And if you turn off the sideboxes related to manufacturers in the Layout Boxes Controller ...

And if you turn off the manufacturers dropdown on the Configuration ... Product Listing ... for the:

Display Category/Manufacturer Filter (0=off; 1=on)
Do you want to display the Category/Manufacturer Filter?

0
1

And if you turn off the Manufacturer in the Configuration ... Product Listing ... by setting to 0 the:

Display Product Manufacturer Name
Do you want to display the Product Manufacturer Name?
0

And if you turn off the Manufacturer on the Product Info in the Catelog ... Product Type ... EDIT LAYOUT ... and set to 0 or false the:

Show Manufacturer
Display Manufacturer Name on Product Info 0= off 1= on

And if you turn off the Manufacturer in the Configuration ... New Listing ... by setting to 0 the:

Display Product Manufacturer Name
Do you want to display the Product Manufacturer Name?

0= off
1st digit Left or Right
2nd and 3rd digit Sort Order
4th digit number of breaks after

And if you turn off the Manufacturer in the Configuration ... Featured Listing ... by setting to 0 the:

Display Product Manufacturer Name
Do you want to display the Product Manufacturer Name?

0= off
1st digit Left or Right
2nd and 3rd digit Sort Order
4th digit number of breaks after

Does this accomplish what you are trying to do to remove references to the Product manufacturer? :unsure:

What Linda is saying (in a polite, yet instructive way) is that you should spend some time in your ADMIN area to see how it works.

fairestcape:

What Linda is saying (in a polite, yet instructive way) is that you should spend some time in your ADMIN area to see how it works.

Really? Is that your contribution? :no:

Ajeh:

And if you turn off the sideboxes related to manufacturers in the Layout Boxes Controller ...

And if you turn off the manufacturers dropdown on the Configuration ... Product Listing ... for the:

And if you turn off the Manufacturer in the Configuration ... Product Listing ... by setting to 0 the:

And if you turn off the Manufacturer on the Product Info in the Catelog ... Product Type ... EDIT LAYOUT ... and set to 0 or false the:

And if you turn off the Manufacturer in the Configuration ... New Listing ... by setting to 0 the:

And if you turn off the Manufacturer in the Configuration ... Featured Listing ... by setting to 0 the:

Does this accomplish what you are trying to do to remove references to the Product manufacturer? :unsure:

Thanks for your time, but I already had all of those pointing to "0"
The problem is: even if you have all of those settings and references set to 0, a crawler could be able to still find a link such as:
https://www.numinix.com/development/ajaxcart/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=4
and from that, some other links could be guessed, which not necesarily are found under any manufacturer sidebox.. such as:
https://www.numinix.com/development/ajaxcart/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=5

While someone could manually alter the URL for this ... the crawler cannot "make up" its own links if there is not a way to build it ... the only ones it would have are those that might have been there before turning off everything ...

Is there any harm in these links should someone manually create one?

Do you need to build in a redirect into the code if there is a manufacturers_id in the URL or a filter_id when there is a cPath in the URL? :unsure:

antoniobb:

the problem with that is that I need to assign the manufacturers in order to have the google base feed include the brand (manufacturer), otherwise it will violate Google's data quality minimum requirements and therefore get the products delisted....Seems like it would be much faster to alter your "google base feed" addon to pull the manufacturer from the category name, since THAT is where YOU are establishing the correct category. And then unassign any manufacturers from all your products in Zen Cart since you're not actually using that feature in Zen Cart for anything it was designed for.

antoniobb:

Thanks for your time, but I already had all of those pointing to "0"
The problem is: even if you have all of those settings and references set to 0, a crawler could be able to still find a link such as:
https://www.numinix.com/development/ajaxcart/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=4
and from that, some other links could be guessed, which not necesarily are found under any manufacturer sidebox.. such as:
https://www.numinix.com/development/ajaxcart/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=5

Sorry community for bumping a month old thread but I usually browse the forums via Google (ie. I search for a solution to a current problem and hope it has been previously solved).

My two pet peeves... Google sending me to a forum with my exact problem UNSOLVED :( . Or worse than that, someone replying "Google it"; the irony is thick when the number one answer to a question via Google is to Google it.

On to the solution.... Google Product Feeds require a manufacturer. However, adding manufacturers leaves you with this unsightly column. I don't mind the manufacturer column, but the links land you to a manufacturers page as opposed to the product page.

Step 1. Disable all manufacturers sideboxes as Ajeh suggested.

Step 2. Add this addendum to your DOMAIN.COM/robots.txt file.

Disallow: /index/manufacturers_id/*

Step 3. Modify your DOMAIN.COM/includes/modules/YOUR_TEMPLATE/product_listing.php

On Lines 145 - 147 (will vary) you will find:```
case 'PRODUCT_LIST_MANUFACTURER':
$lc_align = '';
$lc_text = '<a href="' . zen_href_link(FILENAME_DEFAULT, 'manufacturers_id=' . $listing->fields['manufacturers_id']) . '>' . $listing->fields['manufacturers_name'] . '</a>';

I modified mine to link to the product page as opposed to the manufacturer page as so: ```
case 'PRODUCT_LIST_MANUFACTURER':
        $lc_align = '';
        $lc_text = '<a href="' . zen_href_link(zen_get_info_page($listing->fields['products_id']), 'cPath=' . (($_GET['manufacturers_id'] > 0 and $_GET['filter_id']) > 0 ?  zen_get_generated_category_path_rev($_GET['filter_id']) : ($_GET['cPath'] > 0 ? zen_get_generated_category_path_rev($_GET['cPath']) : zen_get_generated_category_path_rev($listing->fields['master_categories_id']))) . '&products_id=' . $listing->fields['products_id']) . '">' . $listing->fields['manufacturers_name'] . '</a>';

But if you would like, you can just de-link the manufacturer as well.

Now, if you look you visit the same unsightly column, you'll see that they do not link to the manufacturers page.

Success!

Thanks for the update, I was going to suggest using the robots file to disallow, but there is also the option in Google Webmaster Tools to set manufacturers_id to 'No URLs' in the crawl options of URL Parameters.

Here is a screenshot of my configuration, note that all are set to no URL's because I do not want duplicate content issues.