Question - how do I deal with products that are the child of multiple collections? eg I have a red iridescent glitter that need to be in the red parent collection, the iridescent parent collection, the chunky mix parent collection etc. Sometimes people will click through via iridescent collection and sometimes they will click through via the red collection.
Great question, I should have explained. So, what you are talking about is called "history-based breadcrumbs".They represent the path the customer followed to get to the product. For SEO purposes it is considered better to have "hierarchical breadcrumbs" which is what I have built here. You assign a primary collection that a product belongs to. Your products can really be in many different collections, that's totally fine and recommended. But the breadcrumbs represent the structure of your store. Similar to your navigation or sitemap. So decide on the main and most important collection that your product is a part of. In your case maybe iridescent glitters? It's often the collection you want people to find in Google, or the collections you feature on your home page etc... Hope this makes sense! Google "hierarchical vs history-based breadcrumbs" for more info.
@@EdCodes As I've noted below, this works for stores that have really concretely different products but hopping from collection to collection is a bad experience and results in poor discovery. Is it better to have good experience or good seo? Sadly, it seems like the answer is good seo. What I don't understand, currently, is how you tell Google that a collection is canonical for that group of products. I mean, you can indicate that it is, but Google may or may not listen.
We have 70k+ products which we assign to 3 tiers of hierarchical collections. We built that logic to support our menu system. We always wanted hierarchical breadcrumbs though and after many many months of occasional pondering I finally figured a way! I made 3 collection type product metafields for the 3 tiers that are established and we use a simple custom liquid section to conditionally display them as breadcrumbs. I am no developer and was very proud of this solution!
Hey john, could you share how you managed to do this? especially the in bulk part we have around 50k products. So the manual part thats explained in this video isnt an option for us either. if you have the time to briefly explain what steps you took i would greatly appreciate it.
Interesting... Clicked on this video fast as I'm literally working on a breadcrumb solution for a client at the moment. Your solution is much simpler and will work on any store basically. For my client though, we built a pretty unique system for simulating parent collections and sub-collections. The code for the breadcrumbs is pretty hectic as it reads up the collection chain but for most clients, using a metafield holding a collections list is a pretty sweet idea!
Hey Chris! Yes, it's very basic, but does the job for the average small store. Your system also sounds like something a lot of bigger stores would want. I'd love to see it in action if possible.
Thank you Ed. My client purchased this code after I explained that this is the best solution to the Shopify breadcrumb and search engine data structure problem. Your clear explanation of the problem, the solution and your code fix has saved me hours of work.
Hi Ed, Before I buy I have a question: With this - would I be able to change the color of the site I am currently on? For example - I want my path to be black, but the page I am currently on should be green. Is this possibe? Thanks!
Question... My theme has breadcrumbs for product pages only but do not on pages, blogs and archive blogs ... How can I use your code and not duplicate breadcrumbs on my product pages? I am willing to purchase but don't want to waste $$$
Hi, I purchased the code for my website today and everything is working great aside from when it comes to collection pages. I have created meta fields within the collection pages however when you click back from a product, it only shows the collection in the breadcrumb (e.g. Home / collection, losing the Home / collection / Sub-collection. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated
Thanks for commenting! Yes, but I think Shopify is a victim of their own system. The lack of sub collections means breadcrumbs won't happen automatically. They need to give us a method to create them. Using Metafields is simple for watchers of this channel, but not simple enough for it to be the official way.
Hi Ed, thank you for your breadcrumb solution. I bought it. Thank you. The solution does the front end job. 50%, the SEO back-end part I think it is still un-solved. If there are not changes in URL structure I think the Google will not undertand well. What do you think?
I think Google prefers a short and concise URL. And URLs are not a huge factor anyway - page content is king, then website structure, internal links and navigation. All more important than URL.
Hi Ed, wonderful idea and a solution! Far more complete and customizable then any theme's default options for this! Here is another idea - let's say that you are a big e-commerce shop selling many different brands. Now, you want on each product page a brand logo displayed in a form of clickable link which leads to a brand's (vendor's) collection page. Now, I have used a custom liquid block on each product page, which displays the image from product's metafield. But I haven't managed to make them clickable. So, when you visit a product whose vendor is, let's say Bosch, it will have a Bosch logo image presented on a product's page, but not clickable sadly. Also, these would be cool to utilize for fitness - If a visitors visits a dumbbell product, the idea is that he sees either a video or image showing exercises which you can do only with that explicit fitness item. If you were to visit the barbell, you should see video and/or image showing exercises which you can do with barbell, etc. As always - your videos are an inspiration, keep it up :)
Hi Ed, thank you for your videos. I'm a 1 out of 10 novice...I don't know how to code. I have created a collection within a collection via template. The issue I'm facing is that templates are not being recognized in draft themes in the collections area, as I'm trying to create a collection within a collection within a collection within a collection (4 layers deep). Is this possible and if so, how do I make it so that the templates do show in the collections area?
Hello ed, Thank you for all sharing all your knowledge by creating great informational video. I want to learn more things related to shopiy. So can you please create the videos for below topics: - Ways to optimize the Speed of Shopify store - Can bundle & subscription functionality implement on same store for same products? If yes, then please explain how? If not, then please let us know why? - Selling digital products on Shopify but courses - What factors we should optimize to improve the convesrion rate of store. Last thing, Ed. Please do respond to my comment so that I can know you are reviewing each comment & paying attention to it. Also, when I can expect videos for the above topics. Thank you!
Your new theme won't have the code, so all you need to do is reinstall the code by adding the ed_breadcrumbs.liquid file, shown at 10:05, and also add the section again to your product template. Your Metafields won't be affected by the update, so all your parent collections that you set for each product will remain intact and everything should immediately work.
Just a quick update. On upgrading to Dawn 14.0.o the code file was copied over automatically on upgrade. I just add the section and the page-width css and it was done. Easy Peasy. Thanks.
I need this! If you have a lot of brands on your website, would you have Brand be first breadcrumbs and product category after or other way around? Or does it really matter? Does first breadcrumb get more juice
How is your navigation organised? And how do your customers browse your store or search. Is brand the most important thing to them, or the category? The first breadcrumb will get more juice probably - think about how many internal links you are creating. The more products are linking to a collection, the more page rank it gets.
Question - how do I deal with products that are the child of multiple collections? eg I have a red iridescent glitter that need to be in the red parent collection, the iridescent parent collection, the chunky mix parent collection etc. Sometimes people will click through via iridescent collection and sometimes they will click through via the red collection.
Great question, I should have explained. So, what you are talking about is called "history-based breadcrumbs".They represent the path the customer followed to get to the product.
For SEO purposes it is considered better to have "hierarchical breadcrumbs" which is what I have built here. You assign a primary collection that a product belongs to. Your products can really be in many different collections, that's totally fine and recommended. But the breadcrumbs represent the structure of your store. Similar to your navigation or sitemap.
So decide on the main and most important collection that your product is a part of. In your case maybe iridescent glitters? It's often the collection you want people to find in Google, or the collections you feature on your home page etc...
Hope this makes sense! Google "hierarchical vs history-based breadcrumbs" for more info.
@@EdCodes As I've noted below, this works for stores that have really concretely different products but hopping from collection to collection is a bad experience and results in poor discovery. Is it better to have good experience or good seo? Sadly, it seems like the answer is good seo. What I don't understand, currently, is how you tell Google that a collection is canonical for that group of products. I mean, you can indicate that it is, but Google may or may not listen.
We have 70k+ products which we assign to 3 tiers of hierarchical collections. We built that logic to support our menu system. We always wanted hierarchical breadcrumbs though and after many many months of occasional pondering I finally figured a way! I made 3 collection type product metafields for the 3 tiers that are established and we use a simple custom liquid section to conditionally display them as breadcrumbs. I am no developer and was very proud of this solution!
I've been torturing myself trying to figure this out.
Hey john, could you share how you managed to do this? especially the in bulk part we have around 50k products. So the manual part thats explained in this video isnt an option for us either. if you have the time to briefly explain what steps you took i would greatly appreciate it.
Interesting... Clicked on this video fast as I'm literally working on a breadcrumb solution for a client at the moment. Your solution is much simpler and will work on any store basically. For my client though, we built a pretty unique system for simulating parent collections and sub-collections. The code for the breadcrumbs is pretty hectic as it reads up the collection chain but for most clients, using a metafield holding a collections list is a pretty sweet idea!
Hey Chris! Yes, it's very basic, but does the job for the average small store. Your system also sounds like something a lot of bigger stores would want. I'd love to see it in action if possible.
Thank you Ed. My client purchased this code after I explained that this is the best solution to the Shopify breadcrumb and search engine data structure problem. Your clear explanation of the problem, the solution and your code fix has saved me hours of work.
Amazing! Thank you for recommending it to your client!
Quick question: Love the idea! Can you have multiple breadcrumb paths for the same product? what is the maximum layers deep you recommend?
Hi Ed,
Before I buy I have a question:
With this - would I be able to change the color of the site I am currently on? For example - I want my path to be black, but the page I am currently on should be green.
Is this possibe?
Thanks!
Question... My theme has breadcrumbs for product pages only but do not on pages, blogs and archive blogs ... How can I use your code and not duplicate breadcrumbs on my product pages? I am willing to purchase but don't want to waste $$$
Hi, I purchased the code for my website today and everything is working great aside from when it comes to collection pages. I have created meta fields within the collection pages however when you click back from a product, it only shows the collection in the breadcrumb (e.g. Home / collection, losing the Home / collection / Sub-collection. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated
Hello Ed! Will this work for Blogs, Blog post, and other pages too?
THANK YOU! This is a lifesaver. Though shopify really needs to put it's sh*t together and add basic features like this
Thanks for commenting! Yes, but I think Shopify is a victim of their own system. The lack of sub collections means breadcrumbs won't happen automatically. They need to give us a method to create them. Using Metafields is simple for watchers of this channel, but not simple enough for it to be the official way.
Hi Ed, thank you for your breadcrumb solution. I bought it. Thank you. The solution does the front end job.
50%, the SEO back-end part I think it is still un-solved.
If there are not changes in URL structure I think the Google will not undertand well.
What do you think?
I think Google prefers a short and concise URL. And URLs are not a huge factor anyway - page content is king, then website structure, internal links and navigation. All more important than URL.
Hi Ed, wonderful idea and a solution! Far more complete and customizable then any theme's default options for this!
Here is another idea - let's say that you are a big e-commerce shop selling many different brands. Now, you want on each product page a brand logo displayed in a form of clickable link which leads to a brand's (vendor's) collection page.
Now, I have used a custom liquid block on each product page, which displays the image from product's metafield. But I haven't managed to make them clickable.
So, when you visit a product whose vendor is, let's say Bosch, it will have a Bosch logo image presented on a product's page, but not clickable sadly.
Also, these would be cool to utilize for fitness - If a visitors visits a dumbbell product, the idea is that he sees either a video or image showing exercises which you can do only with that explicit fitness item. If you were to visit the barbell, you should see video and/or image showing exercises which you can do with barbell, etc.
As always - your videos are an inspiration, keep it up :)
Hi Ed, thank you for your videos. I'm a 1 out of 10 novice...I don't know how to code. I have created a collection within a collection via template. The issue I'm facing is that templates are not being recognized in draft themes in the collections area, as I'm trying to create a collection within a collection within a collection within a collection (4 layers deep). Is this possible and if so, how do I make it so that the templates do show in the collections area?
Hello ed, Thank you for all sharing all your knowledge by creating great informational video.
I want to learn more things related to shopiy. So can you please create the videos for below topics:
- Ways to optimize the Speed of Shopify store
- Can bundle & subscription functionality implement on same store for same products? If yes, then please explain how? If not, then please let us know why?
- Selling digital products on Shopify but courses
- What factors we should optimize to improve the convesrion rate of store.
Last thing, Ed. Please do respond to my comment so that I can know you are reviewing each comment & paying attention to it. Also, when I can expect videos for the above topics.
Thank you!
Hi, does this approach work for paid themes like Prestige ?
Looks really useful, thank you. Could you just confirm what the process is when installing the DAWN theme updates if I use this customised section?
Your new theme won't have the code, so all you need to do is reinstall the code by adding the ed_breadcrumbs.liquid file, shown at 10:05, and also add the section again to your product template. Your Metafields won't be affected by the update, so all your parent collections that you set for each product will remain intact and everything should immediately work.
Thanks for this, installed really well, works well and a great solution.
Just a quick update. On upgrading to Dawn 14.0.o the code file was copied over automatically on upgrade. I just add the section and the page-width css and it was done. Easy Peasy. Thanks.
I need this!
If you have a lot of brands on your website, would you have Brand be first breadcrumbs and product category after or other way around?
Or does it really matter? Does first breadcrumb get more juice
How is your navigation organised? And how do your customers browse your store or search. Is brand the most important thing to them, or the category?
The first breadcrumb will get more juice probably - think about how many internal links you are creating. The more products are linking to a collection, the more page rank it gets.
@@EdCodesthank you. Just bought it!
Perfect, thank you!
Great video!!! Super cool idea
Hi Ed - the above Link to ur shop comes back with a SSL error
Hey Ed, great tutorial. Suggestion: Don't show your Notion link in video.
Thank you. I trust people to do the right thing.