[Resolved] how do I get rid of an extra, unlinked category page?

[Millie Moore]

I have a category called Dream Catchers.  On my site, it shows 4 pages and View All.  The page that is not showing that I found is numbered 285.  How do I get rid of that page?  It only has the category picture and description on but no items.

I have ccv 6.0.12.

 

[bsmither]

No items? But has pagination that suggests there are four pages of products to show? There should be a breadcrumb to this category.

In admin, Categories, click through the list as noted by the breadcrumb list. If a category has sub-categories, that category's name will be a link.

Once you have arrived at a list with the target category, click the Delete icon.

However, CubeCart will do one of two things: deny you the ability to delete this category because this category has products that has assigned this category as their main category or this category has sub-categories, or will re-assign any such products or sub-categories to the parent category.

Getting back to Category ID number 285... For CC6012, it would be interesting to see if there are dozens of products assigned to this category but those products are disabled, or have zero stock.

[Millie Moore]

Yes it has products on the 4 pages shown on the site.  I tried to delete Dream Catchers.  It said Failed to delete category as it contains 1 or more products.

I unchecked the box so it would show out of stock products and then I refreshed page 285 and it still said no products on it.

 

[bsmither]

I'm confused.

"Yes it has products on the 4 pages shown on the site."

"I refreshed page 285 and it still said no products on it."

Which page is showing products and which page is not showing products?

[Millie Moore]

pages 1 2, 3, 4, and View All show products.

page 285 does not show products and isn't even showing up to the public on my site.

 

[bsmither]

So, you are referring to pagination pages, such as:
/test-category-01.html?page=1
/test-category-01.html?page=2
/test-category-01.html?page=3
/test-category-01.html?page=all

But this pagination page:
/test-category-01.html?page=285
says No products found.

Does your pagination sequence really imply you have at least 285 pages of products that could be shown? How many products are listed for Dream Catchers when you choose View All?

What is telling you that you have 285 of something?

[Millie Moore]

38 products on the view all

 

[bsmither]

What is telling you that you have 285 of something?

[Millie Moore]

the sitemap told me.

it jumped from 4 straight to 285.

 

[bsmither]

The skin's config file will say how many products 'perpage' to show. That is, a '12' setting will show up to twelve products per page. With 38 products, that is three full pages and two products remaining to show on the fourth page.

To ask the database to get the third page of products, CubeCart uses the formula 2*12 LIMIT 12, meaning, of the eligible records, start with the 24th record of those eligible records and fetch a total of up to 12 records.

In asking the database for the 285th page, that means, of the eligible records (we now know this to be 38 total), start with the 3408th record of those eligible records and fetch a total of up to 12 records. In this case, the database is not going to return anything.

So, let's focus on the sitemap.

Please copy the relevant lines from the sitemap file that indicates "4 jumping straight to 285".

[Millie Moore]

<url>
<loc>https://motorhead69.com/shop/dream-catchers.html</loc>
<lastmod>2016-10-24</lastmod>
<changefreq>Daily</changefreq>
<priority>1</priority>
</url>

<url>
<loc>https://motorhead69.com/shop/dream-catchers.html?page=1</loc>
<lastmod>2016-10-24</lastmod>
<changefreq>Daily</changefreq>
<priority>1</priority>
</url>

<url>
<loc>https://motorhead69.com/shop/dream-catchers.html?page=1</loc>
<lastmod>2016-10-24</lastmod>
<changefreq>Daily</changefreq>
<priority>1</priority>
</url>

<url>
<loc>https://motorhead69.com/shop/dream-catchers.html?page=2</loc>
<lastmod>2016-10-24</lastmod>
<changefreq>Daily</changefreq>
<priority>1</priority>
</url>

<url>
<loc>https://motorhead69.com/shop/dream-catchers.html?page=3</loc>
<lastmod>2016-10-24</lastmod>
<changefreq>Daily</changefreq>
<priority>1</priority>
</url>

<url>
<loc>https://motorhead69.com/shop/dream-catchers.html?page=4</loc>
<lastmod>2016-10-24</lastmod>
<changefreq>Daily</changefreq>
<priority>1</priority>
</url>

<url>
<loc>https://motorhead69.com/shop/dream-catchers.html?page=285</loc>
<lastmod>2016-10-24</lastmod>
<changefreq>Daily</changefreq>
<priority>1</priority>
</url>

 

[bsmither]

As best I know, the admin, Maintenance, Rebuild tab, the code that creates a sitemap in CC6012 does not include the changefreq and priority elements. Nor does it create links that would include page numbers.

Therefore, I am thinking that this sitemap output may be from a third-party mod.

If so, which one?

If not, please mention the place from within admin that you are creating the sitemap.

[Millie Moore]

the original file came from Godaddy's help section.  Then I used that one to create the googlesitemap which shows it differently but you have to enter the data.

 

[bsmither]

If this is a general-use tool, then I think that it must request the main page, then start collecting all the links that it finds.

(As opposed to CubeCart's sitemap tool which queries the database.)

I don't know this tool from GoDaddy, but I suspect that something in the code of the tool may be corrupting the ?page=all link. That link would be the natural progression of page=1, page=2, etc. as seen in the pagination series of links.

[Millie Moore]

i have other categories with page=all but they don't have any page=285.  it's just this dream catchers that did it,

 

i can try cc's sitemap to see what happens.  how do i get to that one?

 

[Dirty Butter]

17 minutes ago, Millie Moore said:

i can try cc's sitemap to see what happens.  how do i get to that one?

Bottom of the page on the Maintenance section.

[bsmither]

In admin, Maintenance, Rebuild tab, check the box for "Rebuild Sitemap", then click Submit.

This will create a file and place it in CubeCart's main folder. CubeCart will then tell Google to fetch it.

 

[Millie Moore]

ok I ran that one but I noticed after it ran that it doesn't cover the links from the front end (the stuff that's coded in e107).

 

[bsmither]

I'm not familiar with 'e107'.

But, if it's not a category, product, or document in the database, then to get it in the sitemap, the document will need to be manually edited.

[Millie Moore]

googlesitemap is a plugin for e107 only thing is that sitemap doesn't use .xml so maybe i'll add the e107 pages to the sitemap cc created and use that one.

thanks

 

[Millie Moore]

You know even with the cc sitemap I can still pull up the page 285.  is there any way to fix that or should I just ignore it?

 

[bsmither]

Is that link present in the sitemap document?

The skin's config file will say how many products 'perpage' to show. That is, a '12' setting will show up to twelve products per page. With 38 products, that is three full pages and two products remaining to show on the fourth page.

To ask the database to get the third page of products, CubeCart uses the formula 2*12 LIMIT 12, meaning, of the eligible records, start with the 24th record of those eligible records and fetch a total of up to 12 records.

In asking the database for the 285th page, that means, of the eligible records (we now know this to be 38 total), start with the 3408th record of those eligible records and fetch a total of up to 12 records. In this case, the database is not going to return anything.

But that page number is not a reason for CubeCart to reject the URL. That is to say, ?page=any_number_at_all is perfectly acceptable to CubeCart, and any number other than 1, 2, 3, and all will show "No products found".

[Millie Moore]

no the link isn't in the new sitemap.  so just cause that number is way out there cc doesn't care that it's not in sequence?

 

[bsmither]

CubeCart does not recognize that number as being anything special. The 'key' ("page") and the 'value' ("285") have a relationship.

CubeCart sees that a particular page is wanted, and the page wanted is page number 285. The number 285 is not special in any more or less way than the number 2, or the number 27594.

We must stop and realize that we do not yet know for certain what code came up with page number 285. (I want to attribute that to a defect in the code of the googlesitemap plugin for e107, but that's just a guess.)

CubeCart doesn't care what page you want. If you know that a Zebra Dreamcatcher would be on the last page, then it would be the last page of the catalogue you would directly ask for. But not a page beyond that.

CubeCart could, if so coded, reveal that you asked for a page number outside the range of page numbers that would actually show products. The response could be something like, "That page number is beyond the total number of pages of our catalogue." But as it is, you get the same response as searching for a Cellphone Dreamcatcher. "No products found."