Magic SEO URL vs Ultimate SEO URL vs SEO_G

[iRAY]

iRay will deny this, as he did when I first reported the issue, and I don't care to rehash that argument. So take this for what you will, but know that my claims were not simply idle speculation.

Could you please PM me the line causing this or your fix? (It is technically impossible for MSU to have such behavior as I wrote in one of my previous post)
Whenever anyone report troubles/issue/bug I am double checking it and this was not exception.
If you post me also your FTP login details I am able to fix it even if it is not MSU related problem (to prove you I am correct).

[Website Rob]

capnhairdo, steps to reproduce.

1. http://www.babybestbuy.com/
2. Baby Bedding << this gives me a ZC ID
3. Crib Bedding
4. 100% Cotton Knit Standard Crib Sheet
5. Add to Cart
6. Now choose Home link
7. Mouseover any link on the Main Content page, you now have a new ZC ID

Note: you may have to remove previous site Cookies and/or restart the Browser you are using for this test.

The above happened with; SeaMonkey, IE 6, FF 2 and Opera 9.24. Speaking of Opera, none -- and I mean none -- of your images would display.


As to your reference about my posting for anyone checking a Module by turning it OFF, it was intended for 'anyone' and not just your situation. I have no intentions of getting in between you & iRay.

Also, your Sidebox Category links show 'javascript : void' on a Mouseover, when one is viewing a Sub-category. Zen Cart doesn't work the way by default nor when USEO is used.

[iRAY]

Well, I think a lot of this with regards to breadcrumb and url formatting is a personal preference, business and SEO objectives. Like you rightly pointed out without code modification to ZC core, when a product belongs to multiple categories ZC does not always use the master category as the category in the breadcrumb.

To allow full control how master categories are handled when unique path to product is assigned, there is now new use_master_category option. I think this is one of the most wanted feature. Check updates.

[dontknowwhatimdoing]

Re: Magic SEO URL vs Ultimate SEO URL vs SEO_G

These are both open source, so I was able to easily remove the .html extension. Extensionless URLs are the best way to go for long term SEO. Why commit to having PHP/ HTML, or anything else in your URL when it's unnecessary and could eventually become outdated.

Anyone informed knows the W3C standard is to create urls that are not dependent on any specific language. This is why you'll see that wordpress URLs are extensionless by default.

However, since MSU is closed source, that's not an option (extensionless URLs), and clearly a downside to the program.

I've done a lot of shopping cart comparison, and after years of research, I would say (at least currently) the only thing holding zen cart back from being hands down the best cart, is the fact that there's not a single good clean URL mod out there for zen cart.

Frankly, I'm disappointed that any code or other garbage is inserted into any of my URLs.

If I ever write my own PHP/ MYSQL based redirection mod with truly clean URLs, maybe I'll share it with the zen cart public.

The last major tool I've done a few projects on was wordpress, and I was quite impressed by the way they handle URLs (you can dictate anything you want for your URLs, there's really no limitations).

Anyway, back to my primary point: I'm disappointed with all the SEO URL mods I've found for Zen Cart.

If anyone finds something new/ better/ or any worthwhile updates, this might be a good post to include them in.... I really want no BS urls with no numbers or other superfluous b.s.

[yellow1912]

Something easier said than done

I'll look forward to a new seo module as well (and hopefully opensource)

[mikedeezy33]

I don't see why it's so hard to write a url rewrite mod that does not append a '.html' extension. It makes no sense to me that all of the mods out there right now add this extension.

I have written personal rewrite mods before and not adding an extension is a fairly simple concept.

[yellow1912]

So you are saying it's bad because of this .html?

I thought it's fully customizable thru admin?

I don't see why it's so hard to write a url rewrite mod that does not append a '.html' extension. It makes no sense to me that all of the mods out there right now add this extension.

I have written personal rewrite mods before and not adding an extension is a fairly simple concept.

[dontknowwhatimdoing]

So you are saying it's bad because of this .html?

I thought it's fully customizable thru admin?

yes, never use .html on any SEO URLs. It's outdated, and not up to current W3C standards. Using .html is so 1997 (lol?).

Anyway, back on track...

OK guys, I'm VERY impressed with the framework this mod is written on:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showth...=14132&page=65
http://breakmyzencart.com/sefu

Let me explain, instead of sloppy htaccess rewrites, he's feeding the query to zen cart, and outputting whatever page he wants. The key to feeding your virtual URLs (in fact, all URL requets) to index.php is this simple htaccess:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c> 
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

Now, this is the exact HTACESS I've used on a wordpress project. SEFU gets pretty close to this, although he's got several things in his HTACESS that I don't like. I want to change his mod to use this htaccess above... clean, simple.

Anyway, this piece of HTACESS feeds all queries into index.php (if needed you can add a directory). Of course this can be changed to feed the queries to any page you like.

the REQUEST_FILENAME F/D pieces are to make sure you don't try to rewrite any pages that physically exist on the server.

With this htaccess, you get the URI requested by using the PATH_INFO parameter:
http://www.tutorio.com/tutorial/php-...-friendly-urls

the $HTTP_SERVER_VARS['PATH_INFO'] returns the path of the url from where something.php is being accessed so in this case it will return page/12/category/hosting. This then gets exploded or broken down into the array $data

* $data[0] = page
* $data[1] = 12
* $data[2] = category
* $data[3] = hosting

This way you have access to all the data you need for your php script.

Once you get the requested URL from PATH_INFO & explode/ parse it, there's the whole issue of feeding the right query into zen cart. This is the piece I'm not sure on, I'll have to dig into the SEFU php edits to find this.

After you parse the data, you'll have to be sure to send the right status header for each page...

Any 404 errors, 301 redirects, or 200 'http ok' status headers, would need to be sent--this is a parameter that needs to come at the start of a php header command. Here's a complete dummy exmaple:

<?
Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.new-url.com" );
?>

Anyway, SEFU's mod is written for 1.2.6d... I would need to convert it to feed the queries correctly to zen cart 1.3.8a (our current version). I'm not sure what other issues it might have.

[yellow1912]

You may want to look at this:
http://demo.rubikintegration.com/zencart

^_^ Remember tho, the latest version of this module is not in the upload section, it's in the support thread of this module.

[dontknowwhatimdoing]

Unfortunately, I can no longer edit my previous post. I should have done more research, Simple SEO URL is quite close to what I need.

yellow1912: very nice mod, so far I'm impressed. In my eyes you're the only developer that's written an SEO URL mod in a framework that can really deliver. I really felt like all the other mods were just sloppy.

You may want to look at this:
http://demo.rubikintegration.com/zencart

^_^ Remember tho, the latest version of this module is not in the upload section, it's in the support thread of this module.

Let me clarify.

This is using the "Simple SEO URL" mod:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showth...t=86353&page=1

Ah, gotcha, I just checked the download page for this mod.
http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?ma...oducts_id=1013
and.. here's his htaccess:

#### BOF SSU
Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
RewriteEngine On
# Make sure to change "test_site" to the subfolder you install ZC. If you use root folder, change to: RewriteBase / 
RewriteBase /zencart/

# Deny access from .htaccess
RewriteRule ^\.htaccess$ - [F]

RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*) index.php?/$1 [E=VAR1:$1,QSA,L]
#### EOF SSU

this is perfect. Forget my SEFU comment above. Simple SEO URL is feeding the queries to Zen Cart.

I should be able to hack this mod with just a few slight adjustments to serve beautiful URLS. We will see.