Ultimate SEO URL help needed!

[lu0803]

I meet the same problem yesterday, but it was solved today.
you should check your htacess file.
check the file name should be " .htaccess", don't forget the dot before "htaccess", that is very important.

[NHRADeuce]

This module works great as long as a) you don't download the Spanish version and b) you follow the directions exactly.

FYI - if you have the Spanish admin problem uninstalling by itself will not fix your problem. The module installs the config info the first time a page is accessed. If you have installed the spanish version you will simply install the Spanish config again. You will need to replace the file /includes/classes/seo.install.php with the English version in order to fix your problem.

[dontknowwhatimdoing]

this module is an ultimate mess - sorry to say it and with all due respect to the developer, its so patchy - the latest release is the Spanish, not the English version and it just doesn't do the job. - my advice, don't install it unless you want an absolute headache. The SQL patch described above for me failed, to top things off.

It seems no one is maintaining this right now.

I made several posts (as you can see) and no one is responding. It appears that at least for now, this mod has been abandoned.

It's got great potential, it just needs some work. There's a beta 3.0 the author started, but it seems that was never finished.

Maybe he was run over by a bus...

[alan_powerbrixx]

I have not installed this yet, and after reading this thread I am reluctant to do so. But I did want to share that I had done a WinMerge comparison of the 2.105 and 2.106 versions of this mod. It appears (untested) that the zen_cart_folder in 2.105 is exactly an English language version of the Spanish-language zen_cart_folder in 2.106 (except for translation of the text definitions). I also appears (untested) that the version-specific files in the other folder (v137-specific-files vs. v138-specific-files) are the same except for Zen Cart version differences. The Ultilmate SEO URL coding appears to be the same in both mod versions.

My hypothesis (again, untested) is that you might choose your language between these two versions for the zen_cart_folder (use the 2.105 folder for English, use the 2.106 version for Spanish), and choose your Zen Cart version for the v13x-specific-files to match your Zen Cart site version. If language is the only difficulty, that might be worth a try, after diligent backing up first, of course. That is:
English, v1.3.7: try mod v2.105 entirely
English, v1.3.8: try zen_cart_folder from v2.105, v138-specific-files from v2.106
Spanish, v1.3.7: try zen_cart_folder from v2.106, v137-specific-files from v2.105
Spanish, v1.3.8: try mod v2.106 entirely
*** REMEMBER, I HAVE NOT TESTED ANY OF THIS ***

If this is so, then some enterprising guru or semi-guru might combine the two versions for a mod version "2.107" that includes both zen_cart_folders (suitably renamed) for language choice, and both v13x-specific-files for version choice. This all supposes that the technical quality is worth all the trouble.

[alan_powerbrixx]

After the above post, I found the English-language version of the mod. For details, see this post on the Ultimate SEO URLs support thread, which readers of this thread may wish to join in...

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showth...947#post599947

[dontknowwhatimdoing]

Just my opinion, but the spanish version shouldn't even be there.. 99% of the people looking at that link speak english...

Aside though, this mod is pretty much abandoned. It's got too many problems, I wouldn't recommend installing it. I can't seem to find a mod that produces good urls (no symbols or letters, which this mod, Magic SEO URL and pretty much everything else available and widely distributed for zen cart do).

Also, Magic SEO URL is written very poorly and the author doesn't know much about SEO optimization; I've seen feedback from several site owners that said their google ranks shot up when they dropped Magic SEO URL.

My point? There's not a single good SEO URL mod for Zen Cart.

I really hope the zen cart team does something about this--SEO URLs are important to anyone that cares about W3C standards and is trying to build a highly ranked site.

Wordpress is a good example of an easy, effective SEO URL system. They have 'plugs' for each URL which the user can define. So effectively, the user can define exactly what they want, and in fact, anything they want in their URLs...

[headyntl]

I got the ultimate seo url to work perfectly on my site so far... but i have not yet added my SSL and payment gateway(paypal website payments pro)


So i will let everyone know how that goes.

What i had to do was download an older version what was not in spanish.

Then I made sure the dot was in the .htaccess file.. that was that part I had a problem with. when i copied it from my desktop to my FTP the dot disappeared or something. So I had to rename it with a dot right on my server. Then it worked perfectly.


I will give updates once i get my payment gateway on there.

[alan_powerbrixx]

It worked perfectly on my 1.3.8a test site. I'm about to install it on my 1.3.7 production site.

One point which seemed not well explained in the installation instructions: If you already have a .htaccess file in the store's root directory (which you really should for security reasons), the files need to be merged. I don't really know anything about the Apache coding as found in that file, but I simply tried appending the mod's .htaccess lines to the bottom of what I already had, instead of replacing it. That worked for me. That might not work for everyone. If you know Apache, or have access to someone who does (host tech support, maybe?), it might be a good to examine this aspect of the installation very carefully to make sure it doesn't break anything.

[dontknowwhatimdoing]

What you guys don't realize is that the mod can't protect you from duplicate content.

It doesn't 301 redirect off the original pages, so google could detect the old page + the new page....

I'm not sure if you've ever seen how google treats duplicate content, but lets say you can drop out of the google index completely depending on the circumstances.

And that's just the beginning of the issues with this mod.

[alan_powerbrixx]

Thanks for your advice and your concerns, dontknow..., but judging from feedback on the Ultimate SEO URLs suppport thread, results have been mixed. The impression I've gotten is that when it installs cleanly and doesn't conflict with other mods, it has gotten good results from at least a portion of those who have tried it. I've asked for some further feedback about the possibility of their site dropping out of Google as you suggest, to see if this has actually happened to anyone because of this mod. Anyway, I'll be looking for replies on that thread (or PM), and in the meantime I'm putting it in for production use, even if I need to turn it off later.

In other words, warning heard loud and clear, but proceeding cautiously at my own risk anyway.