Custom Links

[technoir]

I'm looking to move from a hand-coded e-commerce site to a Zen Cart powered site. Before going too far with this though, I've been rather put off by the lengthy and ugly dynamic links created for each page.

Forgetting the usual SEO arguments, my main issue is with advertising and sharing the links to specific areas or products.

My site needs to have sensible links such as:

• mysite.com/Official-Merchandise
• mysite.com/Black-Sabbath
• mysite.com/Black-Sabbath-T-shirts
• mysite.com/Black-Sabbath-Hoodies

Is this possible with Zen Cart and will the free Ceon URI Mapping module achieve this or something similar?

Any input or advice would be greatly appreciated as I prefer Zen Cart to Opencart, Magento etc.

[stevesh]

Before going too far Is this possible with Zen Cart and will the free Ceon URI Mapping module achieve this or something similar?

Yes, it will.

[schoolboy]

Conor's URI re-writer is the only really reliable way to change URL's.

[technoir]

Thank you for the prompt replies!

@stevesh:
Great news! Is there a way of automating this process or are the changes for each instance made manually?

@schoolboy:
So you recommend Conor's URI re-writer instead. Is this free and is there a way of automating the URL changes?

[gjh42]

Conor is the ?owner? of CEON, so stevesh and schoolboy are talking about the same mod.

As I understand it, the mod will automatically create human-friendly URLs according to whatever rules you set up for it, for all new categories/products/etc. You can manually create the same kind of URLs for existing products etc. if you are installing on a working Zen Cart store, or buy an upgrade that automates this (you wouldn't need to do this for a new store).

[technoir]

Oh I see. Thank you for confirming gjh42!

I must say, I'm very impressed with the community support here. Very encouraging moving forward.

Cheers!

[technoir]

Does anyone have a link to a live site which successfully utilises re-written links by Ceon URI that I can browse?

I've just looked at about 50 different Zen Cart sites and all use the standard dynamic links apart from a few that seem to have used 'Ultimate SEO' (as evidenced by bizarre suffixes like "c-2_20").

[kateean2]

Great site. A lot of useful information here.

[technoir]

That spam has buried my last question:

Does anyone have a link to a live site which successfully utilises re-written links by Ceon URI that I can browse?

I've just looked at about 50 different Zen Cart sites and all use the standard dynamic links apart from a few that seem to have used 'Ultimate SEO' (as evidenced by bizarre suffixes like "c-2_20").

[stevesh]

I would guess this site uses that mod - you could contact her and ask:

bigredworkwear.com