Simple SEO URL (OLD version) [support thread]

[yellow1912]

One more question. You call this still Alpha 2.6d but say it is ready for live site? I am still hesitant to install anything ALPHA for an active site. Would it be time to call it at least Beta?
--> Probably, hehe. I can call it gamma if you want me to, the name doesnt really matter to me.
I would suggest your clone your live site, and test it a bit first before making a final decision.

Can you clarify how save this is to be used on actual live site? Are you confident that most bugs are out of the system and once I have my new pretty url's indexed that newer updates will not change again how the url's are rewritten? Category inclusion or not, special character handling, length of url etc...
-->I do not plan to change the url structure unless many people want to do so.
Category inclusion or not--> this is set in admin
special character handling--> I simply remove any non alphanumeric character.
length of url --> depends on the number of category name you want in your link, which can be set via admin

Does the google base feeder still work? I know with MSEO you have to buy a special google base feeder. Ultimate SEO works with free google base feeder.
--> This works with most if not all modules, right out of the box. As long as they use ZC zen_href function to create links.
For example, check the rss feeder: http://demo.rubikintegration.com/zen...hics-cards-1_4

I looked at your demo store and noticed that url's are built like this:
zencart/index/c-hardware-1
c for categories and 1 for the number of categories, the name of the cat positioned in the middle. OK, but why is /index/ needed?
--> I plan to have that "c" and "p" customizable (so you can use "category and "item" for example)
As for the "index" in the link, the first element of all links will always be the main_page in the normal links (hence "index" in this case). this is actually for simplicity and performance sake.
I dont feel it has any effect on the customers or search engine in anyway.


Ultimate SEO would build it this way:
zencart/hardware-c-1
-c-1 at the end makes the url better for reading. No /index/ helps as well.
--> It is really easy to do so, i want to hear more opinions from others before making it a permanent change tho.

[mydanilo]

Thank you for the clarifications.

zencart/hardware-c-1
I do think it is better for the reader (human) to have the clear text first and then the must have product or category id last as above. To have it wedged in makes it confusing to the eye. I hope more people agree on this so you implement the change if it is easy as you mentioned.

I will do a test install and see how it works...

[mydanilo]

And one more thing.
Are you planning to include a feature to remove short words from the url? Like omit words shorter then xx characters? I think this would be great.

[yellow1912]

And one more thing.
Are you planning to include a feature to remove short words from the url? Like omit words shorter then xx characters? I think this would be great.

So you mean a very short word in the category name for example, or a very short category name? And what would be the benefit of that?

[mydanilo]

In Ultimate SEO the feature is listed as: Filter Short Words

I think it helps to control the appearance of the url. Let's say the product name is fairly long with numbers and short words in it like:
'Trendsetters' Handbag Placecard Holder & Frame (Set of 4)

Special characters get already filtered by another setting. Now maybe I don't want stuff like "of" "to" "4" (numbers) in the url to not make it even longer?

Is this essential? Don't know but search engines don't look at these short words in searches. So maybe this can eliminate unnecessary stuff out of the url?

I see your point.... for simplicity maybe it is not absolutely needed. If it is easy enough to implement, it is on my wish list. It would help to have the same url's as I have now with Ultimate SEO. This could help other people to switch over to Simple SEO.

I have been thinking.... how difficult would it be to have the full control over what the url will look like (except the unique product ID at the end)? I have seen carts like Volusion that allow a customer defined url for each product. Is this out of question for Zen? Sorry if this goes beyond the goal of "Simple" SEO.

[yellow1912]

It is very possible, such a system is called link alias I think. But given a large number of items i wonder if it's worth it?

I will look into that.

Yup, we can remove short words.

here is my first attempt to move the p and c to the end:
http://demo.rubikintegration.com/zencart/


PS: for anyone using ultimate seo and happy with it, stick with it. switching can always cause a headache.

[yellow1912]

Also, regarding the filter short words, I may allow store owners to put their own regex rule to filter out anything they way. It can mess things up real bad if the users dont know what they are doing tho, i will give it some thought.

BTW, someone please tell me why we should remove the "index" from category links, aside from the fact that it makes the link a bit shorter. Since this will require a significant change in code, i dont want to change it if it's not that much important.

[mydanilo]

It is very possible, such a system is called link alias I think. But given a large number of items i wonder if it's worth it?

I will look into that.

Hi yellow1912,

Did you have a chance to look into this? I think this could be very useful if the item name needs to be different than the desired url wording. If you manage to offer this as a feature, it would be killer!

[jeking]

Thank you for the clarifications.

zencart/hardware-c-1
I do think it is better for the reader (human) to have the clear text first and then the must have product or category id last as above. To have it wedged in makes it confusing to the eye. I hope more people agree on this so you implement the change if it is easy as you mentioned.

I will do a test install and see how it works...

I would agree with this as well. I don't see any benefit to including 'index' in the url and would also like the product/category id grouped at the end of the url.

Keep it up, I'm looking forward to this.