DOWNLOAD HERE: http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?ma...oducts_id=1269

Hi,

It gives us great pleasure to release a new Zen Cart module - one which we feel many of you will find very useful!

Ceon URI Mapping (SEO)

Full information about the new module is available on our website in a more accessible format: module info/features.

I've tried to reproduce the feature list (in as readable a format as possible with this forum's software) below:


Improves your Rankings in Search Engines by using Static URIs!

  • Implementing a major part of all SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) practices, this module lets you specify static, keyword-based URIs to be used instead of dynamic, ID-based URIs.

For example - for a product - instead of dynamic URIs like this:

http://yourstore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3&products_id=5
A static address, full of keywords, could be specified for the product:

http://yourstore.com/books/life_is_good


100% Compatibility with Zen Cart

  • Installing the module won't break any of the functionality of Zen Cart.
  • The module works using Zen Cart's Initsystem so it doesn't interfere with any of its workings. Zen Cart pages have no idea the module is even running, the run-time environment appears exactly as if the module wasn't installed.
  • This should mean that the module will work perfectly with most (and most likely all) other Zen Cart modules.


Easy-to-use Admin Integration for Categories, Products and EZ-Pages

  • Specifying custom URI mappings for Categories, Products and EZ-Pages is quick and easy.. just browse to the appropriate Category/Product/EZ-Page in the admin and enter the URI to be used in the text fields added by the module, or tick the “auto-generate” check box, if auto-generation is enabled!
  • Change or remove existing URI mappings in the same easy manner!


URI Mapping Auto-generation

  • The module comes with very powerful, flexible and easy-to-use URI mapping auto-generation functionality.
  • If auto-generation is used to create a URI mapping for a Product, Category or EZ-Page it automatically capitalises the Product/Category Name or EZ-Page title according to your preferred settings, replaces any whitespace with your preferred character, removes selected words and replaces particular characters/strings as specified in the configuration utility.


Full Multi-language Support - including Transliteration and UTF-8!

  • The module is fully multilingual - every Product, Category or EZ-Page can have a URI mapping for each language supported by the store!
  • This means that the site will probably feature much higher in search engine listings specific to the various languages the store supports!
  • The module also has full support for transliteration! When using the URI mapping auto-generation functionality it transliterates the names/titles from any language into plain ASCII, the format used by URIs.
  • Transliteration support means that characters outside of the standard character set allowed in URIs won't just be stripped from the URI, leaving words with letters missing. For example, “á” is replaced with “a”, “ß” is replaced with “ss” etc.
  • The transliteration support extends to supporting the UTF-8 character set, so Japanese, Chinese characters etc. are all handled easily!


Organise EZ-Pages into Site Sections

  • By putting a bit of thought into the format of URI mappings for EZ-Pages, it is possible to organise them into logical sections.
  • EZ-Pages no longer have to appear as being “root” pages of the site!
  • For example, a “Company” section could be created with 4 EZ-Pages using URI mappings such as the following:

    /company
    /company/about_us
    /company/about_us/endorsements
    /company/how_to_find_us


Ability to use Static URIs for any Zen Cart page

  • Static URIs can be used for any Zen Cart page by directly entering the URIs to map from and to in the database table for the module.
  • The Zen Cart pages being mapped to can have their GET variables initialised so it appears as if the full dynamic URL had been used. For example:

    http://yourstore.com/surveys/shipping
  • Could map to a custom survey page, with the necessary ID for the survey to be shown:

    http://yourstore.com/index.php?main_page=survey&survey_id=2
  • Please note: There is no admin interface for entering these URI mappings in this module, they have to be entered manually (using software such as PHPMyAdmin).


Ability to use Static URIs as an Alias for any other Static URI

  • The module can be used to redirect from one static URI to another.
  • This allows the store to handle visits to broken/old links.
  • It also allows the store to increase the number of keywords being used to link to a page on the site through the creation of an alternative link/alias.
  • Please note: There is no admin interface for entering these URI mappings in this module, they have to be entered manually (using software such as PHPMyAdmin).


Transparently Handles URIs With or Without a Slash (/) at the End

  • The module sees URIs with a slash at the end as identical to those without one. For example, the following are equivalent:

    http://yourstore.com/books/life_is_good
    http://yourstore.com/books/life_is_good/


Respects Context of Link to a Category page

  • The module retains Zen Cart's category history when linking to a subcategory of another category, so the full path back through any parent categories is available. (Without this feature all categories being mapped to by a URI mapping would appear as if their only parent category was the root of the store).


Support for all of Zen Cart's Standard Product Types (and more)!

  • The module has full support for the standard 5 product types in Zen Cart plus the product_book type (version 4 from the Zen Cart download area).


Automatic Usage of any URI mappings Defined for Categories, Products or EZ-Pages

  • The module modifies the main zen_href_link function slightly to make automatic use of any URI mappings defined for a category, product or EZ-Page.
  • Having each page link to each other using their static URIs increases the usage of keywords on the site, further helping SEO!



Download the module now!


We hope you like this new module. Obviously we're biased, but it's something we think every Zen Cart store should have! :)

It should also be available from the downloads area in a few days.


As with our other modules, feedback would be appreciated. It takes a lot of work to write something like this!

All the best...

Conor
Ceon