Ceon URI Mapping v4

[conor]

THIS MODULE IS NOW OBSOLETE.
See here instead: http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=184548




Hi,

Welcome to the new support thread for Ceon URI Mapping, v4.

It should be available in the downloads area soon.


About the module

Use Static URIs to make web addresses Easier to Remember and Easier to Enter.
Improve the store's Rankings in Search Engines!

The Ceon URI Mapping module is a very handy module that no Zen Cart site should be without!

Unlike other SEO modules, where the URIs are generated automatically when a customer visits a page, this module allows specific URIs to be entered within the admin, or even for auto-generation to be used to create a static URI for an individual category/product/manufacturer/EZ-Page/Zen Cart page.

We believe this to be a much better solution as the store is in control of its URIs.

It lets the store specify static, human-readable, keyword-based URIs to be used instead of the dynamic, ID-based URIs which Zen Cart uses as standard.
For example, for a product, instead of dynamic URIs like this:

http://yourstore.com/index.php?main_...&products_id=5

A static address - easy to read, easy to type in and full of keywords - could be specified for the product:

http://yourstore.com/books/life-is-good

It's simple to promote sections of the site on advertising literature.

For example, the following static URI could be mapped to the specials page:

http://yourstore.com/EasterSpecials

Ceon URI Mapping is packed full of features, which include:

• Full Multi-Language Support
• Canonical URI Support
• Historical URI Redirection (Never have a broken link again!)
• URI Auto-Generation
• Transliteration Support
• 100% Compatibility with Zen Cart
• As well as many more!

Give potential customers easy to enter/remember URIs and improve the site's rankings in search engines!

[conor]

Features

Historical URI Mapping - No More Broken Links!

• Each Category/Product/Manufacturer/EZ-Page/Zen Cart Page (subject) with URI mapping(s) has a single “Current” URI.
• Any number of URIs can map to the same subject. However, when a customer uses a URI which is not the “current” URI they are quickly and automatically redirected to the “current” URI. This occurs before the site begins to display, so is completely transparent.
• “Deleted”/“Previous” URI mappings still point towards their original subject, by redirecting the user to the “Current” URI for the subject (unless they have become overridden by a current or newer URI mapping which uses the same URI of course!).

Canonical URIs

• Any page with a static URI automatically has a canonical URI tag added to the page's header. This minimises “duplicate content” reports as it tells the search engines that multiple “pages” should be treated as one.
• For example, instead of the search engine thinking that /all-products?disp_order=1 is a different page from /all-products?disp_order=3, Ceon URI Mapping lets it know that the page's “real” URI is just /all-products and that these other URIs are just variations for the same page.

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

• Specifying custom URI mappings for Categories, Products, Manufacturers and EZ-Pages is quick and easy.. just browse to the appropriate Category/Product/Manufacturer/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 existing Category/Product/Manufacturer/EZ-Page 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 Category, Product, Manufacturer or EZ-Page it automatically capitalises the Category/Product/Manufacturer Name or EZ-Page Title according to the store's preferred settings, replaces any whitespace with a preferred character, removes selected words and replaces particular characters/strings as specified in the configuration utility.
• Please Note: This module does not automatically add mappings for existing Categories/Products/Manufacturers/EZ-Pages - if the site has existing Categories/Products/Manufacturers/EZ-Pages, they'll continue to use the standard Zen Cart dynamic URIs, until a URI has been entered or auto-generated for them, by editing the respective Category/Product/Manufacturer/EZ-Page in the admin.
• 
  This means going in and editing every Category/Product/Manufacturer/EZ-Page for which a static URI mapping is desired.

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

• The module is fully multilingual - every page can have a URI mapping for each language supported by the store!
• The module automatically causes Zen Cart to use the language the URI uses, greatly enhancing Zen Cart's language functionality!
• This multi-language functionality makes it likely that the site will 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

• There are two methods for using static URIs for any Zen Cart page, both of which have full support for having a “current” URI, as many historical/“old” URIs as necessary and are fully multi-lingual:
  
  1. Static URIs can be used for any Zen Cart page by directly entering the static URI for the page and the type of the page in the database table for the module.
     
     • Using this method to specify static URIs for a Zen Cart page will cause every link to that page to use the static URI instead of the dynamic Zen Cart URI.
     • For example, to create a static URI for “index.php?main_page=specials”:
       uri: /latest-offers
       main_page: specials
     
     
  2. Static URIs being used for Zen Cart pages can also allow data to be supplied to Zen Cart.
     
     • This is achieved by initialising the GET variables for the Zen Cart page when it is loaded, which are set up by directly entering the static URI for the page, the type of the page and the GET variables to be loaded in the database table for the module.
     • For example:
       
       uri: /surveys/shipping
     • Could map to a custom survey page, with the necessary ID for the survey to be shown:
       
       main_page: survey
       
       query_string_parameters: survey_id=2
     • Please Note: These URIs will only be used as the static URIs for links if the query string parameters being used to generate the link are exactly the same as the value of the “query_string_parameters” field (with the exception that the session parameter, if any, is ignored).
     
     
  
  
• 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).

Automatic Usage of any URI mappings Defined for Categories, Products, Manufacturers, EZ-Pages or any other Zen Cart page!

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

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 an alternative URI (even to an external URI).
• The exact type of redirection (temporary/permanent etc.) can even be controlled, by specifying the HTTP Status Code to be used for the redirection to the alternative URI.
• Creating aliases 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).

Automated support for standard Zen Cart pages related to a Product

• The Reviews and Tell-A-Friend sections can automatically be made “subsections” of the product's main info page, by appending some specific URI parts to the product info page's static URI.
• This saves effort setting up URIs for these pages specifically for each product, as it creates static URIs such as:
  /books/life-is-good/reviews
  /books/life-is-good/tell-a-friend
• [New for 4.0.0] A section in the module's Config Utility allows the store to select which “Product Page URIs” are automatically managed by the software, and to set the text that should be used for the URIs.

100% Compatibility with Zen Cart and Most Modules, Minimal Tweaks Required for Some Other Modules

• 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 means that the module should work perfectly with most (and most likely all) other Zen Cart modules - as long as they don't use relative links/paths. Those modules which do use relative links/paths simply need to have their relative links/paths changed to static links/paths, something which is easily done by adding a single define to the start of the links/paths.
• [New for 4.0.0] The software does its best to work out if it is being called by a third party script instead of directly from Zen Cart and will prevent itself from interfering with the running of the third party script!

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 a Link to a Category/Product page

• The module retains Zen Cart's category history when linking to a subcategory of another category or a linked product which is not within its “master” 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 and linked products would always show as belonging to their “master” category, which is not necessarily the category the customer has accessed the product from).

Avoids Possibility of Duplicate URIs

• [New for 4.0.0] The software won't allow a duplicate URI mapping to be created. It can be configured to warn the user when an attempt is being made to create a URI mapping which would clash with one already being used elsewhere.
• For product URIs, the software can even be configured to automatically append a number to a URI when a clash is detected, to make the URI unique without the user having to manually change anything themselves!

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).

Easy to Install and Keep Up To Date!

• [New for 4.0.0] The module has an “Installation Check” section in its config utility which analyses the store's configuration, identifies any problems and tells you what they are and how to fix them!
• [New for 4.0.0] Once the module has been installed initially, upgrading to a new version takes aroud 10 seconds. The files for the new version simply have to be copied across, then the software will take over and carry out any necessary updates itself!

Compatible with the Most Popular Webservers

A webserver that supports rewrite rules is required. Currently tested/supported webservers are:

• Apache with mod_rewrite.
• IIS with ISAPI_Rewrite 3.
• IIS with IIS URL Rewrite.
• Zeus Webserver (ask for integration details).

Lightweight!

• The module has a minimal impact on the server as it is very lightweight.

[conor]

[FONT=Tahoma]BEFORE[/FONT][FONT=Tahoma] YOU POST A SUPPORT QUESTION HERE READ THROUGH THE FAQs.


Enjoy the software!

All the best..

Conor
ceon
[/FONT]

[Gertzy]

Wonderful Conor - Big thumbs up - thanks

[Gertzy]

Hello Conor,
running 1.3.9h and upgrading from 3.8 to 4.0... I have followed upgrade instructions, been very careful about merging files etc, rechecked my install ws good....

I got to instruction number 7... to go into the Modules menu in the admin prog... And am getting an SQL error... Here is the error...

*******************
1064 You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ''1' at line 10
in:
[ UPDATE ceon_uri_mappings SET uri = '' WHERE uri = '/' AND language_id = '1' AND current_uri = '1;]
If you were entering information, press the BACK button in your browser and re-check the information you had entered to be sure you left no blank fields.
********************

[Gertzy]

OK, let me give you an update of my previous post. The SQL command appeared to have a single quote missing from the error (the last chr is a semi-colon, so one chr before that and after the number 1)... , so, I pasted that SQL command into PHPMyAdmin and it ran that command with the extra single quote, which updated 6 rows... And now.. I can actually get into the "Module" "Ceon URI Mapping (SEO) Config" and now see the new pages (4 tabs etc)...

[Doodlebuckets]

Just upgraded from an ancient version on my site www.babygiftbasketstores.com and under modules, Ceon URI Mapping (SEO) Config, I get the following statement:

Database table can not be created! The database user does not have CREATE TABLE privileges!

I don't see what to do on this forum or in the FAQ's so please advise :) Thanks! Amy

[conor]

Hi,

Database table can not be created! The database user does not have CREATE TABLE privileges!

Either your database user has not been set up correctly and cannot create any tables or the software is failing to detect the privileges properly.

Send me FTP, admin and PHPMyAdmin details for the site and I'll take a quick look.

I don't have much time so you need to get these details to me asap (today) or I can't help.

All the best...

Conor
ceon

[DivaVocals]

Back from vacation and then a weeklong post vacation illness (not related to the vacation.. just one of those unlucky timing things.. ) I see you all have been busy and I am tardy to the party..

Will be updating my test and dev stores this weekend with v4.0.1.. I had a similar issue as has been reported with stores which are installed in a sub-directory.. (my beta testing of this mod was done on a store which used a sub-domain, so the issue wasn't apparent..)

Anyway all that to say publicly that I was always a fan of this mod and Conor's wonderful 1st class support, but this new version is FANTASTIC!!! I can't say enough about it and the work that Conor put into it.. The install automation features are BRILLIANT and should minimize the NUMBER of questions asked repeatedly in the old support thread. (particularly the MANY .htaccess file questions!)

I even (finally) worked up a process to automate adding static URIs for other Zen Cart pages to my Ceon URI Mapping install. Until the Ceon releases it's commercial mod for automating this, this will make the install process a breeze for me!!!
(DON'T PM me to ask about this process please.. I will only share this with folks I KNOW round here -- sorry)

[conor]

Hi,

Just to let you know that Ceon URI Mapping was released a few days ago.

Sorry, I forgot to post an update here, although the contribution has indeed been submitted to the downloads area.

You can download it now on Ceon's website.

Changes from version 4.0.1:

[UPDATED] When a product is having its URI mapping auto-generated, with an integer being auto-appended because the mapping clashes with an existing mapping, the auto-generation code now checks to see if the clash that is occurring is in fact simply with the product's own mapping. If so, no new URI mapping is generated.

[BUGFIX] When a URI was being made into a historical mapping and an identical historical mapping already existed, the code was wrongly deleting both the original, duplicate mapping and the new historical mapping, instead of only deleting the duplicate mapping.


This minor bug shouldn't have affected many people but it's best to upgrade, as it takes less than 10 seconds.

All the best..

Conor
ceon