Product url

[bravo685]

Is it possible to change a product url? Or even a category url?

For example I have "MyStoreName.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1_96" for a product url and I have to say that's ugly.


Is there a way it could be changed to something like "MyStoreName.com/Category" or "MyStoreName.com/SpecificProductName"
I have looked through the admin and new product/category page and don't see anything that affects the page URL.

Thanks Everyone!

[mc12345678]

If you want to do that, there are two plugins (apply only one) that remain supported to do this: CEON URI Mapping and Ultimate SEO URIs (USU). They can be found on the plugins page...

There is also plenty of discussion of pros and cons of doing this. Remember that what you do to your store is for the purposes of making purchases and from the perspective of your customer...

[RodG]

Is it possible to change a product url? Or even a category url?

For example I have "MyStoreName.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1_96" for a product url and I have to say that's ugly.

Is there a way it could be changed to something like "MyStoreName.com/Category" or "MyStoreName.com/SpecificProductName"
I have looked through the admin and new product/category page and don't see anything that affects the page URL.

Thanks Everyone!

Can be done quite easily, but unless you use it for print/advertising purposes no one really gives a damn about what a URL looks like.

Suggest you read this before making any changes.

Cheers
RodG

ps. This is a VERY CONTENTIOUS issue.

[bravo685]

Can be done quite easily, but unless you use it for print/advertising purposes no one really gives a damn about what a URL looks like.

Suggest you read this before making any changes.

Cheers
RodG

ps. This is a VERY CONTENTIOUS issue.

Rod,
I could not agree more about the reasoning and yes its sole purpose would be for marketing purposes. I also feel that customers would prefer a simple url for repeat business instead of drilling down through content.

Either way thank you everyone for the help. I'm not sure I will make the change.

Rob

[RodG]

Rod,
I could not agree more about the reasoning and yes its sole purpose would be for marketing purposes. I also feel that customers would prefer a simple url for repeat business instead of drilling down through content.

The thing about 'marketing purposes' is that it is very rare for a marketeer to advertise anything more than the domain name - especially in print. For example, my business card simply has the URL of 'vcsweb.com' - I really don't see any benefit or point of advertising it as 'www.vcsweb.com/shop' (for our store) and 'www.vcsweb.com/contact' (for our contact us page).
The front page of the site has clearly defined links for these, so just providing the domain name is more than enough.

When it comes to online marketing, I'd rather use a promotion along the lines of:
"Subscribe today"

The URL isn't even SEEN by the customers/clients.

As for repeat business customers, I feel that it is more a matter of them bookmarking the page/product that they are interested in - It isn't as though they are going to actually type something like http://www.somestore/category/product_name into their web browser - EVER.

In short, the only time you'll ever need one of these so-called "friendly URL's" is in print media, in which case, the shorter the better, and it just doesn't get any shorter than just the domain name.

Having said that, I now fully expect the "friendly URL's" enthusiasts to pop their heads up with some examples and reasons why they think "friendly URL's" are the best thing since sliced bread. :-)

Cheers
RodG

[schoolboy]

Having said that, I now fully expect the "friendly URL's" enthusiasts to pop their heads up with some examples and reasons why they think "friendly URL's" are the best thing since sliced bread. :-)

Cheers
RodG

For three years, we've been running one site WITH Ceon URI mapping, and another site WITHOUT any URI re-writing.

Having "friendly" URL's and NOT having "friendly" URL's had not made a blind bit of difference to sales, Google ranking, customer satisfaction, User Experience, or any other parameter...

Both sites perform (commercially) to our business objectives, and as they sell virtually the same products at roughly the same prices, it's been a good "A/B" testing environment for "friendly" URL's.

In our experience, there has been no difference in using "friendly" URL's or not.

[idtags]

Hello,

We found this Thread interesting and pointing that "friendly URL" do not render to mach value versus generic dynamic URL out of box.

Last message is 3 years old.

Is it true still today in 2018?

We just moved to Responsive Template 1.5.5 and our website www.idtagsonline.com was wiped out totally from the Google search (Oops).
We continue cleanup process and working with site maps.

There are, probably many reasons for the disappearance, but first comes to mind "Friendly URLs".

Please advise.

[mc12345678]

Hello,

We found this Thread interesting and pointing that "friendly URL" do not render to mach value versus generic dynamic URL out of box.

Last message is 3 years old.

Is it true still today in 2018?

We just moved to Responsive Template 1.5.5 and our website www.idtagsonline.com was wiped out totally from the Google search (Oops).
We continue cleanup process and working with site maps.

There are, probably many reasons for the disappearance, but first comes to mind "Friendly URLs".

Please advise.

Can't answer to the A/B comparison of running two sites that have the same content but a difference in URIs, but if you were previously not using "friendly URLs" and did an upgrade following the recommended process posted at: http://www.zen-cart.com/entry.php?3, then the "internet" would still be able to locate your product at the same address as previously found.

If you *were* using a URI Rewriter but now are not, then that would be like reassigning all of your product to some other link oh and while that is not specifically a problem if properly managed, then all of the previous content would not be reachable and therefore the site needs to be "rediscovered".

If in the upgrade the template was set to not support indexing, then the existing links by such search engines would basically be forcibly removed and would be a significant concern going forward.

There remains little proof that the content of the URI adds value within a search engine. It certainly makes it easier for a customer to "remember" a product/link (one reason such URI rewriting is advisable for print or media), but other than those "SEO" experts that hunt down a sale by claiming that they will improve a site by implementing something already in place and then some (not doing their homework), I have not seen any supported claims that such URI rewriting actually helps in the search engine game.

[lindasdd]

My oldest site runs with a tool similar to those mentioned. I installed it years ago because back then *supposedly* the search engines weren't as comfortable handling dynamic URL's.

None of my newer sites use such a tool because as far as I can tell it didn't help search rankings.

What it did do is add another layer of backend complexity which sometimes breaks and always makes upgrading more difficult. So I would say don't use it.

You also mentioned, "I also feel that customers would prefer a simple url for repeat business instead of drilling down through content." I would think your "repeat business" is always going to hit your site either by going directly to the homepage or by using a bookmark (do people still use a bookmarks?). In either case, the URL text won't matter. I highly doubt even if you made it easy to remember that anyone would.

[idtags]

Thank you for your time and explanation.

Yes, when we moved from old template to responsive template, we moved store from

https://www.your site.com/store/

to

https://www.your site.com/

and added redirect in C-panel from https://www.your site.com/store/ to https://www.your site.com/

So all original content which was in https://www.your site.com/ and was giving us some ranking and visibility is gone by now.
And it resulted in complete loss of ranking (we guess, because we can not find site on first 100 pages of Google).

So we are working on packing back all original content "bla-bla-bla" into EZ pages.
That is hope that formal logic of Google will somewhat restore our position.

If in the upgrade the template was set to not support indexing, then the existing links by such search engines would basically be forcibly removed and would be a significant concern going forward.

Can you please explain where to check about was set to not support indexing?

It it Zen Cart Admin Panel or hosting C-Panel?

By the way we tried several times Google Pay per Click and had zero success. They took all money and it was no sale. May be we were too careful.

Thank you.