Ceon URI Mapping v4.x

[conor]

Hi,

Hi , wondered anyone could tell me the correct part to click, Basically i want to create new categories but use existing products, Like a filter for "Same Brand" products,

The options you are being shown are for creating a new product based on an existing product - i.e. "duplicating" the product.

What you want to do is to "link" the products into these new categories. Then no new mapping is needed/used.

All the best..

Conor
ceon

[sash]

Thanks Connor, So i shouldn't have even looked at that bit , and used Multiple Categories Link Manager to do it ,

[SPH]

EDIT: replied to an too old of a post, sorry.

[SPH]

Okay, it's been over a year since I've tested CEON URI and at least two years since I've used any re-writing on my main site. I'm aware of the arguments that re-writing isn't necessary as google/se's pick-up zencart dynamic urls just fine. And I can attest that google does read them. But the other night I read here on the forums that some who don't use re-writing admit that re-writing can give a small bump in search engine results, but content is still king. And tonight I read recent, independent articles online that state that re-written urls with your category and product names is critical...and one even suggested to stay away from carts that don't allow for friendly urls.

I want that slight bump and my site has never perfomed as well as when it had re-written urls (in it's case, the commercial Magic SEO).

I've tested Ultimate SEO pretty extensively and am about 98% satisfied with it. But looking again at CEON. Before I put-up a demo cart and install CEON again, two quick questions:

1. Can it have the product url without the category information? Zencart's canonical dynamic url shows the product only, not the cpath. Just in case I like this. (Ultimate SEO can do this.)

2. Even bigger issue: I intend to do alot of copying products to different categories. If I do so, will they jump back to their master category if one goes "prev/next"? Or will they stay in their copied categories? (Ultimate SEO can do this with proper setting to show cpath at end of url, to behave like dynamic urls.)

Thanks.

[Gerjan]

Hi, not sure wher to go with my problem (CEON or SitemapXML), so I start here.

I have the latest versions of CEON Uri mapping and Sitemap XML. It all works fine, untill I now started to use ezpages.

Creating an ezpage works fine and CEON creates the correct uri mapping. So far so good, the link works. But when create a sitemapezpages.xml with Sitemap XML I get this output:
.....mysite/index.php?main_page=page&id=1

where I expected:
.....mysite/test

So first of all it does not pick up the uri mapping, but second, the xml file does not work because of: page&id=1
Clicking the sitemapezpages.xml give me a "XML-parse error: element not found" and Google webmastertools reports that it is not valid.

All other uri mappings and xml file work normal, it's just the ezpages which have this problem. Ok, I can manually build the sitempaezpages.xml but it would be nice if it worked correctly :)

Is this "&" the reason why the uri maping is not put in the xml file? I have read some posts about "&" but cant figure out what causes this or how it can be fixed.

Thanks in advance

Edit: jus saw that the original output for this ezpage is "page&id=1" So without the "amp;". Now I should assume it's the SitemapXML that creates this error right?

[SPH]

Here's how my main site currently on dynamic urls and using the sitemap xml plugin (zc 1.5.1) produces the urls involving the "&":

1. The html page version:
http://www.prommart.com/index.php?ma...roducts_id=376

2. The view source version - which generates the &:
http://www.prommart.com/index.php?ma...roducts_id=376

The & is apparently the correct html code to render the & character, which shows as "&" on the html version.

We've learned that basically every place you use the "&" in your site - whether in category names, product names, descriptions, conditions page - if you do not use the & it will generate validation errors.

[SPH]

And note that when you click on no. 2 above with the "&" that the url goes to a page not found. That's not an error in itself, it's just that in the url address bar you use "&" instead of the "&".

In no. 1 above, the "&" is correctly converted to just "&" for the url address bar and everything works.

[conor]

Hi,

Okay, it's been over a year since I've tested CEON URI and at least two years since I've used any re-writing on my main site. I'm aware of the arguments that re-writing isn't necessary as google/se's pick-up zencart dynamic urls just fine. And I can attest that google does read them. But the other night I read here on the forums that some who don't use re-writing admit that re-writing can give a small bump in search engine results, but content is still king.

Content is definitely king, the difference anything else makes is minor in comparison, however, that is in comparison.. things like the number of links to a page and the use of keywords in the URI will make additional differences, so do indeed provide benefits worth pursuing.

And tonight I read recent, independent articles online that state that re-written urls with your category and product names is critical...and one even suggested to stay away from carts that don't allow for friendly urls.

That sounds more than a bit extreme to me.. search engines will pick up a site with dynamic URIs just fine. However, dynamic URIs aren't useful for advertising literature, which was the primary purpose behind the creation of Ceon URI Mapping.. the SEO benefits are a welcome additional effect of human-readable URIs. :)

I want that slight bump and my site has never perfomed as well as when it had re-written urls (in it's case, the commercial Magic SEO).

I've tested Ultimate SEO pretty extensively and am about 98% satisfied with it. But looking again at CEON. Before I put-up a demo cart and install CEON again, two quick questions:

Ceon URI Mapping's much better than that software, so glad to see you looking at it as an alternative. ;)

1. Can it have the product url without the category information? Zencart's canonical dynamic url shows the product only, not the cpath. Just in case I like this. (Ultimate SEO can do this.)

Yes, you can enter whatever URI you want for any "page" whether that's a product page or any other kind of page.

If wanting to use auto-generation instead of typing, you can tick the auto-generation box and then click "Preview" and then copy and paste the product part of the auto-generated URI and go back to the product page and paste that in the URI textfield (and untick auto-generate). That's the quickest way to have the product part of the URI without the category and without typing. :)

2. Even bigger issue: I intend to do alot of copying products to different categories. If I do so, will they jump back to their master category if one goes "prev/next"? Or will they stay in their copied categories? (Ultimate SEO can do this with proper setting to show cpath at end of url, to behave like dynamic urls.

No, Ceon URI Mapping will add the cPath query string parameter to maintain context. With full support for canonical URIs that's not a problem, the search engines don't have any "duplicate URI" issues. Installing Ceon URI Mapping will never have a negative effect on a site that can cope with static URIs (i.e. the only problems are misconfigured servers or modules that can't work with static URIs - both fixable with a bit of effort).

Hope that sets your mind at rest! The software does work well. :)

All the best...

Conor
ceon

[conor]

Hi,

Creating an ezpage works fine and CEON creates the correct uri mapping. So far so good, the link works. But when create a sitemapezpages.xml with Sitemap XML I get this output:
.....mysite/index.php?main_page=page&id=1

where I expected:
.....mysite/test

I would have expected mysite/test as well.. I'm afraid all I can say is that you should check out what way the Sitemap XML module is calling zen_href_link()... Ceon URI Mapping will always return the static URI if that function is called with the correct parameters.

Sorry, I don't have the time to debug this for you.. I hope you find the solution quickly!

If you do, and it requires the Sitemap XML module to be fixed, please let its author know and update us here too. :)

All the best..

Conor
ceon

[DivaVocals]

and one even suggested to stay away from carts that don't allow for friendly urls

Silly suggestion as there are major retailers and websites who do not use "friendly" URLs.. They are not hurting at all by not using "friendly" URLs.. Search engines stopped having issues reading/interpreting dynamic URLs LONG ago..

IJS