Ultimate SEO v3 (and v2.200) [Support Thread]

[woodlandsprite]

thanks lhungil.

My original shop is sitting in the root directory right now - I've migrated shops from subdir to main domain before - if I remember right, the config files are what need to be updated - I've rebuilt 1.5.1 from scratch while upgrading my original database (as a new database - the original one is still tied to the original shop). Unfortunately my hand got forced as I received notice from my host that they were updating the PHP software version and that broke my original cart as it was on legacy 1.3.0.2 version of zencart.

I'll be testing things again once i make the migration.

I suspect asking why www .domainname.com and domainname.com are different is a tangent - i'll go see what google has to offer :) (I'm not a web developer by trade so I always presumed they were equivalent!)

[Kcm75]

I have an old zencart shop and I am working on a fresh and new installation. I am almost finished, but because of an other SEO plugin, the paths on my new site are different with the old one's. All the search results in Google will land on a page of my site that doesn't exists. I will upload a new xml sitemap to Google, but I'm wondering if I could get in trouble with my google rankings, because of all the new url's on my site. There are two major differences:
* My old SEO plugin added multiple parent categories to the Url and this plugin only ads one parent category to the url.
* The old SEO plugin ads the product in the url after the category's and the new plugin uses only the parent directory.

Two example paths:
Browsing to category's:
Old: http://www.pictogrammenwinkel.nl/bra...ser-c-60_62_70
New: http://www.pictogrammenwinkel.nl/nie...er-c-60_62_70/

Browing to a product:
Old: http://www.pictogrammenwinkel.nl/bra...r-bordje-p-300
New: http://www.pictogrammenwinkel.nl/nie...dje-p-300.html

Can someone tell me if I could get in trouble with my Google rankings? If not, then there is no problem, because it seems the plugin is working good :)
If it's going to give me problems with my Google rankings, can I adjust the new SEO plugin, so it shows the same url's as the old one's.

Many thanks for helping out.

[lhungil]

... I'm wondering if I could get in trouble with my google rankings, because of all the new url's on my site. There are two major differences:

Two example paths:
Browsing to category's:
Old: "brandbestrijding-bordjes-brandblusser-c-60_62_70"
New: "bordjes-brandblusser-c-60_62_70/"

Browing to a product:
Old: "brandbestrijding-bordjes-brandblusser-c-60_62_70/brandblusser-bordje-p-300"
New: "brandblusser-bordje-p-300.html"

Take a look at this post about the different modes built into "Ultimate SEO URLs". The new versions of "Ultimate SEO URLs" support the same features old versions did and includes support for newer features such as "Categories as Directories".

Can someone tell me if I could get in trouble with my Google rankings? If not, then there is no problem, because it seems the plugin is working good :)
If it's going to give me problems with my Google rankings, can I adjust the new SEO plugin, so it shows the same url's as the old one's.

It looks like your templates have removed the "canonical" links. Once you have re-enabled canonical links - you should be okay. If you enable categories as directories this will take care of categories. For the product links you would want to add your old RewriteRule for products to the .htaccess file.

As Zen Cart 1.5 automatically adds a "canonical" link to your pages, SEs will not penalize for duplicate URLs. In theory "canonical" links tell the SEs: "My content is the same as this URL, and this is my preferred URL for you to show in your listings".

Alternatively to be on the safe side you could add some RewriteRules ending with [R=301,L] to redirect from the old URLs to the new ones. This would force 99% of SEs to find the new URL right away. If you have a strong understanding of how RewriteRules work - this is the route I would take.

[timhersh]

Take a look at this post about the different modes built into "Ultimate SEO URLs". The new versions of "Ultimate SEO URLs" support the same features old versions did and includes support for newer features such as "Categories as Directories".


Once you have re-enabled canonical links - you should be okay. If you enable categories as directories this will take care of categories

how do you do this in Zen cart 1.5

Once you have re-enabled canonical links - you should be okay. If you enable categories as directories this will take care of categories

[lhungil]

how do you do this in Zen cart 1.5

"admin" -> "configuration" -> "Ultimate SEO".

Once you have re-enabled canonical links - you should be okay.

This is specific to Kcm75's setup, not necessarily yours. Your template is correctly adding the "canonical link".

If you enable categories as directories this will take care of categories.

Again, this is specific to Kcm75's setup. Enabling this setting will make the URLs generated by this plugin for categories look similar to Kcm75's old site. The .htaccess will automatically add the '/' to the end of the category URL in this mode.

[timhersh]

thank you

[Kcm75]

It looks like your templates have removed the "canonical" links. Once you have re-enabled canonical links - you should be okay

How can I re-enable the canonical links?

[lhungil]

How can I re-enable the canonical links?

There should be something similar to the following in "includes/templates/your_template_name/common/html_header.php":

<?php if (isset($canonicalLink) && $canonicalLink != '') { ?>
<link rel="canonical" href="<?php echo $canonicalLink; ?>" />
<?php } ?>

If someone removed (or did not include) these lines in your template, canonical links are not added to pages. Zen Cart comes with a default template you can look at for a working example if needed.

If someone disabled the canonical system, you will want to download Zen Cart from "www.zen-cart.com" and copy "includes/auto_loaders/config.canonical.php" and "includes/init_includes/init_canonical.php" into your Zen Cart installation.

If you are going the canonical route, and do not plan to modify the .htaccess with RewriteRules generating 301s, make sure you add any needed rules from the old URL Rewriter so website visitors can access your pages under either format (the old ones and the new ones).

[Kcm75]

I'm not sure with steps to take now. My new store which is now at the location pictogrammenwinkel.nl/nieuw/ has the both canonical files present and the canonical lines are present in the file "includes/templates/your_template_name/common/html_header.php". My old store doesn't have the canonical files and line.

First when just browsing the categories:
Old: "brandbestrijding-bordjes-brandblusser-c-60_62_70/"
New: "bordjes-brandblusser-c-60_62_70/" (Add category parent to begining of URLs?: true, Show categories as directories in the URL?: false)
New: "brandbestrijding-c-60/bordjes-c-60_62/brandblusser-c-60_62_70/" (Add category parent to begining of URLs?: true, Show categories as directories in the URL?: true)

With the settings "add category" to true and "show categories as directories" to false, it almost is the same as my old store. Except my old add-on stacks all the parent/sub directories into the link and the new add-on only takes the last 2 parent/sub directory. In my example there are there categories in the link.

Alternatively to be on the safe side you could add some RewriteRules ending with [R=301,L] to redirect from the old URLs to the new ones. This would force 99% of SEs to find the new URL right away. If you have a strong understanding of how RewriteRules work - this is the route I would take.

I understand some php, but I am not an expert and I do not understand how RewriteRules work. These lines are in my old store .htaccess file:

#### BOF SSU
Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
RewriteEngine On
# Make sure to change "test_site" to the subfolder you install ZC. If you use root folder, change to: RewriteBase /
RewriteBase /
# Deny access from .htaccess
RewriteRule ^\.htaccess$ - [F]
RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*) index.php?/$1 [E=VAR1:$1,QSA,L]
#### EOF SSU

[lhungil]

My new store which is now at the location pictogrammenwinkel.nl/nieuw/ has the both canonical files present and the canonical lines are present in the file "includes/templates/your_template_name/common/html_header.php".

Looking at the HTML source for the new site, these are working correctly on the new store now. :)

New: "bordjes-brandblusser-c-60_62_70/" (Add category parent to begining of URLs?: true, Show categories as directories in the URL?: false)

You need to change the .htaccess file by hand when you change change the option "Categories as Directories". The URL you provided shows you did not change the .htaccess file to comment / uncomment the required lines in the .htaccess file when changing this setting.

Failure to update the .htaccess file will cause your store to do extra redirects (which SEs do not like) and which can slow down your sites performance. The correct URL for the setting (Add category parent to begining of URLs?: true, Show categories as directories in the URL?: false) is: "/nieuw/bordjes-brandblusser-c-60_62_70.html"