Simple SEO URL (OLD version) [support thread]

[SPH]

SSU is buggy, broken, unsupported, and IS likely to break one's site especially if one is running Zen Cart v1.3.9 or v1.5 not because it's a URL re-writer module, but because it's buggy, broken, and unsupported.

Diva, I agree with most of what you say. The main problem now with SSU is that it is unsupported and has not been upgraded for zencart 1.5.x. Otherwise, I have it on an under-developed 1.3.9h cart and it is working great. Although it does require a certain amount of babysitting to make sure that new products and categories are being rewritten. This involves doing a SSU cache refresh when adding products, and I've found that the fastest way to check the urls is with the google xml sitemap.

Too bad about SSU being left behind, because IMO it has some nice touches. One in particular: You can copy a product to another category and it not only retains the proper canonical url, but it does not require the addition of any p or c numbers for the copied product (I know that CEON does with copied products). So a very clean url all around.

And the no magic seo bullet aside, on that gibberish WB test we had going not long ago, I now see that in *MY* search results that my SSU entry has the top three spots (going to show dupes) as the dust has settled somewhat. Above my Ultimate SEO, CEON and Native entries. This did raise an eyebrow; but possibly a chance fluke or a single moment in time. And other cart factors may be in play.

One thing I do think is clear: these pretty url writers do not damage ranking. I think it clear that google can pick-up, index and rank them well.

The real potential harm is damage or conflict with another mod or some zencart upgrade. Case in point: SSU not being available for the 1.5.x upgrade.

I think that if Zencart came with the option to turn on pretty urls, the anti-pretty url folk would have a much harder time selling their view to have people leave them off.

Now, here is something interesting - somewhat on and somewhat off topic. Last night I re-visited Tomatocart by installing the latest stable version in a test environment. The admin is like nothing I've seen before in a cart. But looking closely, I recognize Zencart! I suppose this is because of the DNA link back to OSC. This cart, and it's nice front-end looks like a Web 2.0 version of Zencart that we've been waiting for. I've been looking to make a radical change for a new domain and have been looking closely at Prestashop (which I do consider somewhat buggy and slow), but this crazy Tomatocart seems fast and is somewhat comparable to Prestashop, IMO.

Yes, I did turn on its pretty urls...and may test further by putting up that gibberish WB test product. Otherwise, it's native urls remind me of zencart's.

Okay, enough of that.

@Fairestcape: these MicroData tags. If they will become so important do you think that they will become part of zencart, or the subject of a mod?

[DivaVocals]

Diva, I agree with most of what you say. The main problem now with SSU is that it is unsupported and has not been upgraded for zencart 1.5.x. Otherwise, I have it on an under-developed 1.3.9h cart and it is working great. Although it does require a certain amount of babysitting to make sure that new products and categories are being rewritten. This involves doing a SSU cache refresh when adding products, and I've found that the fastest way to check the urls is with the google xml sitemap.

Well any mod that needs "babysitting" to work is IMHO a buggy module and not one I would ever put into use on a client's website..

Too bad about SSU being left behind, because IMO it has some nice touches. One in particular: You can copy a product to another category and it not only retains the proper canonical url, but it does not require the addition of any p or c numbers for the copied product (I know that CEON does with copied products). So a very clean url all around.

As Ceon allows you to have complete control over your URLs, this is a non-issue as you can simply edit the URL as you please..

@Fairestcape: these MicroData tags. If they will become so important do you think that they will become part of zencart, or the subject of a mod?

They ARE already important.. Already supported by the browsers and I know several WordPress plugins that make use of these already.. Hopefully it will become part of the Zen Cart core, but's it's more likely that a mod will be required.. Melanie Prough's article which Fairestcape posted a link to discusses how to use them with Zen Cart.

[SPH]

Well any mod that needs "babysitting" to work is IMHO a buggy module and not one I would ever put into use on a client's website..

Perhaps babysitting was too strong of a term. As I recall, even with Ultimate SEO you have to manage your url cache. Heck, don't we even have to manage google sitemap with a refresh after adding products?

As Ceon allows you to have complete control over your URLs, this is a non-issue as you can simply edit the URL as you please..

SSU appears to have something similar, but never really tested that. If I had a choice with a *modern* SSU and CEON, from what I've seen so far I'd choose SSU.

But this Tomatocart seems more interesting than either, right now.

[DivaVocals]

Perhaps babysitting was too strong of a term. As I recall, even with Ultimate SEO you have to manage your url cache. Heck, don't we even have to manage google sitemap with a refresh after adding products?



SSU appears to have something similar, but never really tested that. If I had a choice with a *modern* SSU and CEON, from what I've seen so far I'd choose SSU.

So different strokes.. Not trying to convince anyone on the choices they make for their stores.. For my money SSU has a ton more issues in that it also doesn't play nice with lot other mods.. I like trouble-free/fuss free stuff for my clients which I PERSONALLY didn't and still don't find SSU to be.. If you like SSU stick with it..

[SPH]

If you like SSU stick with it..

Can't, unless someone comes along who can upgrade it for 1.5.x

[lhungil]

My Zen cart is v1.3.9h. I have installed SSU successful ... now, I see tons of "/favicon.ico" and they are from duplicate IPs, around 19 duplicate IPs. I still see other people browsing my website with products and categories no problem, so I really wonder why this things happen. Could anyone please help me? Thanks in advanced.

SSU redirects all requests for physical files and directories which do not exist to Zen Cart. So if someone requests "/favicon.ico" and the file does not exist on the web server the request is sent to Zen Cart (and shows up in the Who's Online). Even if your template does not specify a "favorite icon" for your website - some web browsers will automatically ask for "/favicon.ico". Thus why you are seeing these now.

To fix this behavior either add a "favorite icon" for your website to your Zen Cart template (or add one at "/favicon.ico"). This should make them stop showing up in "Who's Online".

Has anyone been able to get the Edit Cart Mod to work with Simple SEO. I am using 3.8.5 on 1.3.8. Yes I know it's old but I don't want to change it yet.
Would appreciate any suggestions to get the two to work together. Edit Cart works great when Simple SEO is off but I don't want that.

Not sure of the answer on this one... I would guess it has to do with uprid's for products with attributes (ex product_id=9:3217451664)... The Edit Cart mod assumes this will be present in $_GET['products_id']. You may need to make some changes to remove this assumption from the Edit Cart mod - OR - modify SSU to make sure products_id with the uprid is left on the end of the URL.

... The main problem now with SSU is that it is unsupported and has not been upgraded for zencart 1.5.x. Otherwise, I have it on an under-developed 1.3.9h cart and it is working great. Although it does require a certain amount of babysitting to make sure that new products and categories are being rewritten...

Exactly - SSU is unsupported and not compatible with Zen Cart 1.5. So there is a good chance few people are using SSU with the Edit Cart mod. Which will make it harder for people using both to get help.

Well any mod that needs "babysitting" to work is IMHO a buggy module and not one I would ever put into use on a client's website.

Agreed! Although I would probably consider it less "babysitting" then needing to manually manage the SSU cache whenever changes to products, categories, etc are made. I would also not encourage new Zen Cart installations to use SSU - The lack of support for newer versions of Zen Cart would mean future migration to a different URL module anyway.

... As I recall, even with Ultimate SEO you have to manage your url cache.

The URL cache in Ultimate SEO URLs by default caches entries for up to 30 days. Additionally if an item is not found in the cache (such as when doing a mass import) Ultimate SEO URLS will still generate the correct URLs. After installing Ultimate SEO URLs, when you make changes to a product or category (or add new ones) the URL cache is automatically reset. So you do not need to babysit or manage your URL cache when updating products or categories.

Currently Zen Cart does not support calling additional code when a configuration setting is changed. So if you change the URL display settings (under configuration), you would want to reset the URL cache (the option is found on the configuration page) to see the changes immediately. Otherwise you can wait for the contents of the URL cache to expire (30 days).

[cvhainb]

Hi all,

I have updated this module and it works fine for Zen Cart 1.5.x. You can download here

http://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1754

[rjharris37]

Hi all,

I have updated this module and it works fine for Zen Cart 1.5.x. You can download here

http://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1754

Thank you for updating the module. I have it installed on my wamp server using zen cart v1.5.1 and it works fine in IE10 and 11, but I get redirect looping on my android phone browser, and google chrome on my windows 7 pc. I have tried editing my .htaccess file to work around it, but the problem remains. This has shown me a lot about zen cart url handling, and it seems a little scary to say the least. Here is what my .htaccess file looks like:

#### BOF SSU
Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
RewriteEngine On
# Make sure to change "zc151" to the subfolder you install ZC.
# If you use root folder, change to: RewriteBase /
RewriteBase /zc151/

# Deny access from .htaccess
RewriteRule ^\.htaccess$ - [F]

RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*) index.php?/$1 [E=VAR1:$1,QSA,L]
# alternative rewrite rule, seem to work on GoDaddy hosts http://codeigniter.com/wiki/Godaddy_Installaton_Tips/
# to use it, please make sure you comment out the rewrite rule above, then uncomment the line below
# RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?$1 [L]
#### EOF SSU

Thanks in advance for anyone that can help solve the redirect loop issues.

[cvhainb]

Please try to view our site and if it works fine for you, you should recheck your installation.

[rjharris37]

Please try to view our site and if it works fine for you, you should recheck your installation.

Ok your site does work fine in google chrome. So I did a file compare between the original files and my site files. There is one difference maybe you can help me sort. In file includes/classes/ssu/cores/link.php I had to change line 24 from:

if(!SSUConfig::registry('configs', 'status') || (end(explode(DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR, $_SERVER["SCRIPT_FILENAME"])) != 'index.php'))

to:

if(!SSUConfig::registry('configs', 'status') || (end(explode("/", $_SERVER["SCRIPT_FILENAME"])) != 'index.php'))

Because my test server is running wamp on windows it was the only way I could get it to work at all. Is this what is causing the redirect problem in some browsers on my test server, and also why does it not affect mozilla firefox and internet explorer?