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

[DivaVocals]

The server name being an IP versus a domain name should not affect this module directly... However some Zen Cart users have reported issues in general when not using a domain name (unrelated to this plugin)... There are some ways to tell just your computer to assign a name to a specific IP address to avoid using an IP address directly... Are you testing on a "local" environment (WampServer, Xampp, Mamp, etc)? Or are you testing on a hosted server (with internet access)?

If you decide to use Ultimate (SEO) URLs, keep in mind the category and product "titles" are placed in the URLs (and typically used in h1 tags by most themes). You will want to make sure these "titles" reflect accurately what you want visitors (and SEs) to see. You can use filters to manually "change" what is placed in the URLs - but it takes a bit of work at this time - so best to think about this early in the process.

General Advice (website development and testing)
My advice when it comes to installing, configuring, customizing, modifying, and / or preparing any content for the internet: First set up the software (or updates) in a "development" or "testing" location (not indexed by Search Engines - or - viewable to the general public). Once you have the site (or changes) ready for general consumption (and of course tested), then migrate (copy) the changes to the live website / location (and re-test).

General Advice (some potential impacts of changing URLs)
As your website does not sound to already be "well established" on Search Engines (SEs)... This is a good time for you to pick your URL scheme (always better to avoid ever needing a 301 redirect). If you plan at launch to use Ultimate (SEO) URLs, I would install the plugin on a "development" copy of your Zen Cart installation. This will let you see the direct impact of your "titles" and also play around with filters (such as having USU convert " in titles to in / inch / inches in URLs).

One can install Ultimate URLs at a later date (or disable the module if installed). Ultimate URLs will automatically handle adding a "canonical" page reference for search engines (unless your theme disables this head tag). This allows search engines to access your pages at either the standard Zen Cart URLs or the URLs generated by this plugin. The "canonical" head tag also lets SEs know the two pages should be treated as the same page (most SEs will also combines the two pages in the search engine index and treats them as one URL).

Ultimate URLs does also have an option to enable "automatic redirects" to issue 301s to aid in switching from the stock Zen Cart URLs (will tell the SEs to use the new URLs as the main URL and send visitors to only the new URL). But keep in mind (at the time this was written) most SEO experts agree well established URLs in Search Engines may take a 1-3% hit if a 301 redirect is issued.

General Advice (website development and testing)
I always setup my test sites as a subdomain. This way the behavior on the dev site is the same as if it was your "live" top level domain.. This will require few to zero changes to modify things such as URL paths, etc..

[tech-ebooks]

Hi friends,i really met a big problem for my site:
It worked perfectly on my zencart 1.51 site,but with the increase of the products,i could not open the main page and admin page right now,it reminds me error message,when i checked the log file,i found the following information:

[02-Aug-2013 10:31:14] PHP Fatal error: 1153:Got a packet bigger than 'max_allowed_packet' bytes :: INSERT INTO seo_cache (cache_id, cache_language_id, cache_name, cache_data, cache_global, cache_gzip, cache_method, cache_date, cache_expires) VALUES ('ca34fbe5f9a075091ad59abf02c259a7', '1', 'seo_urls_v2_products'

The problem now is i could not change the max_allowed_packet bytes,even i changed it,the problem will happen again with the increase of the products,anymore have cure on this, i really appreciate your help,thanks

[lhungil]

Background:
There are tradeoffs involved with caching (and with different caching mechanisms). There is no one "perfect" setting for all environments and stores. Some of the many factors include: your HTTP/HTTPS server settings, PHP settings, MySQL server settings, network / bandwidth limitations, the size of your database, available processing power, available memory, and desired site performance.

With this in mind, the ability of "Ultimate (SEO) URLs" to use multiple different caching mechanisms both internal and external (as well as disabling all supported cache mechanisms) can be configured. You can choose which to enable based upon the hosting environment and needs of an individual store.

Externally, this module will attempt to utilize and configured Zen Cart caching mechanisms if enabled in Zen Cart. There are two main types in Zen Cart 1.5.1. The first stores answers to the SQL requests in a file or an additional table in the database (is used across requests). The second is query cache which stores requests in memory (only for the current request). I will not discuss these further in this thread, but wanted to mention these will be used if configured globally for Zen Cart 1.5.1.

Internally, this module uses two different caching mechanisms if enabled. The first layer stores the result of generating the URL into memory (only for the current request). The second layer (where it sounds like you are running into issues) stores a compressed copy of entire blocks of generated URL results (such as products, categories, OR ez-pages). This second cache stores the data in the database and is used across multiple requests. Both layers can be enabled or disabled by changing this module's settings.

I've listed a couple of different items you may wish to experiment with when trying to find the settings which work best for your specific hosting environment and store needs.

Change the compression level:
By default this module only uses compression level 1 (on a scale from 0 = none to 9 = max). If your server can handle higher levels of compression w/o a large impact, you can try using higher levels of compression. To change the compression level find the "save_cache" function and bump the level up.

Disable the internal products SQL cache:
You can disable this plugin's internal product SQL cache (as this stores every product name into a single entry in the database). Other cache mechanisms will remain active. This will avoid attempting to cache a large number of generated URL fragments using a single SQL command.

Disable the internal cache completely:
You can disable all internal caches, both memory and SQL based, by setting "Enable cache (globally)" to true. This will leave any external cache mechanisms active. A little extreme and probably not necessary unless the server is getting hammered and exceeding memory limits.

Experiment with an external Zen Cart cache:
You can enable or disable these in your Zen Cart configure.php files. More information can be found by searching the forums and faqs on http://www.zen-cart.com/. This typically is used by Zen Cart to store longer running SQL commands. This module uses the cache if enabled to store requests (can reduce the number of executed SQL JOINS).

Change the settings for MySQL (server and client):
MySQL can typically handle a packet size up to 1G (one would need to modify both the MySQL client and server settings). This is only an option if you have access to change server settings and have enough memory available to the server(s). I would not necessarily bump all the way up to 1G, but you could try 32M, 64M, or even 128M. Performance impact(s) will vary depending upon if MySQL is talking locally or remotely.

Configure other caching:
For a very large site (or site running on a cluster), it may be beneficial to configure separate caches (via proxy, memcached, etc). This is not something simple to set up, but for VERY busy websites the benefit may outweigh the costs. Changes to enable such as setup are outside the scope of this thread.

[tech-ebooks]

Background:
There are tradeoffs involved with caching (and with different caching mechanisms). There is no one "perfect" setting for all environments and stores. Some of the many factors include: your HTTP/HTTPS server settings, PHP settings, MySQL server settings, network / bandwidth limitations, the size of your database, available processing power, available memory, and desired site performance.

With this in mind, the ability of "Ultimate (SEO) URLs" to use multiple different caching mechanisms both internal and external (as well as disabling all supported cache mechanisms) can be configured. You can choose which to enable based upon the hosting environment and needs of an individual store.

Externally, this module will attempt to utilize and configured Zen Cart caching mechanisms if enabled in Zen Cart. There are two main types in Zen Cart 1.5.1. The first stores answers to the SQL requests in a file or an additional table in the database (is used across requests). The second is query cache which stores requests in memory (only for the current request). I will not discuss these further in this thread, but wanted to mention these will be used if configured globally for Zen Cart 1.5.1.

Internally, this module uses two different caching mechanisms if enabled. The first layer stores the result of generating the URL into memory (only for the current request). The second layer (where it sounds like you are running into issues) stores a compressed copy of entire blocks of generated URL results (such as products, categories, OR ez-pages). This second cache stores the data in the database and is used across multiple requests. Both layers can be enabled or disabled by changing this module's settings.

I've listed a couple of different items you may wish to experiment with when trying to find the settings which work best for your specific hosting environment and store needs.

Change the compression level:
By default this module only uses compression level 1 (on a scale from 0 = none to 9 = max). If your server can handle higher levels of compression w/o a large impact, you can try using higher levels of compression. To change the compression level find the "save_cache" function and bump the level up.

Disable the internal products SQL cache:
You can disable this plugin's internal product SQL cache (as this stores every product name into a single entry in the database). Other cache mechanisms will remain active. This will avoid attempting to cache a large number of generated URL fragments using a single SQL command.

Disable the internal cache completely:
You can disable all internal caches, both memory and SQL based, by setting "Enable cache (globally)" to true. This will leave any external cache mechanisms active. A little extreme and probably not necessary unless the server is getting hammered and exceeding memory limits.

Experiment with an external Zen Cart cache:
You can enable or disable these in your Zen Cart configure.php files. More information can be found by searching the forums and faqs on http://www.zen-cart.com/. This typically is used by Zen Cart to store longer running SQL commands. This module uses the cache if enabled to store requests (can reduce the number of executed SQL JOINS).

Change the settings for MySQL (server and client):
MySQL can typically handle a packet size up to 1G (one would need to modify both the MySQL client and server settings). This is only an option if you have access to change server settings and have enough memory available to the server(s). I would not necessarily bump all the way up to 1G, but you could try 32M, 64M, or even 128M. Performance impact(s) will vary depending upon if MySQL is talking locally or remotely.

Configure other caching:
For a very large site (or site running on a cluster), it may be beneficial to configure separate caches (via proxy, memcached, etc). This is not something simple to set up, but for VERY busy websites the benefit may outweigh the costs. Changes to enable such as setup are outside the scope of this thread.

Thanks for your reply,but i am really new here,i don't know how to make the changes,when i open the website,it only remind me"WARNING: An Error occurred, please refresh the page and try again",how should i disable the cache per your information? i have modified the following links from init_seo_config.php,i am doing right,but still not working for me,what should i do?

return array(

'USU_VERSION' => array('configuration_value' => '\'' . $version . '\'', 'use_function' => '', 'set_function' => 'zen_cfg_select_option(array(\\\'' . $version . '\\\'),'),

'SEO_ENABLED' => array('configuration_value' => 'false', 'use_function' => '', 'set_function' => 'zen_cfg_select_option(array(\\\'true\\\', \\\'false\\\'),'),
'SEO_URL_CPATH' => array('configuration_value' => 'auto', 'use_function' => 'usu_check_cpath_option', 'set_function' => 'zen_cfg_select_option(array(\\\'enable-auto\\\', \\\'disable\\\'),'),
'SEO_URL_END' => array('configuration_value' => '.html', 'use_function' => '', 'set_function' => ''),

'SEO_URL_FORMAT' => array('configuration_value' => 'original', 'use_function' => 'usu_check_url_format_option', 'set_function' => 'zen_cfg_select_option(array(\\\'enable-original\\\', \\\'enable-parent\\\'),'),

'SEO_URL_CATEGORY_DIR' => array('configuration_value' => 'short', 'use_function' => 'usu_check_category_dir_option', 'set_function' => 'zen_cfg_select_option(array(\\\'disable\\\', \\\'enable-short\\\', \\\'enable-full\\\'),'),

'SEO_URLS_FILTER_PCRE' => array('configuration_value' => '', 'use_function' => '', 'set_function' => ''),

'SEO_URLS_FILTER_CHARS' => array('configuration_value' => '', 'use_function' => '', 'set_function' => ''),

'SEO_URLS_REMOVE_CHARS' => array('configuration_value' => 'punctuation', 'use_function' => 'usu_check_remove_chars_option', 'set_function' => 'zen_cfg_select_option(array(\\\'enable-non-alphanumerical\\\', \\\'enable-punctuation\\\'),'),

'SEO_URLS_FILTER_SHORT_WORDS' => array('configuration_value' => '0', 'use_function' => '', 'set_function' => ''),

'SEO_URLS_ONLY_IN' => array('configuration_value' => 'index, product_info, product_music_info, document_general_info, document_product_info, product_free_shipping_info, products_new, products_all, shopping_cart, featured_products, specials, contact_us, conditions, privacy, reviews, shippinginfo, faqs_all, site_map, gv_faq, discount_coupon, page, page_2, page_3, page_4', 'use_function' => '', 'set_function' => ''),

'SEO_REWRITE_TYPE' => array('configuration_value' => 'rewrite', 'use_function' => '', 'set_function' => 'zen_cfg_select_option(array(\\\'rewrite\\\'),'),

'SEO_USE_REDIRECT' => array('configuration_value' => 'false', 'use_function' => '', 'set_function' => 'zen_cfg_select_option(array(\\\'true\\\', \\\'false\\\'),'),

'SEO_USE_CACHE_GLOBAL' => array('configuration_value' => 'false', 'use_function' => 'usu_check_cache_options', 'set_function' => 'zen_cfg_select_option(array(\\\'enable\\\', \\\'disable\\\'),'),

'SEO_USE_CACHE_PRODUCTS' => array('configuration_value' => 'false', 'use_function' => 'usu_check_cache_options', 'set_function' => 'zen_cfg_select_option(array(\\\'enable-products\\\', \\\'disable-products\\\'),'),

'SEO_USE_CACHE_CATEGORIES' => array('configuration_value' => 'false', 'use_function' => 'usu_check_cache_options', 'set_function' => 'zen_cfg_select_option(array(\\\'enable-categories\\\', \\\'disable-categories\\\'),'),

'SEO_USE_CACHE_MANUFACTURERS' => array('configuration_value' => 'false', 'use_function' => 'usu_check_cache_options', 'set_function' => 'zen_cfg_select_option(array(\\\'enable-manufacturers\\\', \\\'disable-manufacturers\\\'),'),

'SEO_USE_CACHE_EZ_PAGES' => array('configuration_value' => 'false', 'use_function' => 'usu_check_cache_options', 'set_function' => 'zen_cfg_select_option(array(\\\'enable-ez_pages\\\', \\\'disable-ez_pages\\\'),'),
'SEO_URLS_CACHE_RESET' => array('configuration_value' => 'false', 'use_function' => 'usu_reset_cache_data', 'set_function' => 'zen_cfg_select_option(array(\\\'true\\\', \\\'false\\\'),'),

);

[tech-ebooks]

to be more specific:

Change the compression level:
By default this module only uses compression level 1 (on a scale from 0 = none to 9 = max). If your server can handle higher levels of compression w/o a large impact, you can try using higher levels of compression. To change the compression level find the "save_cache" function and bump the level up.===
=====My question,which file shall i modify?

Disable the internal products SQL cache:
You can disable this plugin's internal product SQL cache (as this stores every product name into a single entry in the database). Other cache mechanisms will remain active. This will avoid attempting to cache a large number of generated URL fragments using a single SQL command.
====Which file shall i modify?

Disable the internal cache completely:
You can disable all internal caches, both memory and SQL based, by setting "Enable cache (globally)" to true. This will leave any external cache mechanisms active. A little extreme and probably not necessary unless the server is getting hammered and exceeding memory limits.
===Which file shall i modify?

please save my ###### out of here!

[lhungil]

to be more specific:

Change the compression level: ...

This can be found by doing a file search. If you have to ask... Better you do not attempt.

...
Disable the internal products SQL cache: ...

You configure this using the Zen Cart admin (configure -> Ultimate (SEO) URLs). DO NOT TRY TO MANUALLY EDIT FILES.

...
Disable the internal cache completely: ...

You configure this using the Zen Cart admin (configure -> Ultimate (SEO) URLs). DO NOT TRY TO MANUALLY EDIT FILES.

[tech-ebooks]

This can be found by doing a file search. If you have to ask... Better you do not attempt.


You configure this using the Zen Cart admin (configure -> Ultimate (SEO) URLs). DO NOT TRY TO MANUALLY EDIT FILES.


You configure this using the Zen Cart admin (configure -> Ultimate (SEO) URLs). DO NOT TRY TO MANUALLY EDIT FILES.

================
Thank you very much for your reply,the problem is i could not login in admin page because it show erros,anyway,when i use the older version of SEO URL,it working as a magic,i don't know the reason,but i still get the following issue when i check the log,would be appreciate if you could provide more help,which file i could modify to eliminate this problem? thank you.

[06-Aug-2013 14:41:00] PHP Warning: preg_replace() [<a href='function.preg-replace'>function.preg-replace</a>]: Empty regular expression in /home/techeboo/public_html/includes/classes/seo.url.php on line 803

[lhungil]

It sounds like you have been trying to just muck around changing files... And may have just overwritten files which are part of this plugin (or Zen Cart) with copies from different versions. This will get you into trouble. Zen Cart is not just files - it is files + a database. Both the database and files need to be in sync for everything to work correctly - and this applies to plugins as well. In the long run thinking you can just "change files" and ignoring the database will lead to a large number of potential issues. You need to take both into consideration.

You should also NOT just start editing files which are part of the plugin to TRY to change stuff in the database. This can break the plugin and installer. Modifying things without knowing the ramifications can be disastrous. If you need to alter the database (and understand the ramifications of every change you make) you should directly edit the database using a tool such as phpMyAdmin.

It also sounds like you may have some invalid configuration settings for this module (possibly from mixing versions, changes you made to the installer, or changes made from the admin interface). The best long term solution is to completely remove this plugin and re-install.

... when i use the older version of SEO URL,it working ...

First and foremost, did you install "Ultimate (SEO) URLs"? or some other "SEO URL" add-on. I ask because when people try to shorten the name of an add-on... Well lets just say there are at least three different add-ons which modify the URLs generated by Zen Cart people incorrectly refer to as "SEO URL".

... which file i could modify to eliminate this problem? ...

Start by reverting your site to "known good" backup (files and database). Now verify you can get into the admin and also view the site. You should be able to unless there were problems which existed prior to attempting to install this plugin.

If for some reason you did not follow the instructions to make a backup of the files and database for Zen Cart... You will need to find and remove all files and database changes made by ALL versions of this plugin (and any added by changes you made to the installer). As you have been copying files from various versions (and probably breaking some of the upgrade scripts) you may need to do this by HAND.

Once everything is back to a VERIFIED working status (with ALL traces of this plugin removed)... Follow the instructions to install this plugin again. Do NOT take any shortcuts. Do NOT skip anything. Note any and all installation messages...

[tech-ebooks]

It sounds like you have been trying to just muck around changing files... And may have just overwritten files which are part of this plugin (or Zen Cart) with copies from different versions. This will get you into trouble. Zen Cart is not just files - it is files + a database. Both the database and files need to be in sync for everything to work correctly - and this applies to plugins as well. In the long run thinking you can just "change files" and ignoring the database will lead to a large number of potential issues. You need to take both into consideration.

You should also NOT just start editing files which are part of the plugin to TRY to change stuff in the database. This can break the plugin and installer. Modifying things without knowing the ramifications can be disastrous. If you need to alter the database (and understand the ramifications of every change you make) you should directly edit the database using a tool such as phpMyAdmin.

It also sounds like you may have some invalid configuration settings for this module (possibly from mixing versions, changes you made to the installer, or changes made from the admin interface). The best long term solution is to completely remove this plugin and re-install.


First and foremost, did you install "Ultimate (SEO) URLs"? or some other "SEO URL" add-on. I ask because when people try to shorten the name of an add-on... Well lets just say there are at least three different add-ons which modify the URLs generated by Zen Cart people incorrectly refer to as "SEO URL".


Start by reverting your site to "known good" backup (files and database). Now verify you can get into the admin and also view the site. You should be able to unless there were problems which existed prior to attempting to install this plugin.

If for some reason you did not follow the instructions to make a backup of the files and database for Zen Cart... You will need to find and remove all files and database changes made by ALL versions of this plugin (and any added by changes you made to the installer). As you have been copying files from various versions (and probably breaking some of the upgrade scripts) you may need to do this by HAND.

Once everything is back to a VERIFIED working status (with ALL traces of this plugin removed)... Follow the instructions to install this plugin again. Do NOT take any shortcuts. Do NOT skip anything. Note any and all installation messages...

Thank you,i did not modify the files and follow all the instructions to install the latest version for SEO URL,I did not install any other SEO plugin,it worked good for me before,but when the qty of the products increase it suddenly went down and both the main page and admin page could not be opened,so that's why i want to make some changes on the file,but i did not make any changes.

I did not remove the latest SEO URL,i just the older version for SEO url to replace the exting new SEO url file,because the error reminds me there is something wrong in seo.url.php on line 803 ,so i am wondering if i could simply modify seo.url.php to solve the problem?

[lhungil]

... I did not modify the files ...

You cannot say you modified files (post #444)... Wanted to know what additional files to change to alter settings (post #445)... Replaced individual files with files from a different version (post #449)... All of these conflict directly with the statement "I did not modify the files".

... I did not remove the latest SEO URL,i just the older version for SEO url to replace the exting new SEO url file ...

Selectively grabbing parts from one version and mixing with another version will result in issues and errors. This "cherry picking" you have been doing results in the FILES and DATABASE parts of Ultimate (SEO) URLs being out of sync. This is probably 90% of your problem.

If you upgraded from a version of this plugin prior to v2.150, did you first completely remove the old version? Failure to first remove old (and unsupported) versions of this plugin before "upgrading" can also result in things not quite working correctly.

... because the error reminds me there is something wrong in seo.url.php on line 803 ,so i am wondering if i could simply modify seo.url.php to solve the problem? ...

What leads you to conclude this? The error you reported shows either: A) You have an invalid setting (settings for Ultimate URLs are stored in the Zen Cart database). B) You have mixed different versions of the FILES and DATABASE for this module.

At this point the fix is to re-install Ultimate (SEO) URLs from scratch. Please stop trying to find a "shortcut".

... I ... follow all the instructions to install the latest version.

Good. Restore your files and database from the backup you made (Making a backup is the first step listed in the instructions for installing this module). Now go back through the files and database and uninstall / remove any files or database entries from older versions of this plugin.

Once all the traces of this (or other alternate URL generators) have been removed, download a CLEAN zip file of this plugin. Unpack the CLEAN zip file to a NEW folder. Start the installation process again using the files and instructions in the NEW folder.

Note: I will not be responding to any further posts from you until: A) You have shown you have followed the instructions I've given. B) You are not trying to take "shortcuts". C) You apologize for continuing to call this plugin "SEO URLs" after being asked not to.