Simple SEO URL (OLD version) [support thread]

[kajunto]

It does seem a lot of us are waiting for an IPN fix. yellow1912, do you have a solution for this problem ? We would just like to know .

Add me to the group.... IPN not working for me either... love the mod... thanks for putting it together.... but having IPN would be nice.

I dont get a whole lot of orders that are paid thru pay pal.... i get the payments, but i just have to call the customer to find out what they ordered and tell them our website is having issues with pay pal.

Hopefully this will be corrected soon.

[Craft Magick]

I would really like to install the Simple SEO module but am hesitant because in the installation instructions it talks about EDITING AN .htaccess FILE and I have absolutely no idea how to do it nor do I know anything at all about .htaccess files (i.e., syntax, coding, etc.)

Since I'm using Zencart version 1.3.8 --- will I even NEED to edit the .htaccess file??

And if so, is it really difficult for a total NON IT person to edit an .htaccess file ??

Any tips, hints, or suggestions are welcomed and appreciated.

Thanks much...

Zencart ROCKS!

[FMB]

YES you'll have to use a .htaccess file, no matter what your Zen Cart version is. Why that ? Because even though the user sees pretty URLs, generated by SSU, when the request is made to the server, it has to be redirected to index.php, which behaves like a kind of 'hub' in Zen Cart.
It shouldn't be too difficult to create a .htaccess file, but true, its syntax can be awful when it comes to specify URL rewriting rules. Here are some explanations about how it works:

     1	#### BOF SSU
     2	Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
     3	RewriteEngine On
     4	# Make sure to change "test_site" to the subfolder you install ZC. If you use root folder, change to: RewriteBase / 
     5	RewriteBase /zencart/
     6	
     7	# Deny access from .htaccess
     8	RewriteRule ^\.htaccess$ - [F]
     9	
    10	RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} -f [OR]
    11	RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} -d
    12	RewriteRule .* - [L]
    13	
    14	RewriteRule ^(.*) index.php?/$1 [E=VAR1:$1,QSA,L]
    15	#### EOF SSUbijouxlu@ssh1:~/mods/Simple_SEO_URL$

Lines beginning by '#' signs are comments, you can ignore them. Don't modify lines 2 and 3 (they specify some Apache options and switch the rewriting engine on). On line 4 you have to specify you base URL; if the address is a domain name, just leave:

RewriteBase /

otherwise if the address is something like that: http://mydomainname.tld/shop, then the this line becomes:

 RewriteBase /shop/

Line 8 just prevents the user from viewing your .htaccess file (don't know if it's really useful). Lines 10 to 12 state that if the URL points to an existing file or directory, then the URL must not be rewritten. Finally, Line 14 tells Apache to send all the parameters to index.php.
As you can see, you should have to change only one line. However, if you have an 'exotic' https address (like https://generic_https_host/~login/... if you use a shared certificate), tell me and I'll show you the trick.

[barricades]

The Zen site map works just fine. Checkout the sample site in the very first post of this thread. The links within the site and are the re-written urls.

That's one of the great things about this mod. It's more tightly integrated with Zen than MSU.

I'm still a bit confused.

Does zencart generate a file which can be uploaded to google webmaster tools? Previously what I had to do was get a bit of software called gsitecrawler to crawl my site and the generate an xml sitemap which I uploaded to google webmaster tools.

With my site that uses MSU it automatically creates a php sitemap which effectively does the same thing as the xml sitemap.

How does SSU handle this situation or have I just totally misunderstood the whole thing?

cheers

[jeking]

I'm still a bit confused.

Does zencart generate a file which can be uploaded to google webmaster tools? Previously what I had to do was get a bit of software called gsitecrawler to crawl my site and the generate an xml sitemap which I uploaded to google webmaster tools.

With my site that uses MSU it automatically creates a php sitemap which effectively does the same thing as the xml sitemap.

How does SSU handle this situation or have I just totally misunderstood the whole thing?

cheers

You've misunderstood one part of the process. :-)

You're not uploading a file to google. You are only telling google what file to use for your sitemap. The sitemap is just one file with links to all the pages on your site so google can find them all easily. Zen does this automatically with the built in site map. If your using MSU, the urls in the site map are not rewritten. That's why there is a different site map file if that's what you're using. SSU re-writes the urls so the regular site map works just fine.

[barricades]

You've misunderstood one part of the process. :-)

You're not uploading a file to google. You are only telling google what file to use for your sitemap. The sitemap is just one file with links to all the pages on your site so google can find them all easily. Zen does this automatically with the built in site map. If your using MSU, the urls in the site map are not rewritten. That's why there is a different site map file if that's what you're using. SSU re-writes the urls so the regular site map works just fine.

Hang on... so I didn't really ever need to get this GsiteCrawler thing to crawl my site in the first place?

Am I right in thinking that I shouldn't be telling Google anything about a sitemap? Zen just automatically does it? Is there somewhere I can see my sitemap? I've been using zencart for a year and all of a sudden I've confused myself!

sorry for being a bit dim

[jeking]

Hang on... so I didn't really ever need to get this GsiteCrawler thing to crawl my site in the first place?

Am I right in thinking that I shouldn't be telling Google anything about a sitemap? Zen just automatically does it? Is there somewhere I can see my sitemap? I've been using zencart for a year and all of a sudden I've confused myself!

sorry for being a bit dim

It's still a good idea to register your stie map with Google. Why leave finding it to chance. No, you never really needed GsiteCrawler with a Zen cart. An old site of ours that was straight html, that would be good to collect all the urls but Zen does it for you.

In looking at your sites, the link to the site map has been removed. Look at my url's. You'll find the site map in the footer. I don't recall which option, but you must have turned it off in the admin.

My suggestion, turn them back on and then register that url with google as your site map.

[CJPinder]

No, you never really needed GsiteCrawler with a Zen cart. An old site of ours that was straight html, that would be good to collect all the urls but Zen does it for you.

You are getting the different types of site map confused. The site map Zen Cart has for customers is different from the kind that Google uses for spidering. For Google you need to create a special kind of file in a particular format. Full information can be found at...
http://www.google.com/support/webmas...y?answer=40318

Regards,
Christian.

[jeking]

You are getting the different types of site map confused. The site map Zen Cart has for customers is different from the kind that Google uses for spidering. For Google you need to create a special kind of file in a particular format. Full information can be found at...
http://www.google.com/support/webmas...y?answer=40318

Regards,
Christian.

You're right, I was confusing the two. Sorry barricades, you're probably more confused than before.

This is the Zen contribution that creates a sitemap for google. This is what I'm using

http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?ma...roducts_id=544

This creates the file you submit to google for your sitemap.

[barricades]

Thanks for this guys.

You've misunderstood one part of the process. :-)

You're not uploading a file to google. You are only telling google what file to use for your sitemap. The sitemap is just one file with links to all the pages on your site so google can find them all easily. Zen does this automatically with the built in site map. If your using MSU, the urls in the site map are not rewritten. That's why there is a different site map file if that's what you're using. SSU re-writes the urls so the regular site map works just fine.

You're right, I was confusing the two. Sorry barricades, you're probably more confused than before.

This is the Zen contribution that creates a sitemap for google. This is what I'm using

http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?ma...roducts_id=544

This creates the file you submit to google for your sitemap.