Need help with URL shopping carts!

I have Zen Cart 1.3.8a. I just installed it and am having trouble switching the old site to the new site. I must maintain the same URL's and content. Can someone help me with this? This is my first time setting up a shopping cart.

What system were you using before ZC?

... and why is it so important you retain the same URL's? I don't think this will be possible, because ZC is DYNAMIC... the URL's are generated on the fly via the PHP code, after a whole lot of parsing is done.

They are nothing but static pages and I had them call to order the "one" product that I sell. I am now trying to set up the shopping cart with the same URL's. It is a website of about 30 pages for now. Is there a way to try and rewrite URL's or something?

This is not possible. ZC is too complex to start developing procedures like this.

Why do you need to do this? Explain what you are trying to achieve?

Once you have ZC up and running, your HTML site becomes obsolete.

Yes, with only about 30 pages you can redirect those old product pages to the new ones. Depending on how your current site is structure, there can be more than 1 methods that will work for you.

I think I appreciate your worries...

Zencart does not work with static html pages.

There are fundamentally TWO major components to zencart:-

1. The PHP programming files.
2. The MySQL database.

The programming (PHP) "cobbles" or "builds" html pages on-the-fly, putting together scores (if not hundreds) of bits of the page together from a variety of places - much of the information being stored in the database.

The pages are "built" on-the-fly according to what the viewer wants to see. When the viewer goes to another page, the one he was on "evaporates". It is not stored anywhere.

You now need to take all your current "html" product pages, and get all that data into the database.

When you have done that (by adding products via the ZC admin console). you can delete your html pages.

yellow1912:

Yes, with only about 30 pages you can redirect those old product pages to the new ones. Depending on how your current site is structure, there can be more than 1 methods that will work for you.

Yes... I was going to discuss this - but it's really the opposite of what you originally suggested.

What Yellow1912 is saying is that once you have your ZC set up, it is possible to direct your static product pages to your ZC pages.

For example, you have the following static page:

www . yoursite . com / products / product_page1.html

Now, when you have set up ZC, the URL to the same product in ZC might look like:

www . yoursite . com / index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=65_87&products_id=313

... so THIS becomes your new link.

The main reason for me doing this is for SEO purposes so that I don't lose my page rank and traffic. How then, can I place my old content into the database so that it will pulled correctly and is there a way to change the URL?

From:
index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2
To:
instructions.php or .html, (i know u can have .html with php code embedded by editing the .htaccess file)

If this doesn't work, I will have to go ahead and purchase a shopping cart software. The only problem with this is that it needs to be in Spanish! My whole site is in Spanish, and I have yet to find good shopping cart software that is completely translated into Spanish from start to finish.

Also, I would like to have some kind of reference page where I can completely edit any part of the site, and where to locate the file to update. I am having a little trouble editing the layout. Thanks in advanced guys!

AH... so now we have your main concern... SEO.

The search engines will index your ZC site, and (if you install and configure helpful tools for search engines such as XML sitemaps), the search engines will index the site very quickly.

In time (sooner rather than later) your ZC pages will rank equally to your HTML pages.

So... keep your static pages up there for a while, but on each of them you now need to include a link to their equivalent ZC page, as I suggested above.

okie, to answer your 2 questions:

1. it is possible to keep those urls for the static pages you have, it will involve some work
2. it is also possible to do 301 redirection from old links to new links, it will take a while tho, to get the page rank back.

helpme123:

The main reason for me doing this is for SEO purposes so that I don't lose my page rank and traffic. How then, can I place my old content into the database so that it will pulled correctly and is there a way to change the URL?

From:
index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2
To:
instructions.php or .html, (i know u can have .html with php code embedded by editing the .htaccess file)

If this doesn't work, I will have to go ahead and purchase a shopping cart software. The only problem with this is that it needs to be in Spanish! My whole site is in Spanish, and I have yet to find good shopping cart software that is completely translated into Spanish from start to finish.

Also, I would like to have some kind of reference page where I can completely edit any part of the site, and where to locate the file to update. I am having a little trouble editing the layout. Thanks in advanced guys!

You brain is still locked in HTML mode...

All GOOD shopping cart software uses the principle of dynamic content - whether that's free software or custom designed stuff costing millions.

The trend today is in dynamic content, and search engines are fully capable of indexing this content - as long as you play by the rules, and as long as you provide mechanisms (xml sitemaps, for example) for the search engines to work on.

ALL successful webshops these days are dynamic content, and the search engines trawl them with no problems at all.

wouldn't I get penalized there for duplicate content? and another thing, the physical aspects of the URL are not appealing when pulled up in Google search engine query. You are less likely to click on a longer URL as opposed to a shorter URL.

What about rewrites and redirects? Is there some possible way to do something this way. Sorry for pressing on this issue, but I can't have the URL's another way. I need to be able to edit this. I read somewhere else that you can indeed fix this by adding some type of 3rd party add-on.
I was following this link but it's not working for me.
https://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?p=211126

I also am having a little bit of trouble finding all the pages I need to edit. What I think I will do is have a /shop folder and have the one product ready for checkout, I am finding no better solution.

I wanted to have the shopping cart software completely so that I could track conversions.

Zencart is built with SEO in mind and works extremely well with search engine spidering.

I have built about 70 zenshops and some (where the owners follow the correct SEO procedures for dynamic content sites) rank on page one of the search engines for large numbers of their products and are trawled almost daily.

Trust the software... it works!

While it is possible to reference your STATIC pages to their ZC equivalent, you cannot (easily) get ZC to write the url's you currently use for your products.

i am asking because I have seen other websites have multiple products (although I only have one - and thats how I plan to keep it) and still maintain the same URL's.

We have a client with a UK-specific site. One of her most popular products is the "exploding parcel cake".

Go to Google and type in exploding parcel cake and see where Karens Cakes shows up...

... it's NUMBER ONE and NUMBER TWO on google.com - which is interesting, as the site is configured for optimization only for google.co.uk

I think I will set up a buy now button from the home page, and then have that added to the cart. on a /shop folder or set up a subdomain to set up the checkout. Thanks!

helpme123:

I think I will set up a buy now button from the home page, and then have that added to the cart. on a /shop folder or set up a subdomain to set up the checkout. Thanks!

Yes... that is what Yellow1912 and I are suggesting!

Okie, before this thread gets too long and I become unable to understand anything, let me rephrase your situation:

You have a store, html based, with fixed url to each product, now you want to use zencart without hurting your search engine ranking

here go the 2 solutions i suggested.

1. Do 301 redirection, redirect the old links to new ones, for example, if you have a product at apple.html, now the product is at index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=5&products_id=19, just do 301 redirection from the old one to new one. You have only 30+ links, it will be easy to do.

2. Or, if you want to keep the link, so that people visit your site/apple.html will see the new product in zencart, this is again possible to do as well. I suggest you look into Simple Seo Url or Ceon Seo, both have the ability to use link-alias to help you get what want.