Installing Ultimate SEO URL

Hi people,

I'm not thick, but I am struggling with what other Zenners seem to be achieving quite easily.

I'm having trouble installing Ultimate SEO URLS 2-110 on my version 1.3.9H installation of Zen Cart.

There are loads of pages of mixed topics on the forum regarding this add-on, but they all go off on different tangents and have loads of content to read.

Once again the installation instructions, don't deliver a concise installation instruction.

Does anyone feel up to the challenge, of explaining in plain english, how I can install this add-on, without getting so technical I feel like more of an idiot?

My site is https://www.dars-parts.co.uk, in case this is helpful too.

I've flagged it as red, because it is something I have been trying to do for a matter of weeks and this has frayed my patience.

Cheers! :dontgetit

There is really no need for you to install this at all. The major search engines PREFER that URL re-writers are NOT used, as this can lead to errors in SE indexing, and many other problems, including duplicate content penalties.

Zencart is well-built, and renders the dynamic links just fine, and the major SE's navigate their way around ZC installations very quickly and easily.

Put your focus into logical and meaningful CONTENT, plenty of descriptive text, a valid robots.txt file and create a XML sitemaps submission interface with Google via Google Webmaster Tools.

Melanie Prough, a regular commentator on this forum and a respected SEO Guru, has excellent advice:-
http://pro-webs.net/blog/2009/09/10/zen-cart-seo-12-steps/

Melanie, thank you for your insight.

This website in no way contributes to a personal business interest of mine.

It is something I set up for a friend, and is a complete sideline project.

I followed your link and read the points you made.

My actual occupation is working for a high end online marketing agency.

While you make some very good points on how to increase conversions from visitors to a Zen Cart site, I can't say I agree with all of the information you have given on search engine authority.

I think you have missed some significant search engine considerations - in doing so the information you have given is quite misleading, especially to the untrained eye.

I actually do appreciate a lot of the information you have given, with regards to streamlining conversions on the zencart format, is very useful and your advice on content is helpful to those not aware of the importance of content.

But you cannot discount out of hand SEO prinicipals you are not sure of.

As it goes, there are issues with the ULTIMATE SEO URL add-on in Zen Cart, guiding to the same content for different URLs and therefore being perceived as duplicate content.

You state that the major search engines prefer that you do not use URL re-writers - The search engines don't care if you do or not.

What the search engines want to achieve is responding to the criteria of the person searching the item, and while many links to identical content cause duplicate content issues, it is positively viewed by search engines to have rellevance in the URLs.

My request was how to install the add-on, that was all the information I required.

I spend all day having to correct people where they are misguided about SEO.

I would have been far more appreciative if you had have queried whether seaerch engine optimisation was a bigger priority than conversions on my site, before trying to derail my objectives.

I'm not trying to be ungrateful for your contribution, in fact, you are the only person so far, to contribute to my post at all.

So thank you for that much, but one of the biggest problems I have on this forum is that it is difficult to find the answers you want on here, simply because people are constantly going off on different tangents to the original questions asked.

If anyone could answer my specific query, please help me out.

And if anyone has any queries about the balances or differences between search engine optimisation, conversions or any other online marketing aspect, feel free to give my a holler.

I'm sure I can explain it very concisely.

First off, Melanie didn't answer your post, it was Schoolboy(who is a highly respected PROFESSIONAL member of this forum with a lot of experience). And perhaps you could take advice given with a little more thankfulness and pay attention to what people who are more experienced with zen cart have to say.

Ultimate SEO is a badly written add-on, but since you are an SEO expert who needs no advice perhaps you will have already seen that. If you insist on using a rewriting mod go with Simple SEO URL. It's much more robust and stable.

This is probably falling on deaf ears (for the OP anyway since he/she is an expert and knows it all already), but in my own personal experience I found that our site performed MUCH BETTER once we turned off the SEO URLS mod. We turned it off and have never looked back.

So, to answer your question OP, your query is so vague that it would be extremely difficult to give you a constructive reply. Please elaborate on the difficulties that you are having with specifics and you would do well to post your query in the Ultimate SEO URL thread. My advice, if you absolutely insist on using one, go with Simple Seo URL, it's much better written and easier to install and customize. But, you would do even better by advising your friend to forget this train of thought and focus on site content. And I speak from personal experience so take it as you will.

I don't take offence to your outburst, Lam, but since 2006, we have built nearly 200 zencart sites, and taken over the management of about 20 others (which were developed by other people). Many of these acquired sites were riddled with badly-written code (and add-ons) and in many cases, we have to basically start from scratch, with restoration of core behaviour, and the construction of more robust (ZC-compliant) templates.

We have found consistently that ZC in its raw state, is exceptionally search-engine-friendly. We sometimes add certain components, (like Dublin meta data), but this will depend on the area of business in which the site operates.

Generally, we focus on getting good content, smooth and logical navigation, validation compliance, and backlinks.

We also focus on more fundamental issues - like what are we going to do to provide shoppers with a good experience, and what will make them buy more goods and return more often. Interestingly, our focus on this as a priority delivers better results than any tinkering with possible "SEO" alterations.

One does not need a pHd to understand SEO - and the Search Engines are quite emphatic about what they look for in a website.

And Melanie Prough IS a SEO expert - one of the very few you can trust on this forum. We treat her advice with an almost Biblical reverence and apply it to all sites we build - zencart or otherwise.

And guess what? When we do what she says, we see the GA graphs steadily rising. And that is a fact.

To Schoolboy and Lankeeyankee -

I was actually polite and respectful in what I said, and find it intriguing that I have generated more response from my 'outburst' than I did from my actual query.

I actually put forward a discerning counter pointing out the differences between SEO and CRO.

I also demonstrated perfectly well, that I was aware of the existing issues and feedback regarding URL rewriters.

Strangely enough though, nobody has responded with a view to actually answering the question I asked.

I would have thought that the priority on a support forum, would be to pool rellevant information on the questions as they are raised.

Not doing so is what makes threads harder to find, and subsequently trawl through, to find the least inane and most informative and rellevant responses.

I did also make a priority of thanking Melanie (although it was schoolboy :blush:) for being the only one to respond.

Schoolboy, I hope you would not take offence. It was never intended, and I apologise if you were offended in any way.

Can someone help to answer my question, now, please? :blink:

did you ever get to install Ultimate SEO URLS 2-110 ? If needed I can talk you you through installing it, but there are problems with it. such as login and ezpages issues.

did you ever get to install Ultimate SEO URLS 2-110 ? If needed I can talk you you through installing it, but there are problems with it. such as login and ezpages issues.

If you are intent on getting your URL's to be static, then there is really only one module that handles this safely and effectively and that is CEON's URI Re-writer module.

Bear in mind that NONE of these modules has any positive or beneficial SEO value in zencart's case.

Your URL's as "understandable by humans" are useful if you intend to post these on external sites and blogs, where it makes sense for them to be "understandable".

Search engines will index, log and rank your site just fine without them. In fact, SE's generally prefer that the URL is not "tampered" with.

1.3.9h current
novice

Well, I was originally on the same hunt for install advice...not so much now...if majority says NOT beneficial then lets go with that thought and ask the question I have.
If SE are ok with Zencarts URL's as generated, then why am I getting responses from my Optimization programs telling me that out of 997 current pages, I have 997 broken links or stop words and or invalid characters? If I need to re-post this in another thread, let me know. This just happens to be the one place that I found a discussion concerning all of this. If these issues really aren't affecting the SEO then I will change nothing...I am just trying to get my site out there.

swdynamic:

1.3.9h current
novice

Well, I was originally on the same hunt for install advice...not so much now...if majority says NOT beneficial then lets go with that thought and ask the question I have.
If SE are ok with Zencarts URL's as generated, then why am I getting responses from my Optimization programs telling me that out of 997 current pages, I have 997 broken links or stop words and or invalid characters? If I need to re-post this in another thread, let me know. This just happens to be the one place that I found a discussion concerning all of this. If these issues really aren't affecting the SEO then I will change nothing...I am just trying to get my site out there.

One initial question, 'optimization programs'. Please elaborate.

swdynamic:

...
Well, I was originally on the same hunt for install advice...not so much now...if majority says NOT beneficial then lets go with that thought and ask the question I have.
You resurrected a thread about a module from two years ago... The current version of "Ultimate (SEO) URLs" is nowhere near the same and more than 75% of the code base has changed. The issues present back then are not present in the current versions.

Note: There is a known bug in 2.212 (specific to Zen Cart 1.3.9h) which requires you to first uninstall any older versions of the plugin before installing version 2.12.

swdynamic:

...
If SE are ok with Zencarts URL's as generated, then why am I getting responses from my Optimization programs telling me that out of 997 current pages, I have 997 broken links or stop words and or invalid characters?
Search Engines do not have any issues following or indexing Zen Cart's default URL scheme... The development team has taken care to ensure the default generated URLs work in the major search engines. The development team has also added many features over the years to make Zen Cart "search engine friendly" far beyond just looking at the URLs.

You can look in both Google's and Bing's Webmaster Tools to see if they had any problems crawling or indexing pages on your site. These tools are a great resource.

I'd be curious as well to hear what "optimization programs" are reporting these issues...

First...let me say I am extremely appreciative of the help and patience from everyone here. As for where I posted...I apologize as I have been so frustrated with Optimization that I simply didn't pay attention. It just happened that this one brought up a point that hit the nail on the head for me.
Anyway, Optimization...there are several that I have had check my site. First is the optimization area with Go-Daddy...I know...good, bad or otherwise I had to start somewhere. The other is through Microsoft and Google Webmaster Tools and all three are kicking back URL or Stop Word, Invalid Char issues. All seem to be pointing to the Page Links...or so it says. I did find the issue with the Broken Link issue(s) as one of my banners that show globally had a link that was inop. I am not by any means anything more than a just above beginner but figured I had better address any issue regardless of validity that was presented too me. Sooo...here I am. I can attach lists that I have downloaded concerning the errors but don't believe it would be of any additional help here as they only show the page URL's as provided by my "Zencart" which you are already aware of I am sure. If you feel that this is not a relevant issue then I will move on to killing other rats.

Well...before hitting submit I ran the Google tool again and I guess I addressed some of the issues there as now I don't get the broken link(s) or crawl errors any longer, but still getting them on the others.

Thank You for Your Time and Patience.

swdynamic:

First...let me say I am extremely appreciative of the help and patience from everyone here. As for where I posted...I apologize as I have been so frustrated with Optimization that I simply didn't pay attention. It just happened that this one brought up a point that hit the nail on the head for me.
Anyway, Optimization...there are several that I have had check my site. First is the optimization area with Go-Daddy...I know...good, bad or otherwise I had to start somewhere. The other is through Microsoft and Google Webmaster Tools and all three are kicking back URL or Stop Word, Invalid Char issues. All seem to be pointing to the Page Links...or so it says. I did find the issue with the Broken Link issue(s) as one of my banners that show globally had a link that was inop. I am not by any means anything more than a just above beginner but figured I had better address any issue regardless of validity that was presented too me. Sooo...here I am. I can attach lists that I have downloaded concerning the errors but don't believe it would be of any additional help here as they only show the page URL's as provided by my "Zencart" which you are already aware of I am sure. If you feel that this is not a relevant issue then I will move on to killing other rats.

Well...before hitting submit I ran the Google tool again and I guess I addressed some of the issues there as now I don't get the broken link(s) or crawl errors any longer, but still getting them on the others.

Thank You for Your Time and Patience.

I can assure you that your issues are not related to core zencart - which will generate URL's and page content that is 100% consistent with how the search engines like the "technical" side of page construction.

Your issues are much more likely to be a result of "tinkering" or bad modifications you have made, and may even be related to HOW you compose your product content in the first place. If you use an external "HTML Generator" - (such as MS FrontPage or even DreamWeaver), you might be embedding a host of bad stuff in the html.

It is far better to keep the html as simple as possible, and to create <divs>, <spans>, <p's> and other basic tags into which you can insert class and id taxonomy. Then, you can make additions to your main stylesheet to accommodate declarations for these id's and classes, to style the content as you see fit.

This does, of course, require that you know the rules of CSS.