What do I do with old zen cart directory after upgrade?

Sorry if this isn't the best place to post this, wasn't sure. Anyway, I used to have my site under /catalog, and when I was upgrading I named the "temporary" upgraded site /store, but just went ahead and pointed my URL to this new folder. I'm now looking into SEO optimization, and am realizing that for one, I probably had some site indexing for the /catalog store, and two, that "duplicate" content is not good. I'm not sure if I'm just supposed to delete the whole /catalog folder or not. And if I do, what if there are old search engine links to the /catalog site? Would a 301 redirect apply here?

Thanks!!

1. delete the old Catalog folder
2. Put a 301 redirect in, to redirect all traffic that is going to the catalog folder to the store folder.

nigelt74:

1. delete the old Catalog folder
2. Put a 301 redirect in, to redirect all traffic that is going to the catalog folder to the store folder.

Ok, that's what I was thinking would be correct. Now would I put the 301 redirect in the /store folder or the public_html folder?

Thank you for answering so quickly!

BlackOrchidCouture:

Ok, that's what I was thinking would be correct. Now would I put the 301 redirect in the /store folder or the public_html folder?

Thank you for answering so quickly!
in the root folder normally, although you could put it in the /catalog folder as that is the location you want to redirect from,

there would be no point putting it in the /store folder

I'm gonna sound dogmatic here, but if you follow the posted upgrade instructions then you'd never need to repoint your domain or rename folders at all, since your upgrade would take place in the same directory by the time you're done ... because the temporary directory is only used for testing, and then the upgrade is redone to the live store when your testing is done. Naturally the upgrade goes very quickly when you've already got everything ready to go after testing.

Yes, I probably should have just stuck with the /catalog folder and put all the upgraded files in there, but I ended up liking the folder named /store, so just decided to stick with that one. In hindsight it might not have been the right thing to do, but it's what I did, so now want to fix it the best way I can....

Ok, all my redirects are working except one, which is the most important, my basic url is not redirecting to the /store folder. For now I made a simple landing page with a link to my store.

Before it was redirecting correctly because I have the domain where it is hosted redirecting to the /store folder, but now that I've added the 301 redirect it seems to have cancelled that out or something.

So my new question is, should I not be using the hosted domain redirect at the same time as the .htaccess 301 redirect? Is one way preferable over the other in terms of SEO? Should I cancel the redirect through my hosting company?

Thanks!

BlackOrchidCouture:

So my new question is, should I not be using the hosted domain redirect at the same time as the .htaccess 301 redirect?
Please explain exactly what you mean by "hosted domain redirect" and also exactly what you've got for your ".htaccess 301 redirect".

DrByte:

Please explain exactly what you mean by "hosted domain redirect" and also exactly what you've got for your ".htaccess 301 redirect".

Ok, up until now, through the site that I bought my domain name from I've had https://www.mysite.com redirecting to https://www.mysite.com/store, and ALSO, the hosting company where I have my whole site hosted (which is different from where I got my domain name), I've redirected my domain in the same way. This was working until I added the 301 redirect today. Now, mysite.com, mysite.com/catalog, and https://www.mysite.com/catalog are all redirecting correctly to https://www.mysite.com/store, but https://www.mysite.com is NOT redirecting.

Here is what I put in the public_html folder:

     RewriteEngine On
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mysite.com$
  RewriteRule ^$ http://www.mysite.com/store$1 [L,R=301]
  
    RewriteEngine On
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.mysite.com$ [NC]
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mysite.com/store$1 [L,R=301]

and here is what I put in the /catalog folder, it's working correctly:

 RewriteEngine On
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mysite.com/catalog$
  RewriteRule ^$ http://www.mysite.com/store$1 [L,R=301]
  
    RewriteEngine On
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.mysite.com/catalog$ [NC]
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mysite/store$1 [L,R=301]

I also added this to the /store .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On 
 RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.mysite.com$ [NC] 
 RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mysite.com/store$1 [L,R=301]

Maybe it's too much redirecting?

Thank you!!

I'm still not clear.> BlackOrchidCouture:

up until now, through the site that I bought my domain name from I've had https://www.mysite.com redirecting to https://www.mysite.com/store
You should NOT be using any "redirection" or "forwarding" at your domain registrar.> BlackOrchidCouture:

and ALSO, the hosting company where I have my whole site hosted (which is different from where I got my domain name), I've redirected my domain in the same way.If you mean you've set your domain to point to public_html/store then I guess I kinda understand, but you're describing it oddly, and if indeed you've got the webroot pointed to something other than public_html then either you're using inappropriate forwarding to do it, or all this redirecting is entirely unnecessary in the first place.

BlackOrchidCouture:

Maybe it's too much redirecting?Seems like it.

Much simpler approach:

1. Domain Registrar: this is just a domain name, with nameservers set to your hosting company's nameserver values. NO FORWARDING.
2. Hosting company: website is set up to "point to" your public_html/fred/ folder (whatever "fred" is for your flavor of the month folder preference, "store", "catalog", etc)
3. .htaccess - nothing
   This way your customers access your site by visiting "www.your_domain.com" and that'll automatically push them into your "fred" folder transparently ... they'll never even know about the "fred" folder cuz that becomes the "top" of the website structure if you do as I described in #2 here.

Granted, I don't usually recommend using a "fred" folder at all, because that just creates all this confusion you're encountering now. If you used no foldername (ie: "store" or "catalog") and none of these "redirects" you're doing, all this mess would be moot.
The benefit of this is no SEO messes.

DrByte:

If you mean you've set your domain to point to public_html/store then I guess I kinda understand, but you're describing it oddly, and if indeed you've got the webroot pointed to something other than public_html then either you're using inappropriate forwarding to do it, or all this redirecting is entirely unnecessary in the first place.

Because the hosting companies make it possible to redirect your URL to point to a specific folder, and it's so easy to do that way, I guess I assumed that's the way it was done. 301 redirects through .htaccess are new to me, I only started looking into this when I realized that having had my whole store in a folder named /catalog and now having it all in /store might have messed things up in terms of old indexed links. Now I'm understanding that this might be the more correct way to do a redirect, but it's not working for all the variations of my url that I type in, including the most important one, my simple url. Actually that's the only one it's not working for. I'm just trying to understand how the code I put in the .htaccess is working for all the ways except if I type https://www.mysite.com. Don't know if this explains it any better or not, but thank you for taking the time to look over my post!

Oops, I hadn't seen your second post. Ok, I just redirected it through my hosting company and now it's all working correctly. Thanks! :smile:

I guess I don't understand, the directions for installing Zen Cart say to create a folder such as /store or /catalog and put all the files in there. But you are saying it would have been best to put all the files in the public_html folder?

BlackOrchidCouture:

Oops, I hadn't seen your second post. Ok, I just redirected it through my hosting company and now it's all working correctly. Thanks!:clap:
BlackOrchidCouture:

I guess I don't understand, the directions for installing Zen Cart say to create a folder such as /store or /catalog and put all the files in there. But you are saying it would have been best to put all the files in the public_html folder?Those instructions are for people who don't understand the concepts of "public_html" and "webroots" and how to identify the folder where their Zen Cart store is at ... giving them instructions to use a name that's obvious to them gives them a clue of something to hold onto while they're going for the ride of learning something completely new.

When one's comprehension of how websites work grows and one becomes ready to make adjustments, those initial instructions become more of a reference than a rigid structure.

There are LOTS of different ways to set up a website. The supplied initial installation instructions offer "one" approach for choosing a location for installation. Alter as required to suit your needs.

Do you think I should move my site into public_html? It's still early in the game for me, and if it really is the best thing for SEO and simplicity I'll do it. But if it's best to just stick to a directory I'll do that instead....

If you're setting your site's webroot to the /store/ folder then that's no different SEO-wise than relocating the files to the public_html folder and resetting the webroot to public_html.
You're welcome to do either.
Moving the files involves a little bit of reconfiguring: https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=122

Ok, thanks so much!