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

I have been using RC4 without problems on my live store linked on my signature below, today I decided to create a new page by modifying page_2, when I was looking for instances of page_2 to be renamed as international-shipping, I noticed a match on the admin backend, related to the usu plugin, so I changed it, renamed it there, the original entry was page_2 so I renamed it international-shipping, however after modifying all the other files I'm still getting 404 errors, will this change(rename page_2), be the cause?

BTW the page_2 link was changed and not rewritten by the module, so instead of getting a link like >>> /international-shipping.html I am getting the original index.php? ... etc

icecold:

I have been using RC4 without problems on my live store linked on my signature below, today I decided to create a new page by modifying page_2, when I was looking for instances of page_2 to be renamed as international-shipping, I noticed a match on the admin backend, related to the usu plugin, so I changed it, renamed it there, the original entry was page_2 so I renamed it international-shipping, however after modifying all the other files I'm still getting 404 errors, will this change(rename page_2), be the cause?

BTW the page_2 link was changed and not rewritten by the module, so instead of getting a link like >>> /international-shipping.html I am getting the original index.php? ... etc

Page title
Page Not Found : Outlet Season Scentia :: Fragrances and Perfumes of the World, An Outlet Season Store
Page URL
/scentia/index.php?main_page=international-shipping

Exactly as it says it can't found non-rewritten URLs also ... just the one I created by modifying page_2

Hi,

I have installed ULTIMATE SEO URLs on my zencart 1.5.4 and it seems to be working fine.
But after installing it about 4 days ago, I have found that google has suddenly started crawling vigorously on my website and I had to lower the crawl rate from my webmaster tools admin as it used all of my server CPU resources within few hours. Resulting this, I am now unable to find my pages in google search, which used to be on top mostly. Now I am unable to find them even on 3 or 4th page of google search. they seem to have vanished from google search completely. Moreover, I checked the webmaster tools and have found 5683 pages with DUPLICATE META DESCRIPTIONS and 5597 pages with DUPLICATE TITLE TAGS.
I want to know if this thing is making the trouble? Will my pages be seen on google sarch again as were showing before installing this mod automatically, or may I have to do something for this?

Kindly reply.
thanks in advance.

hi,
i can not say what google will do....

that said, it's probably likely that this plugin is the cause of your problem. it sounds like you do not have a canonical link in your header. which WILL result in duplicate content and which will penalize you in search results.

if you provide a link to your site, it should be easy to examine. you need a link such as:

in the header section of every page.

its also entirely possible that you are not constructing the meta tags properly and the title tags properly. and again a link to your site can help determine exactly what the problem may be.

best.

Here is my website :http://shopping.muteyaar.org

can you please check and confirm?
thanks in advance.

Need help with Ultimate SEO.

Recently we have upgraded our store from 1.3.x to 1.5.5 and also updated the latest version of Ultimate SEO.

We are facing one issue with URL generation.

Previously our category and products urls were as per below.

xyz.com/category-1-c-22.html
xyz.com/product-name-p-2222.html

and now after this latest updates its coming as per below

xyz.com/category-1-c-22/
xyz.com/category-1-c-22/product-name-p-2222.html

We want to continue with our previous URL structure only.

Can you please help us with the same.

@dhruv37

you need to go admin -> configuration -> ultimate urls -> Format of alternate URLs

and ensure that enable-original is selected.

you also want to ensure that Generate cPath parameters is turned off.

good luck!

@muteyaar

your canonical links look fine.

you might want to look at:

includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/common/html_header.php

and examine how your template is constructing the <meta name="description" ....> tag. as that is where half of the problem lies.... within that same file you can also see how your title tag is constructed as that is where both of those elements get built.

good luck!

Thanks for your reply.

Our settings in Admin are already as per below only.

I was able to achieve xyz.com/category-1-c-22.html URL structure for category pages by making some changes in includes/classes/usu.php

Product URL is still pending.

carlwhat:

@dhruv37

you need to go admin -> configuration -> ultimate urls -> Format of alternate URLs

and ensure that enable-original is selected.

you also want to ensure that Generate cPath parameters is turned off.

good luck!

I am in the process of upgrading my site from zencart 1.5.3 to 1.5.5b.
I have a test location where I am doing the upgrade. I did a backup of the db of my live site, and restored that data to a new db, since I want to keep all my customers, products, orders, etc.
I started with a fresh version of the code for 1.5.5b, ran the upgrade scripts, and then installed the winchester responsive templates.
Now I'm adding in a few addons that I had in my old site.
Everything was going fine until I attempted to install the 2.1.5 version of Ultimate SEO Urls.
I think the problem is that I had an older version installed in my live website (I'm not sure exactly what version. It doesn't display the version number in the admin), and I didn't remove any database stuff from the upgraded version before attempting the installation.
What I did is, installed all the files as per the instructions (uploaded the new files, uploaded the .htaccess, logged into the admin, uploaded the install files, clicked on a link in the admin). It said that it upgraded successfully. (That was my first clue that I had messed up. I was trying to install, not upgrade, but I forgot that the db contained the old version of the module.)
I then accessed the upgraded site, and none of the urls were rewritten with the seo urls.
I looked at the ultimate seo configuration page in the admin, and I didn't see anything that needed to be changed there.
So I thought maybe I needed to go through the uninstall process, and then reinstall.
So I uploaded the uninstall files, and attempted to access the admin part of the site, and now I just get a blank page.
No errors logs are showing up. I even tried following a suggestion I saw in order to see any errors showing up in the browser. I added the file:

includes/local/configure.php

with the following contents:

<?php
define('STRICT_ERROR_REPORTING', true);

but I don't see any errors, just a blank admin page whenever I try to access any pages in the admin side.

I tried uploading the uninstall files, accessing the admin, uploading the install files, accessing the admin, but no changes. I still just see a blank page for any admin page, and no error logs.
But since I'm not successfully accessing the admin, presumably nothing is really happening there.

I have seen suggestions of removing all previous versions of database changes, but I don't know exactly what that entails.
It would be great if someone could tell me all possible database stuff that I should look for to remove, that might fix this problem.

I do have the db backup that I made of my original 1.5.3 site. But unfortunately, I didn't back up the db right before attempting to add this module :(
I know, major handslap! I really should have done that.
But it would be so much easier if I could recover from this situation, rather than having to start from the 1.5.3 db backup.

Also, one other piece of information is that I did have some numinix modules installed, and I think that changed the way some of the admin modules worked. I'd be happy to remove that since I'm no longer using it.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm pretty handy with phpmyadmin. If someone could please tell me all the db stuff I should look for to delete, then I can go in and do that. Any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance for any help with this.

so, prior to backing things out, i would attempt to find out what is wrong. there is a ton of stuff on a blank page in ZC. most of it means checking debug logs.

if you are NOT getting any debug logs, in general, i would guess that init_set() was included in disable_functions variable in PHP. you need to enable ini_set() in order to see debug logs.

talk to your server admin to see the status of ini_set. if ini_set is ENABLED, ensure that you are lookiung the right directory.

good luck!

carlwhat:

so, prior to backing things out, i would attempt to find out what is wrong. there is a ton of stuff on a blank page in ZC. most of it means checking debug logs.

if you are NOT getting any debug logs, in general, i would guess that init_set() was included in disable_functions variable in PHP. you need to enable ini_set() in order to see debug logs.

talk to your server admin to see the status of ini_set. if ini_set is ENABLED, ensure that you are lookiung the right directory.

good luck!
Thanks so much for responding so quickly!
I am getting debug logs in general. I see some showing up from 2 days ago.
But no new debug logs are showing up for the current problem I am having, of seeing a blank page in the admin. So I don't see any way of debugging this current problem. But I do know that things were working fine right before I attempted to install this module. And in fact, I was able to login to the admin after installing the module, although I didn't see the urls getting rewritten. And then, when I ran the uninstall scripts, that's when things stopped working.

I'm guessing that it is a problem with the database being in a weird state, because of having an older version of the module installed.
Any other suggestions either on how to see any errors, or on how to make sure that all old stuff is removed from the db?

Thanks very much!

if you were seeing logs previously on this same server, and now you are not, it suggests to me a problem prior to loading of ZC.

did you make any changes to the .htaccess file? and the problem is only in the admin? did you look at the troubleshooting listed here:

https://www.zen-cart.com/content.php?124-blank-page

the error is almost probably in the apache log (assuming the server uses apache to serve up web pages). so try and get access to that and see if that provides any clues....

there are all kinds of troubleshooting methods available prior to just taking stabs in the dark. personally i do NOT think its a database issue but i have been wrong before...

good luck!

I looked at all the suggestions of how to troubleshoot getting blank pages, and one of the common issues was missing or incomplete files getting uploaded by ftp. I looked through the files, and it turns out that some of them were missing. I think that perhaps the installation process or uninstall process might delete certain one-time files after installing/uninstalling the module. But whatever the case, I reuploaded all the files, and I am now able to access the admin pages!!! Whew, that's a relief!

Now, I'm back to the issue I was having before, where the module doesn't appear to be rewriting the urls.
On the admin configuration page for the module, "Enable alternate urls" is set to true, which should enable the module.
As an example, the shopping cart is one of the pages where alternate urls is enabled.
"Limit alternate urls to the following pages" includes shopping_cart.
When I compare the live site to the test site:
in the live site, the "View Cart" link goes to http://www.[mydomain].com/shopping_cart.html
whereas for the test site, the link to the shopping cart goes to:
http://www.test.[mydomain].com/index.php?main_page=shopping_cart
Any suggestions on what I might have missed in order to activate the module?
I did upload all the files, and I did upload the .htaccess file at the root of the test site.

Thanks in advance for any help!

there are 2 aspects to the is plugin: the creation of URLs, and the intepretation of those URLs into something that ZC recognizes.

if you were to plug in:

http://www.test.[mydomain].com/shopping_cart.html

does that work? if so, you probably have it installed correctly.

the link on the test site is probably created by your template; and its entirely possible that the template is ignoring the SEO URL config's new functions. this is just a guess; but you need to find out where the URL gets created and track backwards from there.

good luck!

carlwhat:

there are 2 aspects to the is plugin: the creation of URLs, and the intepretation of those URLs into something that ZC recognizes.

if you were to plug in:

http://www.test.[mydomain].com/shopping_cart.html

does that work? if so, you probably have it installed correctly.

the link on the test site is probably created by your template; and its entirely possible that the template is ignoring the SEO URL config's new functions. this is just a guess; but you need to find out where the URL gets created and track backwards from there.

good luck!
Thanks again for your help!
It turns out that I missed the step of incorporating the modified files.
I was following the directions in the install document, and somehow, I didn't see that step.
I think it's too late, and I need to get to bed. I will continue in the morning (actually, later today).
I definitely need those modifications! There is an addition to zen_href_link that deals with converting the urls.
Anyway, thanks for your help, and I will continue tomorrow.

earth-friendly:

Now, I'm back to the issue I was having before, where the module doesn't appear to be rewriting the urls.
in the live site, the "View Cart" link goes to http://www.[mydomain].com/shopping_cart.html

whereas for the test site, the link to the shopping cart goes to:
http://www.test.[mydomain].com/index.php?main_page=shopping_cart

Any suggestions on what I might have missed in order to activate the module?

That would mean you have this file:
public_html/test/.htaccess

In that file, perhaps somewhere around line #56, you should see:
#RewriteBase /shop/

Was that line changed to read:
RewriteBase /test/

Reason being is you must declare where the URL rewrite starts from and the above line does that for you.

Website Rob:

That would mean you have this file:
public_html/test/.htaccess

In that file, perhaps somewhere around line #56, you should see:
#RewriteBase /shop/

Was that line changed to read:
RewriteBase /test/

Reason being is you must declare where the URL rewrite starts from and the above line does that for you.
Thanks very much for your response! My .htaccess file was fine. It turns out that somehow I missed the step of incorporating the modified files. I must have been really tired at that point, and I didn't see it in the instructions. :( But anyway, I have merged in the modified files, and the SEO works perfectly now! Thanks everyone for your help!

I did search and maybe missed it, but found a possible bug. We're using 2.215 on Zen Cart 1.5.5a. We have the Terms and Conditions required for checkout. When left unchecked, the messageStackError does not display. Trouble shooting resulted in this plugin being the cause. I removed the page from the 'Limit alternate URLS to the following pages' setting and it's all good now.

Hi Zenners,
Installed Ultimate URLs 2.15 on 1.5.5b and all is working fine expect during a search at google
saw a link: https://www.example.com/mobile/ and 404 msg when pressed.
I do not have a "mobile" page expect Zen Cart core/template files.
So why does Ultimate URL made me this rewritten and how can I fix it ?