Store Keeps Generating Links, Now I have 20,000

We've been using zen cart for many years and just discovered that zen cart has been generating new links for product pages every time we change something in the title. Google analytics now tells us it has indexed 20,000 of our links (we had no idea that many existed...), which is way too many considering we have 5000 products at most.

Here's how zencart is causing an issue:

I create a new page that we need to go back and fine-tune. I start with a title, let's say, "Wood Door." I click update so we can get the product live. After some writing, we decide the title should be "Cedar Wood Door." I change it and then click update. Zen cart has then created two links for the same product, only with different titles. Please view these links for an example:

http://www.artfactory.com/entryway-with-opening-sidelights-p-9572.html

http://www.artfactory.com/oval-window-front-door-with-sidelights-ogd4556-p-9572.html

Same product page. Same product ID in zen cart. Two links. Having 20,000 links for maybe 6,000 pages that google can choose from is certainly not good for us.

Does anyone know how to fix this? Is there a way for zen cart to display all the links it generates for one product? Why isn't zencart overwriting old links?

Any assistance would be greatly, greatly appreciated. Thank you.

this is not ZC doing this.

my guess if that it is a SEO URL plugin that you have.

from the admin side, look at the configuration pulldown and check out anything that says SEO/URL and report back which plugin you have installed. it might be an easy configuration setting to stop it.

What version of Zen Cart are you using? What template? The Zen Cart core-code has included a "canonical link" since, I think, around v1.5.1 which should anchor your products' links regardless of changes to the product's name.

both of those urls have the same canonical ```

No SEO plugin that I could find. Here is our configuration menu: My Store, Minimum Values, Maximum Values, Images, Customer Details, Shipping/Packaging, Product Listing, Stock, Logging, E-Mail Options, Attribute Settings, GZip Compression, Sessions, Regulations, GV Coupons, Credit Cards, Product Info, Layout Settings, Website Maintenance, New Listing, Featured Listing, All Listing, Index Listing, Define Page Status, EZ-Pages Settings, Ultimate URLs, Sitemap XML.

Our version is 1.5.4. We do have something called "Ultimate URLs." Could this be causing the problem? Does anyone know what the fix would be? And where would I locate information about or a list of the 20,000 links associated with our site so we can get rid of most of them?

ultimate URLs is the "possible" culprit for sure.

post what the configuration values are.

Ultimate URLs Version 2.215
Enable alternate URLs? true Info
Enable debug log? false Info
Generate cPath parameters off Info
Alternate URLs end with .html Info
Enable SEO cache to save queries? true Info
Format of alternate URLs original Info
Display categories as directories off Info
Enable product cache? true Info
Enable categories cache? true Info
Remove problematic characters punctuation Info
Enable manufacturers cache? true Info
Enter PCRE filter rules Info
Filter short words 0 Info
Limit alternate URLS to the following pages index, product_info, products_new, products_all, featured_products, specials, contact_us, conditions, privacy, reviews, shippinginfo, faqs_all, site_map, gv_faq, discount_coupon, page, page_2, page_3, page_4 Info
Enable automatic redirects? true Info
Choose URL Engine rewrite Info
Enable automatic redirects? false Info
Enter special character conversions Info
Enable caches to save queries? true Info
Enable product cache? true Info
Enable categories cache? true Info
Enable manufacturers cache? true Info
Enable ez pages cache? true Info
Reset URL Cache false

scotts,
i would post something over here:

https://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.php?199064-Ultimate-SEO-2-200-%28new-features%29-Support-Thread/page101

i have verified that the problem is with ultimate URLs. when you change the name of the product, a new SEO URL gets created, and there is no redirect from the old URL. the canonical gets changed and all URLs now have the same canonical URL but considering that google has already indexed the old link; it has not updated that old link to the new canonical link.

as your old URLs now have the same canonical as the new link, i would think that google would consolidate these; but alas i know little of the empire of google. in addition, i know only a small amount in the black arts of SEO. i do know that rather than KEEPING the original URL, ultimate URLs creates a new URL, and now both URLs have the same canonical.

to further understand this, someone could place a link on their site to your aforementioned product using this link.

http://www.artfactory.com/best_entryway_EVER-p-9572.html

the canonical URL remains the same as for the other two. now when google finds this link, in theory they should only index the canonical. but in your situation, the original canonical was already indexed, and when the original one changes, it sounds like google has not updated their index.

how much of an SEO problem this is.... well i can not say.

hope that helps!