URL re-writer, necessary or not? Advice needed.

In the middle of upgrading to 1.5.5 from 1.3.9. The site has been running with the Magnetic One Power SEO URLs addon since, like, 2010.

The M1 SEO URLs addon doesn't seem to play well with the 1.5.5 core, so if I can even get it to work at all it would be a huge pain. And on top of that, from what I have read recently it seems that this type of URL re-writer is not even necessary for SEO purposes these days.

But then again, all of our SEO, ads, links, etc, for the last 6 years or so has been done using the URLs generated by the M1 addon, so I am terrified of the negative repercussions when every link to our site that we are unable to control starts throwing a 404 and our search engine indexes completely change.

Any advice at all for moving forward would be greatly appreciated. Should I use a different URL addon? Should I use no URL addon? Should I try to somehow limp forward with the same URL addon (and push the problem off until it is time for the next upgrade...)?

This is a contentious issue.
Except in special circumstances I've never been a fan of URL rewrites.
Google hasn't used the URL contents for ranking purposes for many years, so you can forget about any "SEO" benefits.
Will dropping them cause 404 errors? Yup, but this is only a concern if the original URL's are published in print or some other "static" media.
The change will have a short term effect in regards to Google pointing to pages that no longer apparently exist, but those links will be quickly dropped and replaced with the new ones when the site is next crawled and indexed.
The new links will retain the same rankings as the old since rankings are based primarily on content (which wouldn't have changed).

I've seen more problems caused by URL rewriting than solutions.... Not due the the rewrite per se, but due to bad or incorrect implementation of them.

Rewriting has its place, but "SEO" and Search engines are not those places.

Let's the arguments begin :-)

Cheers
RodG

LightBrown:

The site has been running with the Magnetic One Power SEO URLs addon since, like, 2010.

The M1 SEO URLs addon doesn't seem to play well with the 1.5.5 core
Have you talked to the M1 folks about an upgrade to their module?

Dr Byte, I sent an email to M1 about it, but it doesn't look like they sell or support that module anymore. I will update if I hear back from them.

RodG, Thanks for the input about the SEO side of the URLs, I had been reading the same things recently. If every product URL on our site changes, it would be a hassle to change every URL in every ad we have (adwords, etc.), but it would be doable.

My main concern in losing search ranking positions. I believe you are saying that google's crawlers (and others) are smart enough to realize that the page is the same even if the URL has changed? That is good to hear.

We do have offsite links that we have no control over, things like random customers and forum posts talking about and linking to our products, etc. So if I were to just forgo the URL re-writer in the new version of the site, those links would probably go 404, I assume that would not be good for search rankings, and for people finding our products (I guess I could just do some 301s for our most popular products with their old URLs?).

I've seen more problems caused by URL rewriting than solutions

this gets truer everyday for me :wacko:

Every site could have a custom 404.shtml file that can handle folks coming from outdated bookmarks/links.
What we use is simple but gives the customer an opportunity to search for what they were looking for. We use the responsive.css file and responsive_classic template with 1.5.5a

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="includes/templates/responsive_classic/css/responsive.css" /><img src="/includes/templates/responsive_classic/images/logo.png" alt="YOUR COMPANY Logo" border="0">
<h3>We're sorry.  The information you are looking for may have changed.</h3>
<h4>Hopefully the system has suggested a link for you to follow.</h4>
<style type="text/css">
  #goog-wm { }
  #goog-wm h3.closest-match { }
  #goog-wm h3.closest-match a { }
  #goog-wm h3.other-things { }
  #goog-wm ul li { }
  #goog-wm li.search-goog { display: block; }
</style>
<script type="text/javascript">
  var GOOG_FIXURL_LANG = 'en';
  var GOOG_FIXURL_SITE = 'http://YOURWEBSITE.com/';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" 
    src="http://linkhelp.clients.google.com/tbproxy/lh/wm/fixurl.js"></script>
```You can also use the .htaccess file to point to different files for error codes.

ErrorDocument 404 /oops.shtml

Of course, this can be done with any error code.

There are some tools that can help you export your current uri information as it relates to a base ZC install to make some of the "transition" easier if 1) you don't get the module upgraded, 2) don't switch to another uri rewriter that can accommodate such an existing condition, or 3) want to do some of the "critical rewrites" for printed material. Regardless of this, if you do any upfront rewriting/redirecting, be very deliberate in the sequencing for example if you rewrite a category's path before a product in that category is rewritten, then the product is likely not to be found in the rewrite list and a bad url will be provided to the customer.

Tools available that could support the above: CEON URI Mapping and Easy Populate version 4. There are likely others or for htaccess only rules, EP4 can be used to get a listing of the URIs for products and categories.