Naming Page URL's For SEO Purposes

I have read as many posts as possible to find the answer to this question and I cannot find it so maybe someone can help me on this one.

I run https://www.regencyexpress.co.uk a site selling ink cartridges and other computer consumables. I have customised my site (for the most part) so that i am happy with the result and now I am looking to optimise the site for search engines. I have completed most of this according to my current product range and business activities and I am happy with the result so far. I recognise that this is an ongoing thing but that there are also some things that i will only need to do once.

My problem is that search engines find real relevence in having the category or product name in the URL of the page that it refers to. I cannot find a way to do this. When I create a page Zencart creates a URL for it that bears no resemblence to the category or product that it refers to. For example, my top category is called 'Ink Cartridges' and the URL for that page is as follows:

http://www.regencyexpress.co.uk/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=114

Very long and also not showing any reference to ink cartridges!!

I would like to be able to customise the URL name so that it contains the name of the category or product. For example:

http://www.regencyexpress.co.uk/index.php?main_page=ink_cartridges

This is only an example of what I mean but not necessarily exact. I just would like to have the category or product name in the URL as this will help my optisation efforts.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for any advice given.

Steve

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35034&page=6&highlight=ultimate+seo

Pauls:

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35034&page=6&highlight=ultimate+seo

Thanks for the link. I have been looking at all of the replies but I cannot find anything for the version that I am using (ver. 1.0) I have been trying to get as much info on the subject but files that are mentioned in the threads are not in the version that I am using, or I just don't know where to look for them.

Any ideas?

you also need to work on .htaccess file

Hi, I've a problem with the installation of Ultimate_SEO_URLs_v2.101 for Zen-Cart 1.3; I've follow the guide and I rename htaccess_sample in .htaccess and copy it in the root, but when I tried to access to my website, I encountered this problem:

Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, admin@localhost and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

What can I do?

Thanks

1. Check the errorlog for more details.> More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

2. Did you edit the .htaccess and set the base to your own site instead of the sample?

3. Does your server allow the use of mod_rewrite?

DrByte, a question for you... I have installed the SEO URL and everything works with exception of when a customer clicks to add products to their shopping cart I get a 404 page not found error. This does not happen when the SEO URL is switched off in the configuration section of Admin.

Any ideas Sensei???

What's your server's errorlog saying?

Thanks for your help.

I'm not sure whether you mean the site error log or not. I have looked in MySQL and cannot see anything that is an error log. I have copied and pasted the errors found in the /logs file which is as follows:

when clicking on the login link:

[Wed Jul 26 13:25:31 2006] [error] [client 86.144.205.22] File does not exist: /home/vhost/regencyexpress.co.uk/html/login.html

when adding a product to my cart:

[Wed Jul 26 13:26:12 2006] [error] [client 86.144.205.22] File does not exist: /home/vhost/regencyexpress.co.uk/html/products_general_info.html

If this is not the info that you were asking for do you know where I can find the log that you referred to?

Thanks again.

Something that I have noticed is that the page name generated by the SEO URL tool is different from the file to which I think (but am not sure) it refers. The page name in the address bar is:

/products_general_info.html

the only file similar to this is the english/products_general_info.php.

I have also noticed that since installing SEO URL I have small text appearing at the top of every page apart from the home page. At first it looked like a line but after copying & pasting into ms word, then zooming in by 500% I have found that this is actually the page heading in minute lettering. I know that this can be a problem for SEO and this problem stays whether SEO URL is on or off. It is only noticeable when viewing the site in IE.

1. the 404 error is in relation to the login.html error. Must be something wrong with your rewriterules for that page

2. you are using an old version of Zen Cart ... the product_general_info reference confirms that you're using v1.2.x code.

3. the stray text at the top of the page sounds like debug code that someone's left in a file while testing something

DrByte:

1. the 404 error is in relation to the login.html error. Must be something wrong with your rewriterules for that page

2. you are using an old version of Zen Cart ... the product_general_info reference confirms that you're using v1.2.x code.

3. the stray text at the top of the page sounds like debug code that someone's left in a file while testing something

Thanks for the info! Do you feel that I should upgrade? I am worried that I may not be able to get things back to the way that i want them if I do.

I am developing 2 sites at the moment, the one that I have tried to put the SEO addon on is running and accepting orders whereas the other is still in deveolpment. I installed the latest version for the new site but it was quite different from the version that i have at the moment. It has three stylesheets that are very different from the one that i am using on the working site. When I uploaded the stylesheet that i use for the first site to the second, it does not display properly whether I keep the other stylesheets installed or take them out. This is why I have been reluctant to upgrade as well as the other new things in this template such as EZPages.

Is it easy or even neccesary to upgrade in order for this addon to work? I was quoted £450 by one company to upgrade.

This mod will work on 1.2+. For example, see http://www.MoissaniteCo.com. BUT, you have to use the correct version of this mod. From the little I've read you are trying to use the 1.3 mod on a 1.2+ version site so it is no surprise it doesn't work. Go to the authors website and download his version which is for 1.2+ and follow the instructions there.

As far as upgrading, it can be painful if you have done many changes to the core code. Many, such as I, are using it as an opportunity to rebuild our stores.

Good luck!

voltage:

This mod will work on 1.2+. For example, see http://www.MoissaniteCo.com. BUT, you have to use the correct version of this mod. From the little I've read you are trying to use the 1.3 mod on a 1.2+ version site so it is no surprise it doesn't work. Go to the authors website and download his version which is for 1.2+ and follow the instructions there.

As far as upgrading, it can be painful if you have done many changes to the core code. Many, such as I, are using it as an opportunity to rebuild our stores.

Good luck!

Thanks for the help.

Problem 1. I cant find the correct version of SEO URL'S for my version of Zencart

Problem 2. I think am running Version 1 not 1.2. This, according to my templates.php file seems to be the case.

Problem 3. I had my sight 'designed' by a very shoddy company that have made changes that i may not be able to sort out in the new version. I have taken about 1 1/2 years to get to the point where I am now open for business. Upgrading is not really an option for me yet as i have been trying to get to grips with the PHP and HTML coding that is on the site as it stands. I have completely re-designed some aspects of the site as the developers completely bodged it. I do not know if I am ready to try doing all this again as i am just about to start trading.

As I mentioned about the other site that i have in development, I have found the two versions to be very different and had to take off the new version of zencart and replace it with the one that i am running for my first site.

I would be interested in any ideas as to whether anyone feels that upgrading is really worth bothering with as everything works fine on the site with exception of the SEO URL's bit which I can't seem to get the answers for. I would like to sort this out as i feel that the site would be completely internally optimised as far as I can take it. Any ideas?

Something else that i have noticed, I have taken out all of the SEO files and replaced all changed files with copies of the files (copied before installing SEO URL's) and now I cannot get rid of the addon from the admin section of the site. It is still listed and semi-functional in the configuration list.

DrByte:

3. the stray text at the top of the page sounds like debug code that someone's left in a file while testing something.

Thanks again for your help. I found out the problem. When I originally asked the people who developed the sight to get rid of the page titles (I was going to replace them with something fancy), what they did was set the page headings in the css file as follows:

/center main section
-----------------------------------/
TD.pageHeading, DIV.pageHeading, h1 {
font-size: 0px;

I have reset this to 14px and taken out the unwanted headings in the common folders.

Thanks again for the help.

for seobase url please clickon the following link
http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?main_page=product_contrib_info&cPath=40_47&products_id=231