Search Engine Friendly URL's needed

Hi

Search Engine Friendly URL's are pretty much a must have for new store owners these days.

I couldn't find a post suggesting these so sorry if I missed one.

I'd argue that most new store owners are unwilling to knowingly start at a search engine disadvantage by not having search engine friendly urls.

Perhaps Zen Cart could quickly add this functionality by integrating one of the existing addon that do this. Currently both addons seem not to support ZenCart 1.3.x.

If the Zen team reviewed the addons coding and talked to the developers of SEFU and Ultimate SEO URL's it may be that they would agree to allow their addon to be included within the Zen Cart project. Another possibility is that the addons could be updated to support the latest Zen Cart releases by the Zen Team and separately bundled with the Zen Cart download. Since both rely on .htaccess rules and mod rewrite simple platform tests would isolate if the feature was enabled or not during the install.

In terms of business problem it resolves. I am a newcomer to Zen but have suggested Zen Cart to 3 prospective store owners. 2 rejected it entirely on the lack of search engine friendly urls alone. The 3rd is nervous about relying on what he sees as unsupported addon's that are not being developed and don't support the latest version of Zen Cart. I echo his concerns. I'm sure I'm not alone.

Matt

I think there is still some debate - at least here - as to the ultimate importance of search engine-friendly URLs. I personally do think they are beneficial from a few points of view, like because they are better for humans to read. That said, I would hardly think it a "deal breaker" for SE friendly URLs not to be included in the core package. I simply think that the business owners you spoke to have misplaced concerns. Content is going to be of far greater importance than this URL ability, IMO.

I also wouldn't mind seeing a SEFU feature integrated into ZC, if just because it would standardize the matter (one SEFU feature is easier to work with than two different ones that we have right now). However, I imagine that this feature is not currently included simply because it's really not necessary for a functioning cart. Those who want to use this feature can easily implement it themselves.

If the business owners you spoke of have worries about unsupported third-party add-ons, then perhaps open source software is not right for them from the get go. Obviously, testing these add ons is standard operating procedure, but one of the beauties of third party add ons is that they are often built by owners of real stores who need to address real problems - not something ascertained in focus groups or polls.

My two pesos.

...and since this is the wish list, there is no need for further discsussion here