Simple SEO URL (OLD version) [support thread]

A brief overview of SSU for those who are interested in giving it a try:

SSU stands for Simple SEO URL

What this mod does:

1. Convert almost if not all ZC created links into User Friendly links (no more query string like ?main_page=index&cPath=blah)
   Several link examples:
   a contact us:
   site.com/contact_us (or site.com/contact_us.ext where ext is the extension you choose)

a product info page:
site.com/bracelets-c-1_2/fashion-silver-p-9

It works for any module that uses ZC's function to create links.

2. For links containing cPath and products_id inside, corresponding category/product name can be added to the links (as show above)
   a. As of now, you can decide the number of category names to be included (for example, if you choose 3, with a cPath like this: 24_47_49_50 the category names of the last 3 categories (47,49,50) will be appended to the link
   b. If the category name or the product name in the link is incorrect, ssu will automatically redirects to the correct one
   c. Usually in ZC, a product_info link can contain both cPath and products_id. However, if the cPath is incorrect, ZC doesnt care at all, it still displays the page just fine. SSU will redirects the users to the correct link (by finding out the correct cPath of the product)

3. Allows store owners to exclude any page link from using seo link style.

4. Light-weight, minimal performance penalty

Future features:
5. Allow removing short words from category/product names

6. Allow limiting the max length of category/product names

7. Link Alias

demo:http://demo.rubikintegration.com/zencart/

Out of curiosity, why are Ezpages not renamed based on their text names? I have a number of Ezpages with search-friendly content and would have thought renaming them would increase their rankings (or am i mistaken?).

Thanks.

fergusmacdonald:

Out of curiosity, why are Ezpages not renamed based on their text names? I have a number of Ezpages with search-friendly content and would have thought renaming them would increase their rankings (or am i mistaken?).

Thanks.
Seriously, I doubt the SE ranking improvement by using any claimed seo links, but they are sure more user-friendly, so that would be in the future release.

yellow1912:

Seriously, I doubt the SE ranking improvement by using any claimed seo links, but they are sure more user-friendly, so that would be in the future release.

Ah ok. I don't know that much about SEO so was just wondering. But yes, they would be much more user-friendly.

New version on svn.

Make sure that a link to a product info page is always created WITH its correct cPath, so no more links with and without cpath like what you see in the normal zencart.
cPath is always re-calculated on the first time (and the cached) to make sure the cPath is correct.

Link without cpath, with wrong cpath or wrong productname will be correct
Sample:

Correct link:

http://demo.rubikintegration.com/zencart/sale-percentage-10-off-c-48_45/test-120-sale-10-special-p-90

Wrong links:

http://demo.rubikintegration.com/zencart/sale-age-10-off-c-48_45/test-120-sale-10-special-p-90 (wrong category name)

http://demo.rubikintegration.com/zencart/sale-percentage-10-off-c-48_45/test-120-special-p-90 (wrong product name)

http://demo.rubikintegration.com/zencart/test-120-sale-10-special-p-90 (no cpath)

http://demo.rubikintegration.com/zencart/sale-percentage-10-off-c-58_45/test-120-sale-10-special-p-90 (wrong cpath)

Yellow -
Awesome! Does that mean that there are redirects so that there is no duplicate content? That is very important for SEO...

Yes, you can try those links yourself, and this one as well:

http://demo.rubikintegration.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_8&products_id=25

yellow1912:

1. A completely working 301 redirect method is still under development for best SEO practice (not that any other SEO mod such as Ultimate SEO or Magic SEO has done this properly). SSU's main goal is to do this properly.

Could you please specify what exactly MSU is not doing properly?

lankeeyankee:

One instance is if you disable showing cart after adding to cart, config'ed in the admin. It should show the "Items have been successfully added to the cart" message in lieu of taking you to the cart. With MSU installed, that feature didn't work. I don't know if the author of that mod has fixed the issue by now, I can't seem to get an update from them anymore, but at the time he told me that it was a ZC issue and I was basically on my own to figure it out, even though I paid him good money for it!! :shocking:

This is not MSU bug, but Zen Cart session lost problem, please see this
thread for work around:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?p=497648#post497648 (this solution is available for a long time...).

"Could you please specify what exactly MSU is not doing properly?"

I believe this was posted long ago, which Im pretty sure MSU fixed that already. I dont even remember what it is.

Any, stable version in zipped file:
https://svn.rubikintegration.com/zencart_mods/zipped_modules/
(Rev 216)

iRAY:

This is not MSU bug, but Zen Cart session lost problem, please see this
thread for work around:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?p=497648#post497648 (this solution is available for a long time...).

Hellooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is NOT the point, IRAY!!! The point was, there was a problem with your mod, since this *didn't *happen when MSU wasn't installed. And your response at the time was, and I quote (from an email on 11/12/07):

this behavior can't be work worked around, because it is caused by
automatic redirection from original URLs.
It may be fixed only by direct coding in ZenCart (there is some problems
with session variables).

But, funnily enough you found a workaround or fix for the problem at some point. So, my original point was, the support for problems was crap after installing the PAID FOR mod, even though the website advertised, and still does by the way, that there are no problems with this mod even with heavily modded carts which was clearly NOT the case.

Here's another stellar example of great support for a PAID FOR mod:

(my original query):

I noticed that some of the page URLs on my site are still with the php
code and not the html. You can see this on the first 3 or 4 links in the
"information" sidebox on the left. These are all extra links that I
added, but I did this before you installed MSU.

The great customer support reply:

these files are static pages and are not included in default ZenCart
installation, so Magic SEO URL does not support it.
However, you can manually change it to, for example
http://www.drumfactorydirect.com/order-status.html and add appropriate
RewriteRule to .htacceess file.

Which basically said, yet again, that I was on my own to figure out how to get this PAID FOR mod to work correctly with my cart!!!!! AND!! He never even gave any indication on what to step by step, and I had already told him that I was totally ignorant. He just basically said, too bad, you'll have to change the core code and I won't tell you how!!!

And, ever since I gave him a piece of my mind about this, I can't seem to get any updates from him!!!!!! Even though I paid for the mod and am entitled for it. I have requested it through the website several times and, after getting no emailed link to the newest version, emailing the "customer support" form on the site, with NO response!!!!!!

Here's a quick lesson for you. When you charge someone money for a mod and promise free upgrades, you are bound to give that person upgrades no matter what they think of you or your mod!!!!!!!! Customer service, bud. It's what it's all about. I feel, and here's a bit of free advice from a disgruntled customer, that you have to admit when you are wrong and apologize but you never do. You just keep posting around in circles and always try to deflect the blame to something other than yourself, trying to protect your image. I am sure that you have made quite a few thousand $$ from your little mod, but it's not perfect even though you want to portray it as such!

I'm sorry to Yellow1912 for hijacking this thread, but I feel that I had to give readers a little background on the situation in reply to IRay's post. I will end my rant here, and again my apologies for sidetracking the real discussion of a true open source alternative that WORKS from an author that goes above and beyond your regular support, and all for free for f@^ks sake!! My hat is off to you.

Can you tell I was riled up?:D

No problem here, lankeeyankee. I actually talked to iRay on email 1 or twice, and he was a very nice person as far as I remember. I think everyone messed up once or twice (which is not true for myself, since i messed up a dozen times).

MSU did help many carts out there, and I believe it will continue to do so.

Hi Yellow,

I'm having a little trouble getting your mod running on a test site on my local server (xampp)

zencart version is 1.3.8a running php5

I have the required mods installed as per your instructions.

I have uplaoded the files as per step 1.

I get stumped at Step 1 A.

My local zencart root folder does not currently contain a .htaccess file, so with NO .htaccess file in my root folder, I can get to my admin, and also my front page, but I can't get into any category pages or any other pages, I get this error

*Object not found!
The requested URL was not found on this server. The link on the referring page seems to be wrong or outdated. Please inform the author of that page about the error.

If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster.

Error 404
localhost
05/07/08 22:36:57
Apache/2.2.6 (Win32) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.6 OpenSSL/0.9.8g mod_autoindex_color PHP/5.2.5 *

So I then put the .htaccess file in my zencart root folder, and I get this error

*Server error!
The server encountered an internal error and was unable to complete your request. Either the server is overloaded or there was an error in a CGI script.

If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster.

Error 500
localhost
05/07/08 22:38:08
Apache/2.2.6 (Win32) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.6 OpenSSL/0.9.8g mod_autoindex_color PHP/5.2.5 *

But I did notice a change of URL in the address bar, such as http://localhost/zencart/dvd-media-c-1

So I tried to edit the .htaccess file as per your instructions, but I'm not sure what they Rewritebase line should read ?

my zencart folder is located under the following path on my system

C:\xampp\htdocs\zencart

If anyone can offer some advise it would be greatly appreciated.

If you need anymore info, please let me know..

Thanks in advance,

Mike

is mod_rewrite enabled in xampp\apache\conf\http.conf ? It is disabled by default in xampp

Yup, mod rewrite needs to be enabled first on xampp
Then, in your case, the base will be /zencart/

Regards

Q: does the .htaccess file go in the zen folder or in the domains root folder (if not the same)

domain/
or
domain/zencartfolder

Maybe this is Mikes problem?

Tip to enable it on xampp:

To enable mod_rewrite in xampp first go to the directory of installation <xampp-directory>\apache\conf and edit httpd.conf. Find the line which contains
#LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
uncomment this(should be):
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
Also find AllowOverride None
Should be:
AllowOverride All

Then restart your server.

mydanilo:

Q: does the .htaccess file go in the zen folder or in the domains root folder (if not the same)

domain/
or
domain/zencartfolder

Maybe this is Mikes problem?
It should go in zencart folder. For example, on my demo server at http://demo.rubikintegration.com/zencart/, i put the .htaccess file in /zencart/ folder, and in the .htaccess file I use /zencart/ for the base.

Maybe to completely understand .htaccess stuff I want to clarify and maybe you can confirm if it is correct.

.htaccess need to go in the folder that it needs to control.
.htaccess RewriteBase or Base needs to be set relative to the folder structure of the domain. If installed in a sub directory of the domain, RewriteBase /subdir/

This has nothing to do with the root /public_html/ in my hosting account just with the location relative to the domains root.

My domain root might be /public_html/mydomain but test zencart is installed /public_html/mydomain/testzen so .htaccess will be put in /public_html/mydomain/testzen but I have to set RewriteBase /testzen/

Would these statements be correct? I was never completely clear on this. If it is correct, maybe this will shed some light for others as well. Half of the posts in Ultimate SEO support thred are about .htaccess location and settings.

Correct. That's how it is.

yellow1912:

Tip to enable it on xampp:

Then restart your server.

Thankyou...:clap::clap::clap: