Simple SEO URL (OLD version) [support thread]

Simple SEO URL is now tested and work right out of the box with the **newest **version of RSS feed and other product feeder (google, msn, yahoo).

SSU Alpha 2.3 is now available for download and testing at:
https://svn.rubikintegration.com/zencart_mods/Simple%20SEO%20URL/

New:

• Lower case all product and category names
• Add admin function: clean cache folder
  If you are a ZC coder, you may be interested in the template class and the validation class I'm using inside admin as well.

Demo (currently at Alpha 2.2 which should not so much of a difference)
http://customtowelsunlimited.com/test/
Please note:

1. You will not see product images on this site because they are NOT uploaded there, this is NOT a bug.
2. SSU does not make changes to links produced by GET FORM, so you still see query string if you use the Search box for example. The reason is that Search Engines do NOT submit forms.

Special thanks to jeking for putting this up on his server so other users can see it.

The demo site now has alpha 2.3 installed.

And yes, the images are missing on purpose. It's just a test site. :-)

The new test site is at http://customtowelsunlimited.com/testing/ with the current version of SSU

Version Alpha2.4 is now available, this version addresses several critical errors:

1. Attribute string in product id causes SSU to misbehave.
2. empty Cpath or product id causes SSU to misbehave.
3. SEO URL for EZPage links

Demo:

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

(Any mod happens to see this thread please help me to edit and put these links in the first post:
Demo:
http://demo.rubikintegration.com/zencart/
Download:
https://svn.rubikintegration.com/zencart_mods/Simple%20SEO%20URL/
)

yellow1912:

Version: Alpha 2
Release: un-released
Tested on ZC 1.3.8
Should work on ANY recent ZC version
Goals:

1. Simple SEO URL, create seo url for all ZC pages (unlike other seo packages like Magic SEO)
2. Minimal core file edit (currently need to edit 1 file)
3. Minimal performance penalty

Sample url:
https://www.site.com/checkout_payment.html
http://www.site.com/index/cPath/Pin_Brooch-10/
http://www.site.com/product_info/cPath/Pin_Brooch-10/products_id/Three_row_angel_wing_two_piece_set-837/

Drawbacks:

1. no beautiful url such as:
   http://www.site.com/bracelet_1.html (for category link)
2. core file edit (1)

Demo:
http://demo.rubikintegration.com/zencart/
Download:
https://svn.rubikintegration.com/zen...e%20SEO%20URL/

This download link is 404

yellow1912:

SSU Alpha 2.3 is now available for download and testing at:
https://svn.rubikintegration.com/zencart_mods/Simple%20SEO%20URL/

New:

• Lower case all product and category names
• Add admin function: clean cache folder
  If you are a ZC coder, you may be interested in the template class and the validation class I'm using inside admin as well.

Demo (currently at Alpha 2.2 which should not so much of a difference)
http://customtowelsunlimited.com/test/
Please note:

1. You will not see product images on this site because they are NOT uploaded there, this is NOT a bug.
2. SSU does not make changes to links produced by GET FORM, so you still see query string if you use the Search box for example. The reason is that Search Engines do NOT submit forms.

Special thanks to jeking for putting this up on his server so other users can see it.
Links are dead

Check ou psot #25, it has the current download link and test site.

All links are located on the first post, all are working fine.
PS: I take that back, the download link should be:

https://svn.rubikintegration.com/zencart_mods/Simple%20SEO%20URL/

Version 2.4a is now released, this version addresses these bugs:

1. Static links that do not point to index.php were generated incorrectly, i.e:

http://demo.rubikintegration.com/zencart/media/thehunter.mp3

became

http://demo.rubikintegration.com/zencart/media/thehunter.mp3.html

2. Minor bug fixes in admin
3. Codes are re-arranged for performance improvement

https://svn.rubikintegration.com/zencart_mods/Simple%20SEO%20URL/

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

I'm also looking for some suggestions from you guys here, especially the search engine expert:
Would you rather use
site.com/specials.html or site.com/specials

While site.com/specials.html may look nice, using it at the same time with site.com/specials can lead to duplicated content, so I'm a bit concerned about this.

Version 2.4b released:

1. Some base code for 301 (permanent) redirect. Currently redirecting only page that has a single $_GET param (main_page). More will be added later to cover more pages in order to reduce the risk of having duplicated content
2. Planning to completely change from site.com/contact_us.html to site.com/contact_us in the next version.

Firstly - great mod. I need to install it on a store this weekend, where the old SEO mod crashed the server, due to the number of products and categories on the site, so hopefully this will fair a little better. Fingers crossed!

1 things I'd like to add to the stew is I haven't seen how you are handling extensions, but could this be a admin defined constant? I have a couple of sites where i need to replace the existing pages, and one is .php and the other has .html extensions, so I'd like to keep these constant if I can. Obviously, then if you don't want the extension, just set this to empty in the admin....

Is this possible?

Absolute

Not currently available, but fairly easy to do so. This should be available within 1 or 2 days since Im releasing new versions at max speed to get to stable state.

This mod stores product and categories in files, it only queries database the first time a category/product is loaded, that should reduce the strain on your sql server.

Version Alpha 2.5 is now available for testing, this version is packed with a bunch of new features:

1. The ability to set the file extension you want
2. The ability to set the name delimiter you want
3. Now you can have SSU automatically update the category/product names in links whenever you make a change.
4. Database installation and upgrade(in any later version) is done automatically.

For Zencart mod developers: this version is packed with:

1. A mini template class that can be used both in catalog/admin
2. An input validation class
3. A module installer/upgrader class
4. sqlpatch class that let you execute any sql file just like what you can do with Zen sqlpach

More documentation will come later.

All code and features suggestion are welcome and appreciated.

Demo:
http://demo.rubikintegration.com/zencart/
Download:
https://svn.rubikintegration.com/zencart_mods/Simple%20SEO%20URL/

Documentation added.

Please NOTE: this mod should NOT be used on a live site yet for several reasons:

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.

2. I'm still thinking if I should even make the links created by SSU shorter. More features -> greater performance penalty, however.

@Absolute: I would be interested in testing SSU performance on site that has a large number of products like yours. Care to set a test site to do it?

Regards.

With the mod finally working in a stable mod, the next step taken would be mainly SEO.

I'm no SEO expert, so I had to seek answers from others before implementing the final algorithm, here is what to be expected in the next version, all comments are welcome. If you want something, better say it now.

1. Certain links such as:
   product_info/cPath/gift-certificates-21/products_id/gift-certificate-5-00-28
   Will now be shortened to something like this:
   product_info/gift-certificates-21/gift-certificate-5-00-28

This is done for 2 reasons:
a. shorter urls
b. enforce the order the main params appear -> so we can prevent duplicated content risk.

2. Better 301 redirects which should cover most core links.

If you're going to drop the cPath, I hope you have some other way of identifying the current category for cases when products are linked to more than one category.

Cpath value will still be there, I will just drop the word cPath in the links, but will re-build it before other functions need it.

I just installed Ultimate SEO URL 2.106.
I've configured it.

Now what?

Sorry for the obvious question.:oops: