Status Red/Green Yellow

What does yellow status mean? It says linked product but what does that mean?

It the product is listed in two different categories. If you look at the Holzheimer's site in my sig, many of the photos are linked to other categories. For example, the photo might be from a movie, so the master category is the movie, but the photo is also linked to the actor's category and customers will see it if they look either place.

A linked product is one that exists in more than one category, and you would have had to create this manually.

Linked products are a useful feature, as the format allows you to display a product in two or more categories - thus increasing its exposure in the store. The product RETAINS its unique model number, and its properties (price, description, etc) are governed by setting the "master" category for that product. (This stops you from editing its price, for example, in two different places.)

If you have a linked product, and you don't know how it got there, it may be because you have a DUPLICATE product code/model number.

If you don't want a linked product, you can "remove" its linked status.

The yellow square is simply an "alert" to show you that the product is linked (ie: it appears in two or more categories.

What is the best way to list all the related/linked products?

If I search for a product, will I be only presented with the "original" or will it display all the linked products as well?

Thanks

Products aren't linked to each other; they're linked to categories. So if you search for a product, you'll get that product, and not any others (if your search is specific enough.)

Rob

Other than going through the category/product listings in admin > Catalog, you could examine the products2categories table in the database. That would give the fundamental product id info, which you would have to translate into product names.

You might possibly find a product under one of its linked categories instead of its master category, depending on the search method, but you will only ever find that one product; "linked" products are just a path back to the original product.
Actually I'm not familiar with search behavior in ZC and not sure how results are displayed - one or more than one?

Got it.

I guess I was expecting to see, for a given query, one product per category. In other words, if product ABC was linked to Sport > Hockey and Disco > Balls, the search results would return 2 products.

Also, I'm still a little confused about Master Categories. A thread was started awhile ago here: https://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=65121. Perhaps, you'd feel inclined to add to it?

Thanks for your time!

If a product is "linked", it will be referenced from more than one place. (As you can link a product to TWO OR MORE categories).

The MASTER category is very important, because it is the principal data record of the product.

If you were to EDIT that product data - say, to change its description or price - it's vital that you do the edit on the MASTER category product data-set.

This ensures that the new info will automatically feature on the linked data-sets.