htaccess help?

[jsdva]

I need an .htaccess person's help, with a side of SEO person, since it is beginning to feel as though I am jumping too many hoops and getting lost while trying to get where I want. Individually, things are basic, but when I put them all together with too many different stops, that's where I get lost.

And, yes, I saw the ht-access.pdf on the blog, which doesn't help me with my specifics, did a forum search, and have gone through so many internet searches that I am reduced to banging-head-on-desk.

I am redesigning an MMUI store, which has most of its pages outside of Miva, into an CSSUI Miva 5.5 store with all pages inside the application:

Existing pages' path: domain-name.com/page.htm - these are the pages on the old site of which I am re-doing all and putting them all into Miva, so none of these will exist.

Miva Merchant newly created pages' path: All use short links. Some are domain-name.com/subfolder/page.html (you know the drill on the short link folders) while others are domain-name.com/page.html (note they are .html and not .htm as are the existing pages). I did not set this up, but advice on setting it up differently to make the switch easier will be fine if I should go that route.

How I want the pages to display: domain-name.com/page.html (Note: with the .html file extension instead of the .htm as the existing pages are, and without the /subfolder/ folders)

So, basically, I am keeping the existing pages' path, with the exception of making them the file extension .html instead of .htm, while forcing www, and having SFNT.html as DirectoryIndex (the index page is also .htm in the existing pages, so not sure if other methods cover it to turn htm into html)

I don't want to lose any SEO juice in any of it, so input/exceptions for that, if you have it, would be great.

I've found all kinds of examples, but most are not meeting my needs specifically, plus it just seems like there is something I am missing or a specific combination I am not familiar with and not finding, I have no real examples of where I am at, since I've started/scratched it/started over/etc/etc/stomped on it multiple times/shredded it/laughed maniacally as shredding, and ran here to the forum.

If it makes a difference, the new site is hosted with Miva/Hostasaurus on a CSSUI v5.5.

I hope someone can help.

Thanks so much,

Jamie

[Pete McNamara]

Re: htaccess help?

Jamie, unless "page" in the current store, represents the product or category code, I don't think you achieve what you want. With short links, the product code is the identifier for Miva for product pages and the category code for category pages and the Screen name for the other pages. These must be in the short link. Perhaps you could give some more specific examples of what "page" means and how those examples should appear after the rewrites.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: htaccess help?

Well, most of what I know I learned from Pete, so don't know if this helps (cause I could have learned it wrong<g>)...but, SEs, for the most part, don't care if a URL ends in .htm or .html, or even .php for that matter.

No Sub-Directory
Can probably be done...however, I'd strongly recommend against it as it WILL cause problems down the line.

If there are not TOO many links (i.e., less than several hundred) I 'd go ahead and Add the sub directory to the URL then create a specific list of 301 Redirects in the Htaccess file. Let them run for a month or two, and by then, the SEs should have the new links indexed. Use an XML Site map (like Moogle<g>) to speed up that process.

If there are HUGE amounts of links, you might try pointing those links to a script process inside of Merchant that tried to determine if the link is a category or product (i.e., Look at URL, see if there is a Category Match, if so, go there, if not, look for product.)
And, do the site map stuff with the new links.

[jsdva]

Re: htaccess help?

Thank you both for your input Pete and Bruce. I have found a module that can do what I need done for the most part, which is a good thing since there are a whole lot of categories and over 1700 products, so going manual was not something that I wanted to do if I could help it, and so I was trying to find a fast .htaccess route instead of writing redirects for so many categories/products/pages individually.

Pete: As for the page, sorry, I should have said page-name/category-name/etc. Yes, they would be the category and product names, but still I am looking at a whole lot of categories and products, so I was truly hoping for some sort of shortcut. They would be written as:

Category: http://www.domain-name.com/category-title.html
Product: http://www.domain-name.com/product-name.html
Other Pages: http://www.domain-name.com/page-name.html (for the about, contact, and other pages that will be put into Miva.)

Pete and Bruce: Even after the module, I still was thinking that I'd like the htm to html. Main reason for this is that all of the current pages are htm and Miva generates html, and for the module, that portion would still need to be in the htaccess. This is what I've found so far:

RewriteRule ^(.+)\.html$ $1.htm [L]
###OR Simpler (wildcard redirect any .html to .htm):
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^(.+)\.htm$ http://www.domain-name.com/$1.html [R,NC]

And, of course, I'll force www with:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.domain-name\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.domain-name.com$1 [R=301]

But, then you can find a lot of junk on the Internet, so if anything in these are wrong, you won't hurt my feelings if you tell me so [grin], as well as anything else for future reference.

Any more advice will be truly appreciated,

Jamie

[Pete McNamara]

Re: htaccess help?

Jamie, I think you are missing a point - it is product code and category code that is critical. You mention only product name and category name - while these can be incorporated in short links, they are not required. Whereas product code and category code are required. You cannot write short links for Miva, that do not incorporate these.

[jsdva]

Re: htaccess help?

Yep, I was missing that Pete. Thank you for explaining.

Jamie

[jsdva]

Re: htaccess help?

Okay, folks, for posterity and for those that have issues similar to my client's regarding page names, htm to html, etc, I have found a solution that worked to perfectly resolved that issue for my client:

Kent Multer of themagicm.com has a Page Finder module, which allowed us to name the pages as we wanted them to be....Piece of cake!.....Very good price plus he installs at that great price too!...And, excellent support.......So easy that we never once felt a thing!! I, and my client, are so completely satisfied and happy with the module!

So, maybe this will help the next person that hits that point of head-pounding-keyboard-frustration-level.

Jamie