Guidelines to setup Miva 5.5 SEO, Short-link, Site-map features?

[daniellim]

Hi,

Are there any online documentations or detail guidelines on how to setup/use the new SEO features of Miva 5.5?

We are newbies to Miva, hoping to find some kind of instructions to make our site more search friendly, thanks.

[imnotinsane]

Re: Guidelines to setup Miva 5.5 SEO, Short-link, Site-map features?

I believe the team at Miva are working on documentation.

The SEO features are pretty easy to enable, the tricky bit is implementing the seo links on your web page. You just have to do a little bit of search and replace to make it show up on your website.

If you can post an example of how your SEO link is constructed i can show you what you need to put in each page. Here is an example for mine.

All my category pages are domain.com/category/category-code.html

All my product pages are domain.com/product/category-code/product-code.html

My category pages are manually coded in, but if you where to use miva's category tree to generate them you would need to modify your code like this.

First, make sure you select "template" in category tree page.

Then look for this section of code

<mvt:if expr="l.settings:cattree_category:image">
<a href="&mvt:global:sessionurl;Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=&mvta:store:code;&Category_Code=&mvta:cattree_category:code;"><img src="&mvte:cattree_category:image;" alt="&mvte:cattree_category:name;" border=0></a>
<mvt:else>
<a href="&mvt:global:sessionurl;Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=&mvta:store:code;&Category_Code=&mvta:cattree_category:code;">&mvt:cattree_category:name;</a>
</mvt:if>

You need to change both href like this:

<a href="http://&mvt:global:domain:name;/category/&mvta:cattree_category:code;.html">

That will make all the links in the category tree use the SEO links

To make all the category pages link to SEO products you need to do this:

Click on pages, edit the CTGY page, then in there click on Category Product List Layout, in there find all lines like this:

<a href="&mvt:global:sessionurl;Screen=PROD&Store_Code=&mvta:store:code;&Product_Code=&mvta:product:code;&Category_Code=&mvta:category:code;">

and change them to this:

<a href="http://&mvt:global:domain:name;/product/&mvta:category:code;/&mvta:product:code;.html">

Those 2 fixes should fix 70% of the links used by miva, the rest can't be simply explained, you just need to find links that aren't SEO and change them on that basis. For example a link to a basket would become something like this:

http://&mvt:global:domain:name;/BASK.html

Everything depends on what settings you choose in the SEO section, hopefully this helps you until some documentation from Miva comes out.

[lisafer]

Re: Guidelines to setup Miva 5.5 SEO, Short-link, Site-map features?

]Everything depends on what settings you choose in the SEO section, hopefully this helps you until some documentation from Miva comes out.

Thanks so much imnotinsane, because I had those questions as well, and you answered them *beautifully*.

I have just one more, if you happen to know. When I activate the short links, it wants to change my storefront page from /mm5/merchant.mvc?Store_code=SI&Screen=SFNT to just my domainname.com - is there anyway to block that change? My main index page is not the storefront page, since we don't only have an online store, but a whole design and custom furniture firm.

I want the /mm5/merchant.mvc url to be the storefront page.

[d_host]

Re: Guidelines to setup Miva 5.5 SEO, Short-link, Site-map features?

That's an easy one. Edit your .htaccess file and add this line to it:

DirectoryIndex /mm5/merchant.mvc

(or DirectoryIndex /mm5/merchant.mvc?Store_code=SI&Screen=SFNT if you want the entire longer URL to be your new home page)

[Eric]

Re: Guidelines to setup Miva 5.5 SEO, Short-link, Site-map features?

Building upon this thread. There are some thoughts here. We have SEO under the domain settings tab and how will this option work in a mall setup? "Enable SEO friendly store front"

Also if this feature is enabled we should change the store links url under the links button for the storefront because it defaults to the full SFNT string but a user may want to point back to just the domain name for SEO purposes so the homepage links are all one.

I hope that made sense. :)

Eric

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Guidelines to setup Miva 5.5 SEO, Short-link, Site-map features?

I have just one more, if you happen to know. When I activate the short links, it wants to change my storefront page from /mm5/merchant.mvc?Store_code=SI&Screen=SFNT to just my domainname.com - is there anyway to block that change?

That should only happen if you check the box next to SEO Friendly Storefront. Uncheck that box and the software won't make that assumption.

[lisafer]

Re: Guidelines to setup Miva 5.5 SEO, Short-link, Site-map features?

Thanks Rick, you're a peach. I'll get to work on the template changes that imnotinsane posted.

I have to say, I'm liking all this. I saw in the other UPS thread that the UPS server issues are being looked at and that's the only thing I've had any issues with at all.

[rushter]

Re: Guidelines to setup Miva 5.5 SEO, Short-link, Site-map features?

The question that I have is if I set up SEO and the short links will

 http://www.redlinemotors.com/product/DU96115907B.html

still point to all the links the site that are hand-coded to

 http://www.redlinemotors.com/store/merchant.mvc?Store_code=1&Screen=PROD&Product_Code=DU96115907B

???

[Pete McNamara]

Re: Guidelines to setup Miva 5.5 SEO, Short-link, Site-map features?

This search engine friendly links tutorial for V5.0 should help your understanding of how to do them. I'll try to update that tutorial in the next week or so for 5.5 (no promises though).

[PicturesqueWeb]

Re: Guidelines to setup Miva 5.5 SEO, Short-link, Site-map features?

If the linking isn't working, you can also check Global Settings/Domain Settings. It should not have the http:// or mm5/merchant.mvc in the Domain Name field. I've had at least one install where someone else felt the need to enter too much information. Also keep in mind that if you choose Custom in your Short Link Settings or include your store code, you'll have to alter the instructions above. Use the sitemap page as a point of reference for how you need to edit your links.
It would be nice if these values could be a variable instead of having to manually enter them with each link. Makes reusing code easier between sites. (Maybe there is one....I'll have to look.)

[daniellim]

Re: Guidelines to setup Miva 5.5 SEO, Short-link, Site-map features?

would it be easier to just follow the search engine friendly links tutorial by Pete? btw, Pete, do you have the tutorial up for miva 5.5?

If we are to follow the tutorial, should we turn OFF all the miva 5.5 SEO Settings before doing it?? Such as the "Enable SEO-friendly store front ", "Enable sitemap", and "Enable short links"?

[Pete McNamara]

Re: Guidelines to setup Miva 5.5 SEO, Short-link, Site-map features?

Keep a copy the .htaccess file and then turn off all of those features you mentioned. You will find that Miva will then change your .htaccess file.

Add that part of the code in the old .htaccess file that relates to the SEO-friendly store front to the new .htaccess file and then follow my tutorial to add the rest of the .htaccess file code and the code for the Miva Pages.

[daniellim]

Re: Guidelines to setup Miva 5.5 SEO, Short-link, Site-map features?

I'm not sure if I follow, so, if I understood correctly, I would have the following based on your suggestion, does it look like what you meant?


RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^(http|https)://(www.)?mydomain.com.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .(gif|jpg)$ - [F]
### Begin - Copied from Miva SEO Setting for sitemap and store front short url Miva Merchant
DirectoryIndex /Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT
### End of Miva code
### Begin - Following is code from shourt url tutorial### End
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
#
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/p/(.*)/(.*) [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) /mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=%1&Store_Cod e=ZZ [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/pc/(.*)/(.*)/(.*) [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) /mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=%1&Category_ Code=%2&Store_Code=ZZ [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/c/(.*)/(.*) [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) /mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=%1&Store_Co de=ZZ [L]

[Pete McNamara]

Re: Guidelines to setup Miva 5.5 SEO, Short-link, Site-map features?

If you are proposing to use the .htaccess code above for rewriting the short links above, then the Miva 5.5 short links are way better (same effect but far easier to use and maintain) and you should use them. The advantage of mine is that they enable you to have the product name in your product links and the category name in your category links but your proposed .htaccess doesn't show that at all. So go with the Miva 5.5 short links.

[daniellim]

Re: Guidelines to setup Miva 5.5 SEO, Short-link, Site-map features?

following your tutorial, we got the category tree links to show category name, but clicking on it gave us page-not-found error.

I think we will just go with the Miva 5.5 SEO for easier solution, but it also involves all the changings of the long links in category tree template, CTGY, PROD etc. Well, how wonderful it would be if Miva's 5.5 SEO would change all that automatically when we enable it in the Domain Settings...I wonder if that would ever happen? but it would certainly take a lot of headache out of novice and newbie like us, it is indeed a blessing :-)

thanks anyway for all the help,
Dan