Integrating SEO Links with Product name in URL

[angela]

I'm using NetBlazon SEO links for short links to the product and category pages which display as:
http://www.domain.com/product-code.html
http://www.domain.com/category-code.html

and am trying to integrate the product and category names into the URL so that it displays:
http://www.domain.com/product-name.html or category-name.html

I've been looking at this SEO Links tutorial and can't figure out how to put it together with the SEO Links module, as I have a very basic understanding of the rewrite rules...

In .htacess I have this, is it possible for them to interact:

RewriteEngine On

### Begin - SEO Links

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^([^.]+)\.html$ /mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=NBSEOLINK&thecode=$1 [L] 

### End - SEO Links

### Begin - Tutorial

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/p/(.*)/(.*)    [NC] 
RewriteRule (.*)\.html$ /mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=%1&Store_Code=TT [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/pc/(.*)/(.*)/(.*)    [NC]
RewriteRule (.*)\.html$ /mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=%1&Category_Code=%2&Store_Code=TT [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/c/(.*)/(.*)    [NC] 
RewriteRule (.*)\.html$ /mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=%1&Store_Code=TT [L]

### End - Tutorial

[Biffy]

Re: Integrating SEO Links with Product name in URL

I don't think you can do just the names. Miva requires codes to able to navigate.

What we do is write SEO Codes so that we have prodcode.html or catcode.html.

When both a code and a name is required then we write:
prodcode/prodname.html

If you need the category tree to expand and breadcrumbs to work on the PROD template you'll need a catcode. You can use Toolkit to get the catcode without passing it in the URL.

[kayakbabe]

Re: Integrating SEO Links with Product name in URL

angela,
I think you can do it with rewrites.

the trick is having something unique to identify each type of link. having the word product-xxxx.html and category-xxx.html will help.

But you have to also include something the store will know what to do with and that is the 'code'. you can not use just the names. names can be duplicated and thus are not unique. so the code... you can't escape the 'code'.

One of the examples you were looking at does is put the code in place of a 'folder' in the urls.

mydomain.com/code/product-name.html
mydomain.com/code/category-name.html

You could also do something like
mydomain.com/product-code-name.html
mydomain.com/category-code-name.html

what most people do is something more like
mydomain/SCREENCODE/code-name.html
so they can rewrite every single url in their store.

before you work on your actual rewrite rules, decide which way to include the product/category code is best.

the key is having a pattern AND using the codes.

if you just want product and category links to be rewritten, don't worry about the screen code.

[kayakbabe]

Re: Integrating SEO Links with Product name in URL

doing lookups for the codes can significantly slow down your store. it's ideal to avoid it.

[wcw]

Re: Integrating SEO Links with Product name in URL

I've been looking at this SEO Links tutorial and can't figure out how to put it together with the SEO Links module, as I have a very basic understanding of the rewrite rules...

You don't use a short links module for the links in that tutorial. It is done by simply editing the .htaccess file (as in his example) and changing the links in your pages. Here is a store running those links.
http://www.pinemporium.com/mm5/merchant.mvc
As you can see the name is in the links.

[Biffy]

Re: Integrating SEO Links with Product name in URL

As you can see the name is in the links.

So is the code. You can have code only or code + name. You can't have name only.

[cway]

Re: Integrating SEO Links with Product name in URL

William, I noticed your category URLs have category names in them, but your product URLs do not have product names in them. Is it possible to have product names in product URLs?
Does anybody have a .htaccess example?
Thanks!
Cway

[wcw]

Re: Integrating SEO Links with Product name in URL

Cameron,

Not sure what you mean. The product names ARE in the product urls. For example, http://www.pinemporium.com/pc/1S_000...NN%2C+THE.html The product code is 1S_00004. The category code is 1S_. The name is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Steve,

You have to have the code in there. That is the only unique identifier in record for lookup. You can't lookup by name. I have a dozen products with the name American Graffiti. How would it know which one you wanted. The code is the key. The poster wanted to know if you could also include the names. You can. They had a example htaccess from Pete's tutorial. The link I gave uses that link structure.

[kayakbabe]

Re: Integrating SEO Links with Product name in URL

doing lookups for the codes can significantly slow down your store. it's ideal to avoid it.

just wanted to clarify my post...

if you did just names... you would have to build some mechanism that would take that name and so an intensive lookup through the whole database of all products and look for an exact match in order to find the product code, so that the miva merchant store would work. That lookup would occur for each and every single request that your store has to do to function. It would significantly slow down your site, that is a very bad thing. And if the incoming link didn't exactly match.. there would be nothing found at all. bad. And you would still need to distinquish if it was a product, category, or some other screen. difficult from just a name. if you had duplicate names.. what then.. bad.

if you do include the code plus the name in your link, modify your htaccess to compensate, you can have names in your links. The trick is to establish a pattern that can be easily deciphered in your htaccess, so that you can feed the 'real' link that merchant understands into miva's merchant.mvc so it can do it's magic.

You really can't have names only.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: Integrating SEO Links with Product name in URL

Perhaps simplier, from a rewrite standpoint, is just to use name anchors and standard short link rewrites. For example, http://www.domain.com/product-code.h...name-goes-here. The anchor name is just ingnored in the rewrite or tacked back onto the rewritten name.