Replies: 9 comments 15 replies
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Both mods are exceptional products by exceptional supporters of Zen Cart. Both mods are impacted in so many ways when ZC is customized that taking either to the core could involve more time maintaining and be a poor ROI. Even Moz is still "meh" on the subject. https://moz.com/learn/seo/url#:~:text=Rankings&text=While%20using%20a%20URL%20that,include%20a%20keyword%20in%20them. What about the vitamin dealer who has 50 SKUs for Calcium? How much extra effort is it going to take for the larger store owner to manage a "friendly" URL and keep it where they don't have to consult a spreadsheet each time an item is ordered in order to make sure they send the right product? You'd think if it were so beneficial, that small company with the swooshing arrow on all their packages would use them. They do use them in a way
But, you'll note they add a lot of data after the description of the item. Not so easy to do with ZC if you don't have the IT staff those guys have. And, that URL is not really friendly. They just added the folder for the product in the URL. I know it's somewhat like the bible. One group will find all the passages in the bible that support drinking alcohol and the other will find just as many references to the evil of alcohol. We host two sites that beat most of their competition quite handily and one that beats the big guy with the new fiance. Neither uses other than standard ZC URLs for clarity. I'm just not sure there's enough of an ROI for the time spent maintaining all facets of the process. I would certainly put something like Advanced Shipper or a QuickBooks interface above this in priority. For real owner assistance, Clone a Template is far more beneficial to us in testing and maintenance. So, I guess I'm more inclined to be in the group that says you might be able to turn water into wine but you still don't have to drink it to have a good time. 😄 |
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You say- "We host two sites that beat most of their competition quite handily and one that beats the big guy with the new fiance. Neither uses other than standard ZC URLs for clarity." How many of these sites are selling something regarding ZenCart? |
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A valuable response, as always.
I can only speak as a CEON user, and I haven't seen that at all. Through the years I've updated it for php and to make use of new observers: in the end despite the masses of code/multiple files it only modifies the link generation. I've rarely had to fix it for core updates. But, as always, I'm banging on about the big picture for Zen Cart... Irrespective of whether this functionality is of value or not in the real world....
Should it be there just because it is expected in 2023? This is a commercial decision, not a coding one, uncomfortable as it is. |
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Yes. |
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I have used CEON for 5 years. I can say that it works well but there was no noticable SEO benefit at all. I'm regarding Search Console data regularly. If you go back from SEO URL to standard there will be a negative impact of course because of lack of rewrite to non-Friendly-URL - of course... In CEON free package you need to re-save every of your 20.000 (or even many more) of items to create the URL. You can use the "Pro" Version of course. I did that for >2.000 products - and really - there was no measurable impact just because of the Friendly URL. Friendly URL don't make any difference to SEO, even when the structure is very deep with lots of sub-categories (this has often been a argument PRO Friendly URL). The Crawler doesn't have any problems to index deeper structures. Keeping Zen-cart secure, fast, flexible and maintainable should be high priority. |
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I'm sure you are right. It is purely aesthetic. My comments about what to add to Zen Cart are usually based on my big-picture viewpoint that the most pressing issue for the project is reversing the declining market-share to get new blood for development. Maybe I am wrong, but usually there is no further discussion from anyone who has control input to the project. |
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Correctly surmised. Let's be honest, any plugin maintained by lat9 is good enough code-wise to go into core already and if the subsequent responsibility is shared that's a good thing is it not? I've been using Ceon for years and was keeping it on life-support for a while, so should have more attachment to it than most, but still, I don't care if something else gets used/it gets retired, such is progress. |
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When you try to exclude anyone from discussion then write it properly please, so your intention can be understood: "Maybe I am wrong, but usually there is no further discussion from anyone who has [NO] control input to the project. |
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Sorry if my meaning was not clear. |
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When I'm wrong then because of language barrier. |
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No problem, nothing that cannot be resolved with a bit of understanding and courtesy. Something that is occasionally lacking here. |
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My first ever comment on GitHub. I'm not a coder - have been with ZC for 12 years + with only 3 active websites now but had more. My opinion for what it is worth is to forget the SEO aspect, that arguement will always be a draw - the tag 'SEO' added to the plugins and plastered all over the internet is nothing more than that, just a tag, and SEO gets most webmasters attention (User Friendly is a better tag). User Friendly URL's are what Customers expect and prefer (as does Google) in 2024 - it all comes down to the Customer and their expectations and their level of comfort when on the site or looking at a link to a site, (they are more comfortable reading friendly url's rather than a bunch of goglydook code). Google calls it Customer Experience. So can a version of friendly urls be included in Core as radio button selection, on/off (just like it is on many plugins)? cheers, p.s. I have to agree with Torvista - as a non coder if I was doing now in 2024 what I did in 2011 i.e. investigating which platform may be best for me to commence building my online eCommerce presence then I would not be inclined to give ZenCart a tick on that point, (if I did my homework properly on 'User Friendly URL's' aspect in comparisons). |
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Welcome to GitHub and this discussion, Mike! The more the merrier as we all want ZC to prosper. I won't dwell again on my earlier reasoning but did want to "freshen" the research I've done. IMHO, friendly URLs have gone the way of keywords. Actually, keywords were way more effective until their misuse caused Google and other SEs to drop them from consideration when ranking. When someone uses Zen Cart for their site, Google and other SEs are all over it immediately. And, once the site is indexed by the SEs, friendly URLs drop out of the picture for rank. All they are looking for in a URL is literally the address to go look at your product. Not unlike the newly married couple looking for a place to live, the address may be simply 2120 First Street or 2120 First Street, Unit 4, Apt 17. Once they get to the address, they just want to see if the accommodations are as advertised. Imagine that apartment 17 is advertised as a large one bedroom and the bedroom would not fit a king-sized bed. They will be telling everyone about the bad description regardless of the unit's location. So, what the SEs look for after indexing (in order of their importance) is Accessibility, HTML/CSS Validation, and proper links (internal and external). Next comes page speed and mobile/responsive friendliness. Even domain age comes into play before friendly URLs once the site is indexed. A while back, I did a little bit of research that you may want to take a look at. This research was done using a load of 1.5.8a with demo items and no other mods. Home page to home page. I'm sure some of the other folks have improved in an area or two since my research but, ZC 2.0.0 is looking like it will wind up with higher scores. This is what needs to be "sold" to the would-be store owner. What's not on the chart is page load speed. Some of my testing with 2.0.0 and bootstrap show a desktop speed of 0.5 seconds and a mobile of 2.2 seconds. The mobile with demo items is slow due to image sizes. One of our hosting clients has a special shipping situation that forced them to go to Shopify. They report that their sales are up slightly (ease of shipping being the reason) but the fees ($$ for this and $$ for that) are eating up what they are gaining. To my mind, shipping and payment methods should be of higher priority. One customer sells flags and flag poles. Without Advanced Shipper, they would not be able to manage what goes with which carrier. Multi-Ship would be of benefit to them if a large automotive dealership chain wanted to send new flags to each of their dealers. But, again, these are things that will require someone to manage. While I will always do what I can for Zen Cart, like you I am not well-versed in PHP. Edit-- No sooner than I hit enter, the following link showed up in my email. Very interesting. |
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I agree that Friendly URL's have nothing to do with ranking and having read anumber of opinions including those by Torvista I now think that they likely should remain as plugins, however prominently marketed by ZenCart as readily available, easily installed and reliable etc. etc. |
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And, looking at the above, I also found something many of my customers could use. We already have Featured Products, but what about adding Featured Categories? |
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To prevent thread drift, would you please create a new discussion on this topic? Then I'll remove this reply. |
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These kind of "friendly" URL become very unfriendly when the shop has some substancial amount of subcategories. Instead of a short dynamic URL we get a horrible long "friendly" URL. As dbltoe says there really are other functions which would improve the shop quality IMHO |
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Who cares if it improves SEO or not? answer: NEW/POTENTIAL USERS (who don't know any better, yet), but who are desperately needed. |
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Someone is confused. https://www.BIG_GUY.com/Nature-Made-Calcium-Magnesium-Vitamin/dp/B000OD1F7U?pd_rd_w=0x1eX&content-id=amzn1.sym.1a072a44-84d1-4c51-bf0f-3547594e8217&pf_rd_p=1a072a44-84d1-4c51-bf0f-3547594e8217&pf_rd_r=DSQWZZE97BXP3PBZ3KDZ&pd_rd_wg=MoG2O&pd_rd_r=aca81c85-68a6-48e5-814f-a98d4fe81dc6&pd_rd_i=B000OD1F7U&psc=1&ref_=pd_bap_d_grid_rp_0_1_ec_i is not the URL. https://www.BIG_GUY.com/Nature-Made-Calcium-Magnesium-Vitamin/dp/B000OD1F7U is the url. The rest of the numbers and letters are unique to this particular search. Instead of debating back and forth ad naseum, and quoting the first "expert" who sort of agrees with you, ask google what they want to see. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/url-structure After 15 years, I'm looking to bail from Zencart because they don't have a native SEO friendly URL structure. When the simple seo url module quit working for us, it likely cost us thousands of dollars in lost sales. Now I'm going to try the CEON one. The main reason I haven't switched is that we have thousands of products and I haven't found another platform with the same sort of Multiple Category Link Manager function as ZenCart. If there is one, please let me know. |
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I'll note that Ultimate SEO URLs (USU) (https://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=132) is similar in its setup/usage to the Simple SEO URLs. |
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I'm sorry for my English. It isn't too easy to follow every of your details. I ll try. The Google link you send is interesting. At an certain Shop with 2000 products and daily 400 users there was enough data. For me the data shows that Google Crawlers had been able ago to index deeper sub-categories (tested up to 5) already many years ago. I can say that CEON URL installation is very simple, well documented and CEON URL really just works perfectly. I can't say anything about other URL plugins. I understand when anyone wants to use Friendly URL. I really do. The question ist not whether a certain function or a plug-in are useful or not. Easier zen-cart upgrades to newest version. No extra plug-in needed. -> PRO |
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That's a huge cost. What was your process for finding a contractor to fix it? Why do you believe you were unsuccessful in getting this done? |
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Yawn, boring but necessary discussion. Times have changed since the RodG (RIP) discussions.
Native URL:
https://www.shop.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_5&products_id=8113
URL rewriting:
https://www.shop.com/Widgets/Small Widgets/widget1
Whether you want/use it or not, is it not expected in 2023 that an ecommerce solution offers this functionality?
We have two plugins.
Ultimate
https://github.com/lat9/usu
Ceon
free a: https://github.com/JSWebSteve/Ceon-URI-Mapping-V5.1.0
So maintenance time and efforts are going to two places.
Should this functionality be in core?
If so, which should be used as a base? - Opinions from devs with experience of both?
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