Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

Okay, a few more changes:

Thanks to Jayk, I found that the Froogle urls were not being constructed properly. I've corrected the issue in SVN (waiting for confirmation from Jayk that it exports correctly this time).

If anyone wants the updated files:
http://x-cart-seo.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ <-- go here

The outputfilter and the install documentation were changed for Froogle SEO functionality to work.

I likely won't be able to make any more updates until Monday, everyone have a good weekend.

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

I replaced the outpufilter.seo.php file and get this error when exporting for Froogle:



** Nevermind, you have to change the froogle.php file per the instructions as well

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

When I export for froogle, the link field in the file truncates the URL

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

I found the same thing with 4.1.3.

Jason

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

Hi Intel,

Thanks for the quick answer :-) I thought that Google had some hidden bots that come in on different aliases so you couldnt track them? Im still a bit confused as to why you added these on but im known for being a bit simple!!!!

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

@Chris: google has search engine bots that harvest images, text, etc, and should all be detected as bots (assuming X-Cart's bots file works correctly). google *also* has a proxy bot that visits your webpage and caches the results.

There are theories that google will catch attempts to "lie" to the search engine bots, by comparing the search engine page cache against the proxy cache.

So if this is a concern to you, you can find the proxy IP addresses for google (which I believe *are* available online, I've seen mention of the IPs in the past), and add each IP to X-Cart's bot list.

My intention with this modification is to properly rewrite URLs, so that X-Cart still functions as it normally would, and where I can, I try to direct bots to the url that they should specifically see, to avoid duplicate content. There's pros & cons, because if you were to use x-cart without XC SEO, you would likely get penalized for duplicate content. But then if you use the XC SEO modification, you might get penalized for hiding info from google or whatever.

The choice is up to you. If it appears to be a bit risky, you might try looking into the commercial SEO modifications, in case their authors have input on how their own SEO mods handle search engines.

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

Okay, outputfilter.seo.php and the Install documentation has been updated in the SVN repository. In my own testing on 4.1.2, urls in the Froogle export now work correctly (I didn't have enough time on Friday to properly test & debug). I'm working on a couple of additional changes, and then I'll post a new release.

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

What a fantastic mod, thank you. Works great on v4.0.18.

In config.php is it possible to 'inject' more than one keyword?

Seeing as the homepage is the most important page for SEO, is it possible to rewrite home.php to index.html ?

Thanks,
Phil

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

@phil: i might turn the keyword injection into an array list later on for multiple keywords, but for now, you can create a string like so:
'keyword1-keyword2-keyword3'

Regarding home.php rewritten as index.html, i'll consider that as a near-future feature add :-)

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

That would be a great feature - looking forward to it!

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

Why rewrite? Use:
in your .htaccess and your home page will be www.domain.com If you are concerned about duplicate content for internal links to home.php just block home.php in robots.txt

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

I personally already use the DirectoryIndex command, so I agree with you there gecko ;-)

I'm curious though, aside from listing categories, is the home.php file used in any other URL structure? I'm just concerned that there might be functionality in home.php that might be blocked by the robots.txt file

I haven't checked into this, so if anyone can post with certainty regarding the existence of home.php in any urls that are NOT category-specific, that would be great.

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

home.php is just used for the home page and category listings.

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

thanks for the confirm gecko ;-)

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

If home.php became index.html, the homepage would appear to be a static HTML page, which would be better for SEO, simple as that.

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

the file extension isn't important to SE's (at least, google, which is my personal focus), what's important is getting rid of variables in the url and providing what appears to be a static url.

Additionally, if a user/SE visited your domain with the DirectoryIndex set to home.php, they would not see index.html in the URL, unless there is some location within your website that specifically referenced home.php in a url.

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

I agree the extension isn't important but for the major search engines getting rid of the variables isn't really important. Google was the first search engine to crawl dynamic URL's and does a good job of it. Yahoo and MSN now crawl dynamic URL's too. I thought the goal was to keyword stuff the URL's to help with ranking.

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

Should I add anything to DirectoryIndex home.php if I have x-cart located
in the subfolder /shop? Because if I use the above syntax, it still shows
leukstewinkel.nl/shop/home.php...
Thanks!

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

I apologize, the keyword bit is what I consider a part of the static url, so for me that was "understood" ;-)

anyways, i'm not concerned about home.php as-is, seems it would be more trouble than needed to rewrite home.php, so that will be a "not-anytime-soon" feature


@Jerrad: my htaccess has

Which works for me. Additionally, I do not have any index file in my x-cart main folder. Seems to me like you have a redirect setup, because if I visit leukstewinkel.nl/shop/, I get redirected to leukstewinkel.nl/shop/home.php

EDIT: the appropriate functionality should be that the /shop/ url should show up, without needing to display the home.php part (tho again, if x-cart mentions home.php, users/search engines will still hit home.php directly at some point)

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

Some how it does seems to work now...
Meaning, that most of the time only the domain name will show up, but sometimes
it will display also the home.php behind it.

Any idea what could cause this?

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

I guess I was trying to point out that I think home.php vs. index.html for the home page is a big who cares for SEO. AFAIK there would be no ranking difference in the search engines as neither adds any relevant keywords to index. To me DirectoryIndex has more to do with changing your underlying home page from home.php to index.html, index.cfm, index.asp or whatever your technology du jour is without breaking home page links and bookmarks.

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

You guys are looking at this in the wrong way. Instead of worrying about if it is home.php or home.html, you should redirect everything to www.domain.com. www.domain.com is one page and www.domain.com/home.php is another to the search engines. So again, this is another duplicate content issue.

I'll work on adding this into the code as an optional feature when I get home tonight.

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

hi,
i have purchase the paid version of SEO.
but i found that this one is better, as we can modify the source code for our need!

great job!

however, may i know why we need to disable:
SEO in the https connection?

if(AREA_TYPE=='C' && $HTTPS != "on" && $seo_enable) in the auth.php

is there any reason?

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

because rewriting urls when in HTTPS mode can break the website depending on your website configuration. Additionally, bots should have no need to access the HTTPS section of your site (someone even told me that bots aren't supposed to index HTTPS...)

so it's for stability/usability purposes mainly.

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

good point

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

Possible bug... In v4.0.18 the rating system seems to stop working.

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

Thanks for the report Phil, I'll check into it

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

Okay, this has been fixed, and will be in the next release. If everyone could please test all *forms* that are available in x-cart, to find anything else that is broken, that would be great.

Re: XC SEO Lite v1.0.0 Released
 

XC SEO v1.1.0 has been released, new thread has been opened.

XC SEO v1.1.0

XC SEO Lite v1.0.6 will stay attached to this thread for historical purposes.