changing current 4.0 store to 5.0
 

I am currently running version 4.1.8 and want to go to version 5 of xcart. I have about 2000 products and use a static html catalog. I dont want to lose my search engine rankings on the existing HTML pages. Any advice on best way to direct the old site to the new store. I was not sure if version 5 even gives me the ability to create static html pages?

Re: changing current 4.0 store to 5.0
 

Snowfox,
X-Cart 5 does indeed have the ability to create static pages. Static html catalogs are a thing of the past, but both the current version of X-Cart 4 (4.7.4) and X-Cart 5 have clean URL capabilities that will eliminate your concerns about losing your rankings.

Definitely need to be careful in this department. Your goal will be to have every old URL, resolve exactly the same in the upgraded store. This is definitely achievable using the clean URLs feature.

Talking about the process of moving, start out by building the new site in a subdirectory or on another server. Then you can test and get everything 100% working before the launch.

Re: changing current 4.0 store to 5.0
 

Great advice, thanks so much, this definitely helps!

Re: changing current 4.0 store to 5.0
 

In addition to what Mike has said, you will be able not only to generate clean URLs automatically for all products, but define you own URL for each and every page, so you can easily make it the same as in your current cart.

Re: changing current 4.0 store to 5.0
 

Perfect!

Re: changing current 4.0 store to 5.0
 

I am about ready to purchase the upgrade from my longtime use of x-cart 4.3.1 to the latest ver. 5.

I want to first install the html portion in a new subdirectory so I can test it out, but want to use the version 4-to-5 import module to imports all my product, categories, shipping and customers from the existing MySQL database.
Will the import module let me import everything from the existing MySQL database into a new database? I want to keep the current store online until the new Version 5 is ready and all existing products, images and customers are imported and working.

Lew Schucart