Re: XC SEO v1.1.0 Released
 

I'm a bit confused here (thought this was completely working -- maybe I was mistaken).

I have this mod installed, and it is working almost everywhere ... here is my problem:

On my home.php page I have dynamically loaded images to products. The href for these images is reloaded through javascript using the getElementById(), e.g.,

eval("document.getElementById('SE_Anchor"+i+"').hr ef = 'product.php?productid=1&sku="+imageNum+"';");

For example, for imageNum=3000, this dynamically reassigns the href to "product.php?productid=1&sku=3000".

If I place this on the page as a hard anchor: <a href="product.php?productid=1&sku=3000">test</a> then it correctly gets translated to: http://www.miniature-giant.com/kyra-and-lavarath-Reaper-sku-3000-Dark-Heaven-Legends-DHL-pr-1020.html
But if I dynamically reassign the href (as above), then:
1) in the status bar, it shows the "product.php?productid=1&sku=3000" link
2) if clicked, in the address bar, it shows the html version (shown above).

Is this a problem for the spiders? I mean, will I not get credit for the link as an html link on the home page? Will the spiders count it somehow as duplicate content (since two "links" resolve to the same content, i.e., the php & the html urls)?

I "thought" that the status bar was showing the html link for these dynamic links yesterday -- maybe not, been a very long, um, 6 months.

Thanks for any insights,
James

Re: XC SEO v1.1.0 Released
 

teddychan, the currency mod that you have enabled is not supported by XC SEO. you would have to modify the source code to enable support of that currency mod, or I can find an alternative solution for you when I have time

Miniature giant, i've been thinking about using SKU instead of ProductID for awhile now (and I lament the fact that I did not use skus originally...). you could actually replace the productid usage with the sku usage, which would reduce needless fluff in your rewritten url (i've found many users often search google using a sku, which would be better to have in your url than a productid)

Additionally, regarding your issue with urls in the javascript:
#1. if I remember correctly, urls aren't being rewritten in the javascript, to prevent unforeseen issues with the myriad javascript functions in x-cart
#2. when a user visits your product.php url, they are being 301-redirected to the proper HTML url. I don't know about google specifically, but search engines typically do not have javascript enabled. even if they did, and if they visited the .php url, you might not gain points for pointing to a page deep in your site, but i don't see why you would get penalized for duplicate content, since a 301-redirect exists.

You would get penalized for duplicate content if XC SEO didn't redirect users from the product.php url :-) (which, btw, i believe the commercial xcart seo mods don't redirect from the old php urls, so their customers are starting to get penalized)

Re: XC SEO v1.1.0 Released
 

Thanks for the reply.
The XC SEO appears to be working, in that I see the html in the status (non-JavaScript links), and they resolve correctly. However,...
I installed a siteMap generator yesterday (specifically, XML-SiteMapsGenerator from SafetyNetWeb) and ran it on my site. After many hours (still not done), I have been scanning the resultant, partial, sitemap. I note many different links to the same content, e.g.,:
http://www.miniature-giant.com/urban-legend-sophie-72mm-Reaper-sku-1504-Special-Edition-SE-c-410-p-1-pr-20.html
http://www.miniature-giant.com/urban-legend-sophie-72mm-Reaper-sku-1504-Special-Edition-SE-c-410-p-2-pr-20.html
The product name, short description title, sku, category, and product number match. These two html links are to the same product page. However, the "p-#" is different. This product happens to be on the second page of a category that is presented on two pages. This appears to indicate that there are links to this product on each of the two pages. I tried scanning for another sku (7001), which is in a different category:

http://www.miniature-giant.com/mark-iv-specter-Reaper-sku-7001-Combat-Assault-Vehicle-CAV-c-249-p-1-pr-1240.html
http://www.miniature-giant.com/mark-iv-specter-Reaper-sku-7001-Combat-Assault-Vehicle-CAV-c-249-p-12-pr-1240.html
http://www.miniature-giant.com/mark-iv-specter-Reaper-sku-7001-Combat-Assault-Vehicle-CAV-c-249-p-8-pr-1240.html
http://www.miniature-giant.com/mark-iv-specter-Reaper-sku-7001-Combat-Assault-Vehicle-CAV-c-249-p-9-pr-1240.html
http://www.miniature-giant.com/mark-iv-specter-Reaper-sku-7001-Combat-Assault-Vehicle-CAV-c-249-p-5-pr-1240.html
This category (#249) is spread across 12 pages. It is possible that when the sitemap generator is done, it will "find" links to this product on all 12 pages of the category.
Of course, this product is only linked to on one of the pages (#1). I assume that this would result in the search engines slamming me for multiple content, even though (or perhaps because) these html links all resolve to the same "real" page.
My thought, based on your reference in your last reply, is to remove the "-p-#-pr-#" from the html links. However, since I'm not sure how exactly this php>html>page is working, I wasn't sure if I would need to modify additional code in, say, products.php to accomodate the absence of the "p" and "pr" values. For example, modify the code to use the sku value to lookup the product in the db. Or, perhaps, the "real" parameter passing is still occuring behind the scenes and the form of the html text that is desplayed is irrelavant.
Is this a multiple content problem?
Can I simply remove the "p" and "pr" references from the html links, or will I have to modify the php code to use the sku instead?
Does another/simplier way to resolve this problem come to mind?
I'm very interested in any thoughts on this matter.
--James
P.S. I also noticed that many products had both a "normal" html link and a "printable" link. When I surf to these two html links, they are of the same product, but have somewhat different content (missing nav bars, graphics, etc.). Would this cause a "multiple content" problem or no? Again, thanks!

Re: XC SEO v1.1.0 Released
 

In digging through the code, I think that I understand what is happening, though I am still at a loss as to how best to resolve it.
I believe:
#1) that since each catalog page contains a link to the other pages in that category (at the top and bottom of the catalog page), and
#2) since a product is either on the current catalog page OR on one of pages linked to by these category page links, then
#3) each page of a category's catalog has either a direct link to the product, or a secondary link to the same product, and
#4) the XC SEO is using the "p" value corresponding to the catalog page that has the redirect, not the catalog page that the product is truely on.
Any ideas?

Also, if a product is in more than one category, will this also cause multiple html links due to the presence of the category number in the html links?

Re: XC SEO v1.1.0 Released
 

You are correct in your analysis, except regarding "duplicate content". If I had implemented this mod without any thought towards avoiding duplicate content, then I would agree with you that this would definitely lead to duplicate content.

As it stands, the mod smartly displays only urls that a search engine should see (to the search engine). additionally, if a search engine happened to find this url:
http://www.miniature-giant.com/mark-iv-specter-Reaper-sku-7001-Combat-Assault-Vehicle-CAV-c-249-p-1-pr-1240.html

then XC SEO would redirect the search engine to:
http://www.miniature-giant.com/mark-iv-specter-Reaper-sku-7001-Combat-Assault-Vehicle-CAV-pr-1240.html

What I normally do to test, is go into bots.php, at the bottom, the variables that are being set regarding bots? set them all to true or Y or whatever the appropriate values would be (you'll have to look at the code). This will make everyone evaluate as a bot (so hopefully your website isn't live yet). Then you can go through your site and see how you (as a bot) are treated by XC SEO.

If you still find discrepancies, please let me know

Re: XC SEO v1.1.0 Released
 

Sounds promissing.
But, if I submit a site-map to Google that contains both of those html urls (p1 & p2), will Google then just follow the site-mapped urls and see duplicate content?
If so, then perhaps this is a problem with the site map generator that I bought.
Thoughts? Thanks,
James

Re: XC SEO v1.1.0 Released
 

OPPS -- MY MISTAKE
The

Re: XC SEO v1.1.0 Released
 

OPPS - MY MISTAKE (and clumbsy fingers)

The site map generator I purchased was from "XML-Sitemaps.com" and NOT from "SafetyNetWeb" -- sorry for any confusion to anyone!!

If the problem is that my site map generator is not correctly following links as if it were a robot/spider -- perhaps I should chuck this software and use another that is more compatible with your SEO.

Any suggestions? I'm all ears!

Thanks,
James

Re: XC SEO v1.1.0 Released
 

I forumed XML-Sitemaps for some input on this problem, with the following question: "Is there a way to make XML-Sitemaps scan my site as a spider would, so that the php code that I have that acts uniquely for spiders will be employed?"

Their reply was: "The xml sitemaps script does act in the same way as robots/spiders. The way it works is that it will scan all pages for links and follow them just the same as a search engine spider would. For it to pick up links they must exist somewhere on your pages."

Any help in the problem would be much appreciated.
James

Re: XC SEO v1.1.0 Released
 

I ran the "bots.php" test that you suggested.
It DOES show html links without the page numbers.
So, it looks like they are probably wrong about their code.
Still leaves me without a site map generator.
I will try setting the number of products per page so high that I don't get any multiple pages in any categories -- but it still leaves me a bit uneasy about their code. Any suggestions or recommendations?
Thanks,
James