Clean url problem!

I have painted myself into a corner on my site and am not sure if there is a fix for this. Seems like there should be one.



I started the site using the default settings. Later I found the clean urls - oh how cool, much better, gotta use those. Well, now I am getting Google errors left and right. Those old 'ugly' links (whatever they're called) deliver a 404 page instead of directing to the page with the clean url. Is there anyway to tie the old url to the new?



Thanks,

Jeanne

I'm not sure why they would be giving you 404 errors, I thought the links worked anyways.



But, if that is the case, this is one solution:



1.) Record your SEO addon settings (write them down)

2.) Disable the SEO addon

3.) Export your products (Product code & Product url)

4.) Enable the SEO addon

5.) Change the settings to what you want (Step 1)

6.) Export your products (Product code & Product url)



Now, here comes the tricky part.



7.) Open both files in Excel

8.) Sort the file by Product code

9.) Copy the Product url column from one file into the other

10.) Find and Replace http://www.yourdomain.com with nothing



You should now have 3 columns in your Excel file (Product code & Product url (old) & Product url (new))



11.) Use a formula to build a 4th column for your redirects (I've attached a file that has the formula)

12.) At the bottom of your main .htaccess file, paste in your redirects



I hope all that makes sense and helps you out. Although I am still curious to why the links just don't work anyways. I just tested this on my test server and the links work fine so that is kind of weird.



Thanks,



Brandon

redirect_example.zip

I believe the links within CS-Cart are working and redirecting just fine, but Jeanne (the OP) is referring to the links she saw in Google Webmaster Tools console under “crawl errors”.



These come from Google not finding anymore the old links it had indexed prior to the SEO changes, because now they don't exist anymore except in Google's memory (index cache).



If they had any SEO value (i.e. external backlinks pointing to them, or a position within the first 50 search results), then a 301 redirect is a good idea, otherwise she can just do nothing and let time take care of that.



Google will recognize the content in its future crawls and will eventually replace the urls in its index. And slowly these crawl errors will disappear from WMT.



Based on my experience, even if you want to expedite this and create the 301 redirects, it may be weeks/months before the old ones disappear from the console.

If that is what she is referring too, than you are correct.



After doing some searching through Google, I found plenty of her old links and when I click on them, I go to the appropriate page.



For example, http://custom-cartoon-gifts.printedperfection.com/index.php?dispatch=products.view&product_id=29880



Oh well, maybe my instructions will help someone else in the future. Never know I guess.



Thanks,



Brandon

You all are both right. :blink: This is an issue to drive me batty! LOL



Google shows them and I have been removing them every few days, but they are STILL in the search results too. I have personally found about five or six of them.



I will follow Brandon’s advice to be safe. There is a reason why your forum rank is super awesome!! Those instruction, though I couldn’t repeat two of the steps now, made perfect sense and were detailed enough that I can follow them! Thank you for your time!!



Thanks to both of ya! B)

Storekeeper replied in this thread but I can’t find it now (it was in my email).



He said: [quote]I believe the links within CS-Cart are working and redirecting just fine, but Jeanne (the OP) is referring to the links she saw in Google Webmaster Tools console under “crawl errors”.



These come from Google not finding anymore the old links it had indexed prior the SEO changes, because they don’t exist anymore except in Google’s memory (index cache).



If they had any SEO value (i.e. external backlinks pointing to them) then a 301 redirect may be a good idea, otherwise Google will recognize the content in its future crawls and will replace the urls in its index. And slowly these crawl errors will disappear.



Based on my experience, even if you want to expedite this and create the 301 redirects, it may be weeks/months before the old ones disappear from the console.

[/quote]



Oddly enough, this is mostly true. I checked Google again and all the links going to category pages and a few going to the products work, but most of the links going directly to the product page are returning a 404.



For the purpose of ranking, especially since this is a new site, I think I need to do the Excel trick. This would probably alleviate the work of going into Google and removing those urls each time they pop up.



I sure appreciate the help that people provide in this forum. Everyone is so friendly, even support is friendly. I am very happy to have chosen csCart! :D

One more question on this thread if you don't mind - sorry for the repeated posts. I didn't see this before.



When I do the export I am not getting the true url of the product, I am getting a url that goes to the backup folder.



I think this might be because the “Files” setting is set to:

/home/printedp/public_html/custom-cartoon-gifts/var/downloads/backup





Would this be the problem? Do you know what the setting should be? Or if this isn't it, can you advise?



I selected the product and url for the export, though it gives me nearly everything anyway.

The product URL is the product URL. If you aren't getting that than make sure that the data feeds addon and google base addons are both installed and active.



If the product URL isn't in the standard export, maybe it is in the data feed addon.



Once you check on that, you should be able to go to administration => Export => Products => Product tab



Then clear the fields and then move only the Product code and Product url things back to the left side.



Hope that gets you a step further.



Thanks,



Brandon

[quote name=‘PrintedPerfection’ timestamp=‘1319903415’ post=‘124839’]

Storekeeper replied in this thread but I can’t find it now (it was in my email).



He said: [/quote]

“She” said, maybe? We women can be storekeepers too! ;)




[quote name=‘PrintedPerfection’ timestamp=‘1319903415’ post=‘124839’]

For the purpose of ranking, especially since this is a new site, I think I need to do the Excel trick. This would probably alleviate the work of going into Google and removing those urls each time they pop up.

[/quote]

Being this a new site, likely without backlinks or good SERP positions, there is no harm in waiting since all pages are starting from the bottom. The good ones will rise, the others disappear as Google clean up its index in time. I would personally just let Google do its work itself, and would worry about something else. Now, if you had backlinks or a good SERP position, then it would be a different situation.



But that’s just me, since I still have a lot of homework to do on my own site setup. Yours already look great!




[quote name=‘PrintedPerfection’ timestamp=‘1319903415’ post=‘124839’]

I sure appreciate the help that people provide in this forum. Everyone is so friendly, even support is friendly. I am very happy to have chosen csCart! :D

[/quote]

I share your feelings and am happy I’m not alone in this! :D

Any “dispatch” (.xyz Domain Names | Join Generation XYZ type of URL) should return without error unless the 'variable=value' is no longer valid (like a removed category or product). Any SEO name is ALWAYS converted to a controller dispatch internally if it is a known name to the system. Obviously if you have a static page called .xyz Domain Names | Join Generation XYZ it will be invoked without the cart ever even initializing…

[quote name=‘Storekeeper’ timestamp=‘1319908105’ post=‘124853’]

“She” said, maybe? We women can be storekeepers too! ;)







Being this a new site, likely without backlinks or good SERP positions, there is no harm in waiting since all pages are starting from the bottom. The good ones will rise, the others disappear as Google clean up its index in time. I would personally just let Google do its work itself, and would worry about something else. Now, if you had backlinks or a good SERP position, then it would be a different situation.



But that’s just me, since I still have a lot of homework to do on my own site setup. Yours already look great!





I share your feelings and am happy I’m not alone in this! :D

[/quote]



You’re a sweet[size=“5”]he[/size]a[size=“5”]r[/size]t! And, I’m sorry, you’re right - I have never seen your pic, the post was missing, so I wasn’t trying to imply that you had hair on your knuckles! LOL :lol:





It is a new site, the only backlinks to speak of are from another one of my sites, Facebook and eBAY. Back in the day links from eBAY were killer awesome for SEO but apparently they have changed things because I am getting nothing from them now.



Will read through the other replies and play it by ear. If it’s not going to take an act of Congress I will try to repair it, if not I will go onto the next thing.



Thank you for the compliments on the site, it’s a standard template, BUT I am working on a matching static site so people can flip through pages of thumbnails by category that will show each item in different colors (mat colors) then link to the shopping cart. I think this might be better for selling and will definitely give me some content for the spiders.

[quote name='tbirnseth' timestamp='1319912715' post='124860']

Any “dispatch” (.xyz Domain Names | Join Generation XYZ type of URL) should return without error unless the 'variable=value' is no longer valid (like a removed category or product). Any SEO name is ALWAYS converted to a controller dispatch internally if it is a known name to the system. Obviously if you have a static page called .xyz Domain Names | Join Generation XYZ it will be invoked without the cart ever even initializing…

[/quote]



Ah ha! You might be onto something here! I have been correcting the categories that some products are in. So, some of the cartoons were in categories, say, A, C & F, then I corrected them and put them in A, B & D.



Would this be the issue?