Expired Listings

[seymourjames +]

In my expired listings, I am seeking a unique variable for that listing such as the page number from the url that I can place in the listing title - even a number. When I use debug, it does not seem to show the variables available. For example, I would like to set the title of this advert Property In France - Charming Stone Property In Gironde when it expires to say property in france - 140 or even keep the whole title if possible. A quick shout will help. This is because there may be links out there to expired listings.

[seymourjames +]

Is there anyway to stop a listing being deleted when it has expired so it retains its URL but it is not linked to its category. Basically it gets assigned to a category called 'expired'. This category can then be made visible (linkable) or invisible to the visitor.

The Problem: The reason for this is that the search engines will keep looking for a listing once it has expired and will keep getting the same listings expired page. From an SEO point of view this is bad because the search engine will potentially see hundreds of duplicate pages as listings expire.

[seymourjames +]

Any ideas about this?

The preferable solution is that expired ads continue in force but they are not linked to there category but go into a new category called expired which can be orphaned from the main site or linked very low down in the hierarchy.

[Eric Barnes +]

My only guess would be to edit the getListingById method in the Listings class.

It currently checks for:
$sSQL .= ' AND display="Y" AND expiration > NOW()';

So you would need to remove the expiration clause and check with php for what to do next. Could get pretty complex.

[Lhotch +]

I would say just modify /includes/cron.php.

goto th section that determines if an ad is to be deleted, alter the query so that instead of deleting it it simply changes the ads category. The ad is likely already set to no display because it expired so you may need to alter that as well if you want the ad to stay visible.

From a unique variable standpoint, cant you just append the ad ID to the URL string?

[seymourjames +]

I did that with the ID to make the url, title and description unique and a message that the advert had expired but here are a few alternatives - in my case I just present them with 5 randomly chosen listings. Better if I could arrange to show them something from the same category. I may try to do that. It would make more sense. A similar listings type function.

I suppose the issue for me and perhaps others is that if we have large batches of ads expiring the site can thin pretty quickly. In an emergency (i.e. a big block of ads were coming up to expire) what would be the best way to extend the expiration period. Changing each ad individually in the admin panel would take time.

[Lhotch +]

Originally Posted by seymourjames

I suppose the issue for me and perhaps others is that if we have large batches of ads expiring the site can thin pretty quickly. In an emergency (i.e. a big block of ads were coming up to expire) what would be the best way to extend the expiration period. Changing each ad individually in the admin panel would take time.

expiration is a datetime field in the listing database and is populated at ad creation with a datetime based on the packages listing duration. You could do a bulk change of records based on a condition via the mysql command line or probably from phpmyadmin.

[seymourjames +]

I will go the phpadmin route. I have a few months before a big batch need changing to let them go gracefully. Thanks Larry.