SEO : suggestion

[frommarcq]

Hi,

In SEO module, the URL are converted like this :

PHP Code:

www.name-of-the-site.com/listing/id-number/title-of-the-listing.html 


I'm note sure it is the best way to SEO. The reason : if the Search engine searches such an url :

PHP Code:

www.name-of-the-site.com/listing/123/my-old-car.html 


The search engine will understand that /123/ is a folder, and will automatically try to browse it, causing 404 errors.

The fix ?

I've changed in Listings.php

PHP Code:

$row['link']="listing/".$row['id']."/".$listing_title.".html"; 


with

PHP Code:

$row['link']="listing-".$row['id']."-".$listing_title.".html"; 


and in .htaccess
replace the line after

PHP Code:

#view listing 


with

PHP Code:

RewriteRule ^listing-([0-9]+)-([0-9a-zA-Z_-]+).html$ viewlisting.php?view=$1 [NC] 


The URL will be displayed ike this :

PHP Code:

www.name-of-the-site.com/listing-123-my-old-car.html 


No 'virtual' folders, and 404 errors from Search engines will disappear...

Regards

Pascal

[seymourjames]

This is a great solution because there is another ramification to virtual folders - it is possible to generate millions of duplicate urls.

Another mod needed is to do the same for categories. Have a look at that one.

There is one little problem though - I think changes will be needed to the featured and horizontal listings modules. I know for sure the ones I did with some css styling for featured and latest listings with the SEO module in force will need changing. Here is the change in those plugins. It turns out to be simple.

$link="listing-".$loop[$ads][id]."-".$listing_title.".html";

I think the default plugins for horizontal and vertical featured listings etc will also need this change.

[seymourjames]

Thinking about this a little more. Would it be best to shorten completely but making sure to retain unique urls

/listingtitle-idnumber.html

If so what would you suggest changing. This needs to be changed below but so does the .htaccess.

$row['link']="listing-".$row['id']."-".$listing_title.".html";

I tried adjusting the .htaccess and this line above but it would not then find the adverts at all. Perhaps finger trouble. I tried


RewriteRule ^([0-9a-zA-Z_-]+)-([0-9]+).html$ viewlisting.php?view=$1 [NC]


and

$row['link']="".$listing_title."-".$row['id'].".html";

[Eric Barnes]

I would think this would work:
RewriteRule ^listing-([0-9]+)-([0-9a-zA-Z_-]+).html$ viewlisting.php?view=$1 [NC]

[seymourjames]

Morning.

We got that far but I was trying to go one step further and get rid of the word listing and put the id at the end.