Ultimate SEO URLs

[Zuncan]

Hi!

 

Just wondering about the contribution "Ultimate SEO URLs". Didnt really understand what it does exept that its good for the searchengins.

 

Could someone pls explain what it does and if its really needed?

 

/Zuncan

[Zuncan]

Could anyone pls explain a little more about this contribution?

[♥Vger]

What this does is to give a page name that reflects the product being displayed on it.

 

However, it is far more important, in my opinion, to get meta tags installed for your osCommerce website. I would recommend Header Tags Controller. It is not dynamic (doesn't insert them automatically for you), but this gives you much more control over what your meta tags say and allows you to optimise them yourself. It allows you to add meta tags as you add each product in osCommerce 'admin'.

 

Also, be aware that the person who wrote the Ultimate SEO URL's is no longer on the forums and is not available to provide advice on any problems you may have.

 

Vger

[Zuncan]

Thx for fast reply.

 

I have already installed the Header tag controller and was just wondering if the SEO would be a good compliment for it. Of course I want to do everything in my power to get a good position in the searchengines.

[tommy11011]

Thx for fast reply.

 

I have already installed the Header tag controller and was just wondering if the SEO would be a good compliment for it. Of course I want to do everything in my power to get a good position in the searchengines.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I use it and would recommend it. It changes your address string from

 

www.website.com/page.php?somethinghere&something=yes&nothing=no

 

to

 

www.website.com/this-is-the-page-for-widgets.html

 

see, that is much more easily cataloged by all the engines.

 

The author of the contrib is chemo. I would recommend anything he writes, he is definitely an expert where osc is concerned.

 

Regarding the header tags controller, I use cDynamic meta tags.

 

Not sure why he is not on the forums anymore though????

[Zuncan]

Thx for you answer. Then I will install Ultimate SEO as well. That should give me a much better chance for a good position in the searchengines.

[wizardsandwars]

There are some built in benifits in that contribution, however this

 

see, that is much more easily cataloged by all the engines.

 

Statement is not entirely accurate.

 

 

www.website.com/page.php?somethinghere&something=yes&nothing=no

and

www.website.com/this-is-the-page-for-widgets.html

 

Will be indexed almost identically, all other things being equal.

[Zuncan]

So really it doesnt matter if I install SEO or not. It?s just for the look you mean?

[wizardsandwars]

No, like I said, there are some benifits. It's just not as drastic as the previous statment made it sound.

 

If you have the folowing

- unique header tags, with an embedded key phrase on each page

- a good amount of content on each page that includes that key phrase a few times

- a good internal link structure, so that anchored text has a key phrase in it and points to a page where that same key phrase is in the title

- embedd that key phrase in a few of the alt tags on the page

- and you get a few dozen backlinks from pr4+ sites, again, where the anchored text is a key phrase, and point to a page where that same keyphrase is in the title

 

you've gone about 98% as far as you can possibly go.

 

To squeeze an extra 2% of optimization out, yes, you should probably install this contribution.

[Zuncan]

Thx sooo much! That information was very useful.

[stevel]

I'll go a bit further and say that such contributions may actually hurt your SE rankings as they tend to create a subfolder structure that would not be there normally. It is generally thought that the major search engines give a slightly higher ranking to pages that are "closer" to the site top - that is, deeply nested pages get penalized a bit.

 

I don't know of any search engine worth caring about that has any difficulty indexing the kind of dynamic URLs a stock osCommerce install creates. If you want your URLs to be long and wordy, then fine, but you should then take care with your product titles, especially if they contain punctuation.

 

I'll close by invoking Vincent Flanders (author of "Son of Web Pages That Suck", my favorite web design book), who asks, "What would Amazon do?" Does amazon.com put product names in their product URLs? No. Their URLs are full of dynamic fields. Doesn't stop Google, Yahoo, or anyone else from indexing them.

[Guest]

Hi, why is Chemo no longer in the forum? Just a matter of question, what happen to him?

 

Thanks

[MikeMike]

Since installing Ultimate SEO url's I haven't been able to submit my site to Froogle. I haven't found any Froogle contribution that is compatible. They all come out with the stock url's.

Just another thing to keep in mind.

 

Regards

Mike

[Zuncan]

This was relly intresting. From great to poor. Thanks all of you!

[♥swolsten]

Since installing Ultimate SEO url's I haven't been able to submit my site to Froogle. I haven't found any Froogle contribution that is compatible. They all come out with the stock url's.

Just another thing to keep in mind.

 

Regards

Mike

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Old URLs still work with the Ultimate SEO contrib so you can still submit the froogle feed. The URL is re-written when the user hits the page to the SEO URL.