Need better Urls for your Catalook Store?
The Catalook Store is a very powerful DotNetNuke e-commerce store module. Of that there is no doubt. But some people want different Urls to the ones that are generated by default.
Now there is a way to instantly improve your Catalook store Urls!
With the iFinity Url Master module and the iFinity Catalook Url Provider extension, here's the changes you can immediately create for your store Urls:
- Product Urls - remove the /propertyId/xx and replace with a choice of the Product Name, Product Description or Product Meta-Title
- Category Urls - remove the /categoryId/xx/level/yy and replace with a choice of the Category Name, or the Category Description
- Advanced Category Urls - remove the /categoryid/zz/level/a and replace with a choice of the Advanced Category Name, Description or Title.
- The 'list/1' or 'list/0' that gets appended to category Urls is also automatically removed.
In all cases, the Url is 'cleaned' and checked for duplicates before being used. So with a combination of Url Master + Catlook Friendly Url Provider, you'll go from http://example.com/store/tabid/545/productid/64/default.aspx to http://example.com/store/product-name-here.aspx
And those category Urls - transformed from http://example.com/store/tabid/545/categoryId/10/level/3/list/0/default.aspx to http://example.com/store/category-name-here.aspx
Of course, you can also choose to remove the .aspx from the Url as well, if you want.
But why do you need this? Look at these benefits:
- Nicer looking Urls for linking from other pages, other sites, and printed or visual material
- Better SEO options by allowing tailoring of the Url to the product or category, helping your products to rank better
- Automatic redirect option means that any possible duplicates of the Product Urls can be redirect to a canonical version
- Masking of the underlying technology your store runs on
What do you need to change? Surely this is a tricky installation?
It's easy to do!
There is no : coding, database fiddling, regex authoring or changes to your Catalook store code.
Just install the Url Master module, then install the Catalook Friendly Url Provider, configure the settings via the Url Master module providers page, and your Catalook Urls will instantly change.
Product Url Options
The Product Urls can use either the Product Name, Product Description or the Product Meta-Description. By choosing one of these sources for the Urls, you can create a balance between the needs of the product menus and pages and the product Urls. You can either optimise for SEO by using the Meta description, or you can optimise for simpllicity using the product name, so the Url matches the menus. The power and the choice is yours.
Additionally, with products you can choose a starting product Id to apply the new Urls. If you have well ranked existing products, you may not want to change the Url for them. Just use the option to start the new Urls from a specified Product Id. Your new products will get new Urls, your old products will stay as they always have.
Category Url Options
Catalook has two types of Category - standard and advanced. The Category Urls can be transformed using name, description, or in the case of the Advanced Categories, the Meta Description. Again, this gives you the flexibility to optimise your category Urls to best suit your site strategy. And no more 'level/2' or 'level/a' in the Category Names. Hierarchially organised standard categories can be organised to show the hierarchy in the Url.
Best of all, you can hide the 'List/0' parameter from the Url completely. Take out all the extra parts of the Url and put back the category name. It couldn't be simpler!
What's more, if you have a different instance of the store on different pages of your site, and you have customised the store to show only a particular category for that page, the category Url will automatically be removed, leaving only the DNN page Url. That way, if you put 'Category A' to show on a DNN page called 'Category A', then you won't end up with a 'Category-A/Category-A' Url. The Category part of the Url is removed altogether! Note: this depends on the Catalook settings.
Above : The Catalook Url Provider Settings page.
Licensing
In order to use this module, you must have an installed copy of the iFinity Url Master module and the Catalook Store module. The Catalook Url Provider is distributed by iFinity and is built to work with the Catalook module. Catalook is the property of dnnsoft.com.
Please Note : The Catalook Url Provider is a plug-in extension to the Url Master module. If you do not have the Url Master module installed already, you will need to purchase a Url Master licence separately.