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Other information about SEO in Zen Cart

Disabled Product Status for Search Engines

Zen Cart has a configuration setting called DISABLED_PRODUCTS_TRIGGER_HTTP200. The default behavior of the product is to not show a product info page for a disabled product; this switch allows the behavior to be changed. Users who set this value to true may require template changes to ensure customers do not actually buy disabled products. See this page for more information.

SEO URLs

The phrase “SEO URLs” is sometimes used to describe the process of rewriting URLs to contain keywords. Some experts believe this process improves your search engine rankings and is thus beneficial to your site.

The default installation of Zen Cart does not create “SEO URLs” (URLs that are self-describing). Some plugins are available to do this:

  • Ultimate SEO URLs - This plugin is well supported by @lat9 and is the recommended solution for people who want a URL rewriter.

  • CEON URI Mapping - Since the author’s death, support for this plugin has been inconsistent. Note that CEON URI Mapping does not automatically add mappings for EXISTING Categories/Products/Manufacturers/EZ-Pages. You must either edit these items one by one or purchase the URI Mappings Manager from CEON if you are using a pre-existing database.

The plugin Simple SEO URLs is no longer supported.

Images and SEO

Image alt text is used by search engines and can improve your SEO. Providing alt text is also an important part of making your site accessible. See Alt Text for more details.



Still have questions? Use the Search box in the upper right, or try the full list of FAQs. If you can't find it there, head over to the Zen Cart support forum and ask there in the appropriate subforum. In your post, please include your Zen Cart and PHP versions, and a link to your site.

Is there an error or omission on this page? Please post to General Questions on the support forum. Or, if you'd like to open a pull request, just review the guidelines and get started. You can even PR right here.
Last modified August 10, 2024 by Scott Wilson (7c7d68d).