Direct Links on Duplicate Products

[ma111]

Hi everyone,

My site has hundreds of duplicate products, and when clicked they go to the original product (which are in sub-sections). However the duplicate product links are not the direct links. They are like the link below:

http://www.mysite.com/cgi-bin/ss0000...GPOD&NOLOGIN=1

As you can see the link actinic gves them contains the product reference, it then finds the poduct and re-directs to the product. Is there anyway I can set it up so the duplicate products has the direct link e.g.

http://www.mysite.com/acatalog/footwear.html

I know I can go through each one manually and give them the correct links, but I don't want to this as I have hundreds of duplicate products and it will take a long time.

If anyone knows how to get round this, please let me know.

Many Thanks.

[wjcampbe]

Leaving them as they are [routed through your site's search function script] is probably best. If the original is ever moved to a different site page in a restructuring of the website, then the link will continue to work, where a 'fixed' link would not.

[Duncan Rounding]

You can have relative links - within some constraints. The main caveat is that you will need one product per page (section). I've detailed this is in a couple of posts in the past. Grab a big mug if coffee and have a read through these:
http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=26482
http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?p=140842

I have collated and implemented the solution for clients since - contact me if your interested in this.

[ma111]

Hi, thanks for your response.

I have looked at both threads and I can see how that would work. However not all my site's section names are the same as the section URL, so this wouldn't work in my case.

I really need to get this working, and I am convinced there is a way to convert the product reference link to the actual sub section link. Perhaps using PHP? Would it be possible to use PHP to connect the the actinic database, search for the product reference, then when found, it finds and outputs the section URL link (SectionPageName Variable)?

At the moment when the customer clicks the duplicate product, they get the product ref link and it is then redirected to the sub-section link. Surely this can be done with actinic/php/perl beforehand (before actinic uploads).

If I can get round this problem, it will help my site so much with getting better search engine rankings, so I need to find a way of doing this, even if it is complicated. If anyone has any ideas about searching the actinic database with PHP or has any other solutions, please advise.

Thanks again.

[TraceyG]

Hi,

Does, or will your site use logins? If so, then it is not a good idea to change these links as a logged in customer will be logged out if they click on a direct link. The search script is able to detect if a customer is logged in and so keeps them logged in.