URL to a specific product

[anthony@sfc]

To link to a specific product (from a page outside of the actinic shop) you can use this link:-

www.stuff-for-computers.co.uk/cgi-bin/ss000000.pl?PRODREF=171&NOLOGIN=1&ACTINIC_REFERRER=http://www.stuff-for-computers.co.uk/acatalog/

Where 171 is the product reference of the product.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That URL is a bit long. So here's a php program (product.php) I wrote to shorten it:-

<?php

$prod = $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];

require "http://www.stuff-for-computers.co.uk/cgi-bin/ss000000.pl?PRODREF=$prod&NOLOGIN=1&ACTINIC_REFERRER=http://www.stuff-for-computers.co.uk/acatalog/";

?>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now I use this URL to link to products:-

http://www.stuff-for-computers.co.uk/product.php?171

[DaveT]

Or you can add the following to a .htaccess file:

Assuming your product code is between 1 and 5 numbers long:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ([0-9]{1,5}$) http://www.stuff-for-computers.co.uk/cgi-bin/ss000000.pl?PRODREF=$1&NOLOGIN=1&ACTINIC_REFERRER=http://www.stuff-for-computers.co.uk/acatalog/

Then you can refer to the link:

http://www.stuff-for-computers.co.uk/171

>>Example

[Mike Hughes]

David,

That's quite tidy. What would be the statement to make that a permanent 301 redirect rather than the default temporary 302 redirect?

The problem with a temporary redirect is that google (and possibly other SEs) will consider it to be a page in it's own right, thus reducing the PR (and anchor text content) of the destination page and creating an indexed page with duplicate content.

Mike

[David@MPL]

Well that's neat little script, thanks Anthony

[Mike Hughes]

Just to complete the options on doing this.

If you're not using customer accounts then you can link directly to the products without going via the cgi-bin. This is faster and better for the search engines.

The format is just:

http://www.url.com/acatalog/page.html#aproductreference

So using the example from above:

http://www.stuff-for-computers.co.uk...tors.html#a171

[DaveT]

Revised code for permanent (301) redirection:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ([0-9]{1,5}$) http://www.stuff-for-computers.co.uk/cgi-bin/ss000000.pl?PRODREF=$1&NOLOGIN=1&ACTINIC_REFERRER=http://www.stuff-for-computers.co.uk/acatalog/ [R=301,L]

The R=301 is the provided status code. Not sure on the L, I used to know.