Changing the ACATALOG directory name and sub-directories

[russell king]

Hi all

Now I have seen this subject covered in another thread, but I'd like some more details before I risk making any changes to my live site...

(Note: this forum software seems to have truncated some of the url's i've typed below - please hover over or click them to see the URL I actually mean)

I've been advised by a search engine optimisation guy to change the acatalog directory and the index page on my website from

http://www.canvasetc.com/acatalog/index.html

to something like

http://www.canvasetc.com/canvas-art-...galleries.html

I do not have access to Microsoft Access so can't really change things in the mdb file. Is there another way to do this safely and reliably?


Also is is possible to have subdirectories for sections?

eg; look at

http://www.canvasetc.com/acatalog/1002.html
and
http://www.canvasetc.com/acatalog/1320.html

would it be possible to have a url for these pages such as

http://www.canvasetc.com/canvas-art-...acts/1002.html
and
http://www.canvasetc.com/canvas-art-...-art/1320.html

that split each section/sub section into a subdirectory?


Also any tips in search engine optimisation for an Actinic 7 site would be most welcome!

Many thanks

Russell

[I-CC]

if you are on linux / apache then at the document roots folder directly below the acatalog folder, you could create sym link along the lines of maybe:

ln -s acatalog canvas-art-print

Which will have the effect of creating a symlinked folder called canvas-art-print, which will show the exact same content as the acatalog folder content, which you can then send to the search engines if you really think it is going to help.

Other method is to change the acatalog to canvas-art-print within the access Dbs as explained in other areas of the forum, but stress once you change it you can not use the network setting dialog area again, as Actinic will replace them back to acatalog if you do.

[Duncan Rounding]

I'd be very wary of making changes like these - and first question the benefits and justification. Do paths make a difference to SE listings?

[CymraegKev]

I'm not sure if it makes any difference to SEO (I doubt it), but personally I always set my actinic sites to lose the 'actinic' extension in the URL.

I think it looks much more professional, and it just gives that impression that a bit more time and effort has gone into the site, rather than just picking an ecommerce package off the shelf and doing an upload (even if, of course, this is not the case).

I would hope that Actinic will remove this requirement in V8 (or at least fix the n/w dialog so you can change it and still use the fdialog) as, to me, it serves no purpose except to advertise to the world that you are using Actinic as your tool of choice.

I use windows servers and I go into the Access DB and remove the setting as mentioned.

Kevin