The Search Friendly Links module replaces the links in the category tree and category pages of MIVA Merchant with “short links” that are more search engine friendly. MIVA Merchant uses long links with 4 variables. Some search engines will not follow these links while they will follow shorter links with fewer variables.
Key Benefits
Generates short-links in the category tree and category pages in MIVA Merchant
Interprets short-links from any web page or email
Benefits of shorter links
Short links are generally more likely to be followed by Search Engine spiders
Easy to write (and remember) direct links to products and categories in your store
Long links may word-wrap in some email systems, causing them not to link properly
Shorter links are less likely to word wrap
Search engines frequently will not read links with multiple variables (a.k.a. “long links”) such as those produced by MIVA Merchant
A typical MIVA Merchant link such as:
http://www.yourstore.com/pathto/merchant.mv? Store_Code=ST&Screen=SFNT&Category_Code=CTGY1&Product_Code=PRD1
The reduction in the number of variables helps with search engine spiders
Short links are always interpreted and understood by your store when the module is installed and turned on. Therefore, any “short” external link can be used even if you have turned off the display of the short links.
Long links are always interpreted and understood by your store; so previous search engine listings and external links continue to work normally.
The “display” of the short links in your store can be disabled, though the store will continue to interpret the short links from external sources (ie: the companion product Search Friendly Store Map, emails and mailing list, etc)
The Search Friendly Links module can produce best results when used in conjunction with the companion product Search Friendly Store Map. The store map product will generate a static HTML page containing Search Friendly Links to every product and category in your store! Search engines tend to give static HTML pages (and the links on these pages) higher precedence and ranks. When used together, these two products generally enhance search engine positioning.
New In v4.02/v4.52:
Directory Style Short Links: http://www.yourstore.com/page/SC/PROD/CAT1/PROD1
OpenUI Token and Copernicus OpenUI SuperMod Template Compatible!
Example Usage
A storefront owner that sells cakes and jelly beans online wants to improve the search engine positioning of the store. He has an attractive storefront and has made it very customer friendly (yep, you guessed it – he’s using the Copernicus Customer Service Suite) but the only shoppers who come to his site are repeat customers who originally heard about his site through “word of mouth.” He knows that if he could just get listed in the major search engines he could increase his sales, but he can’t understand why his site has not been “spidered” by the search engines. He’s not ready to “pay per click” with search engines like Overture, he just wants to get listed.
As a result of his frustration about his search engine placement (or actually, lack thereof), the storefront owner has been learning a lot about search engine optimization (SEO). He has learned that the reason his website has no placement on the search engines is because MIVA Merchant produces dynamic pages with links that are not read by the spiders and robots sent out by search engines to find websites. The links are too long (those spiders are so impatient!) and spiders disqualify them due to having too many variables. Of course, he knows that it’s also very important that his pages are full of good content that can be easily logged by the search engines.
The Solution: The Search Friendly Links module will quickly solve the long links problem that this storefront is having. The Search Friendly Links module turns the long links for each category and product page into “short links” that are easily read by those spiders and robots. Further, he likes to make posts to the “Dessert-lovers” email forum; but every time he posts a link to one of his products, the links are so long they “word-wrap” and become un-clickable! So he installs the Search Friendly Links module, and starts posting short links to his products. Now his links look better in his store and his email, and the spiders are happier too!
Product Requirements:
MIVA Merchant 4.00-4.13
OpenUI Required: 4.53+
MIVA Merchant 4.14+
MMUI & Dynamic Templates -OR-
OpenUI: 4.71
***NOTE: In order to generate the short links with only one variable, each of the included variables are separated with a forward-slash ("/") character. Thus, no category or product should have this character in the category or product code.
For installation/upgrade services, please contact MIVA Small Business.
Be sure to review this module’s Pre-Sales FAQs! Just go to:
http://smallbusiness.miva.com/products/copernicus/support/faqs/
