Copyright © 2002, William Weiland
Converts your category and product links to URLs so that search engines will index your Merchant pages. Some search engines will not index URLs which have Store_Code in the URL. The Swap Link module can further enhance your chances of search engine ranking by producing static sitelink*.htm files which list all of your categories and products with the shorter parameter link. This feature is configurable to allow you to optimize the sitelink pages with meta tags, keyword rich text, etc.
1) In admin, click Add Modules
2) Click the file upload button
3) Browse to find the swaplink.mvc file on your hard drive and upload
4) Click Add to add it to the domain
5) Click the image to the left of your store name
6) Click on the Utilities link
7) Check the box to the left of Swap Link and select Update
8) Click the Swap Link tab to enter the configuration setting.
In admin, under the store, select the Utilities link. Then select the link for Swap Link so that you can configure the module. The entries are self explanatory.
Replace standard links with directory style links (DSL) in sitelink files
Leave blank if you do not have .htaccess re-write capability. The .htaccess re-write features are in included in this module because I was asked by experienced developers to open up the links so they could be creative. These not only require that your server allow .htaccess re-write, but that you know how to properly construct a .htaccess file or have a host who will help you with it.
Generic re-write:
Enter link root, e.g. http://www.yourdomain.com/go/
Affiliate code can be included in DSL by ending the link root with a # and then entering the affiliate info,
e.g. http://www.yourdomain.com/go-a/#/Affiliate/affiliate code
Note the minor difference in the go vs go-a so that you can have both types in the same .htaccess file
Example .htaccess file to be placed in your domain root directory if you don't already have one
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/go/(.*)/SFNT [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) /Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=%1 [R,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/go/(.*)/CTGY/(.*) [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) /Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=%1&Category_Code=%2 [R,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/go/(.*)/PROD/(.*)/(.*) [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) /Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=%1&Product_Code=%3&Category_Code=%2 [R,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/go-a/(.*)/SFNT/Affiliate/(.*) [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) /Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=%1&Affiliate=%2 [R,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/go-a/(.*)/CTGY/(.*)/Affiliate/(.*) [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) /Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=%1&Category_Code=%2&Affiliate=%3 [R,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/go-a/(.*)/PROD/(.*)/(.*)/Affiliate/(.*) [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) /Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=%1&Product_Code=%3&Category_Code=%2&Affiliate=%4 [R,L]
Search Friendly Link (SFL) re-write:
Enter link root, e.g. http://www.yourdomain.com/page/
Affiliate code can be included in SFL style links by ending the link root with a # and then entering the affiliate info,
e.g. http://www.yourdomain.com/page/#/Affiliate/affiliate code
SFL module required for this option
Replace standard links with static page links
If you don't want the DSL or SFL, you can have a static looking url
Requires .htaccess re-write capability AND the knowledge on how to write a .htaccess file to use the static links.
Replace standard links with tokenized links
If you don't want the above re-write urls, you can use a url constructed with tokens
If you leave the inputs blank, it will not use this method
Requires .htaccess re-write capability AND the knowledge on how to write a .htaccess file to use the static links.
In admin, under the store, select the plus to the left of the Utilities link (see screen shot above). The list of Utility modules will appear below the word "Utilities". Then select the link for Swap Link. Click the Export Link File button. Within seconds the site link pages will be generated. They are named sitelink + store ID number + the page number, e.g. sitelink1-1.htm, sitelink1-2.htm. The pages are broken up if their size is going to be over 100K, which seems to be a critical limiting length for search engine optimization. Then you will need to create a link on your store's index.htm or sitemap.htm page to the first site link page (sitelink1-1.htm). If your store ID is other than 1, then substitute the number in the link, e.g. store #6 would be sitelink6-1.htm for its first site link page.