♥toyicebear Posted March 21, 2006 Author Share Posted March 21, 2006 Yes, you can reinvent the wheel if you want. I'm not sure why you would want to do that though. No..its not about reinventing the wheel..its about making it easy for newbees..... There are countless posts from people who have tried to install, the header tags but not suceeded..... Fill tags can be handled in a different way but to what purpose? One of the ideas of all of these contributions is to make life easier for us. Fill tags is one of the tools that does that. By adding seaprate code to do it, you take away some of that functionality. That is the way it worked three years ago. Why go backward? Easy and fast install , no need to rember to go and fill in tags upon importing new products/categories.... I still fail to see what the size of the database has to do with anything. If the size is big , well most if not will use the fill tags functions..and then what is the point of installing an elaborate system which you do not actually use? What does surprise me is that you have not mentioned on of the key strenghts of the Header Tags contrib, the abilety to add category description which is visible on the category/sub category pages...... And also it might be worth mentioning that Header Tags seems to have forgotten about manefacturer metas..... Last but not leased the metas is getting more and more redundant , while content is getting more and more important....the point being its more important to foccus on your pages actual content than spending time agonizing over metas. Its very important to remeber that installing a meta tags contrib and/or seo url contrib is not going to make your site traffic soar by itself....they are only part of a larger startegy to gain search engine ranking and traffic. Basics for osC 2.2 Design - Basics for Design V2.3+ - Seo & Sef Url's - Meta Tags for Your osC Shop - Steps to prevent Fraud... - MS3 and Team News... - SEO, Meta Tags, SEF Urls and osCommerce - Commercial Support Inquiries - OSC 2.3+ How To To see what more i can do for you check out my profile [click here] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♥toyicebear Posted March 22, 2006 Author Share Posted March 22, 2006 The most flexibel meta tags contribution for oscommerce is the Header Tags Controller contribution , but it is not for all. - It requires some level of competence to install. - It also requires competence in regards to meta tags optimization to make use of it fully. - If you have a large inventory it will take you/your employes quite a lot of time to optimize all the products and categories fully. But if you have/have access to all of the above it is a very good tool. The best compromize meta tags contribution for oscommerce is the cdynamic meta tags. It generates all the meta tags automatically, can be set to cache the result for less use of server resources, its also a very easy one to install. If you want to have good and functional metas but do not want to spend time optimizing every single product and/or category this might be the one for you. (Also if you want good meta tags and do not know much about meta tags optimization , this one will create them automatically for you) I did also whip up a small easy drop over met tags contribution, Basic Meta Tags This one is mainly for those who have an unmodified oscommerce and do not want to do file edits themselves..... With Basic Meta Tags , you just upload and overwrite the existing files and you are finished. This is the latest version: Basic Meta Tags 1.1 This version differs from version 1.0 by extending the meta tags aswell as adding visible on page elements. NEW: - The product info page will also show the products manefacturer. - The product meta keywords now include: product name, product model, manefacturer/brand - The product meta description is now an extract of the products visible description. - The category or manefacturer name will show instead of "What's new here" in the category/sub-category and manefacturer pages. Basics for osC 2.2 Design - Basics for Design V2.3+ - Seo & Sef Url's - Meta Tags for Your osC Shop - Steps to prevent Fraud... - MS3 and Team News... - SEO, Meta Tags, SEF Urls and osCommerce - Commercial Support Inquiries - OSC 2.3+ How To To see what more i can do for you check out my profile [click here] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_mcs Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 No..its not about reinventing the wheel..its about making it easy for newbees..... There are countless posts from people who have tried to install, the header tags but not suceeded.....I agree, but there is nothing to be done about this that I can see. There's always a cost to pay for extra features.Easy and fast install , no need to rember to go and fill in tags upon importing new products/categories....If the size is big , well most if not will use the fill tags functions..and then what is the point of installing an elaborate system which you do not actually use? The next version, due out in a week or two, will automatically fill in the tags as the category or product is added.What does surprise me is that you have not mentioned on of the key strenghts of the Header Tags contrib, the abilety to add category description which is visible on the category/sub category pages......My intention wasn't to post a "mine is better than yours" reply. I was simply replying to a few points. cDynamic Meta Tags has its strengths and should be looked at when setting up a shop.And also it might be worth mentioning that Header Tags seems to have forgotten about manefacturer metas.....Already in the next version. Last but not leased the metas is getting more and more redundant , while content is getting more and more important....the point being its more important to foccus on your pages actual content than spending time agonizing over metas. Its very important to remeber that installing a meta tags contrib and/or seo url contrib is not going to make your site traffic soar by itself....they are only part of a larger startegy to gain search engine ranking and traffic. I couldn't agree more and anyone reading my posts on the subject of SEO will find I mention that almost everytime. Header Tags, or cDynamic Tags, will make a big improvment as far as getting your products listed well. But that is only the first step. Jack Support Links: For Hire: Contact me for anything you need help with for your shop: upgrading, hosting, repairs, code written, etc. All of My Addons Get the latest versions of my addons Recommended SEO Addons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♥FWR Media Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 I did this for myself, if it helps Adds dynamic page titles and meta info to osCommerce based on the existing breadcrumb so no extra queries. Replace <title></title> with .. <?php include(DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'meta_info.php'); ?> create a file called meta_info.php and place in catalog>includes. File contains the following: - <?php /* $Id: meta_info.php,v 1.280 2003/07/12 09:38:07 hpdl Exp $ osCommerce, Open Source E-Commerce Solutions http://www.oscommerce.com Copyright (c) 2003 osCommerce Released under the GNU General Public License */ /********************************************** Modifications by ... Robert Fisher aka Thunderace **********************************************/ // This file uses the breadcrumb class to create SEO friendly page titles $title = ''; $meta_description = ''; $meta_keywords = ''; $count = count($breadcrumb->_trail); for ($i=0; $i<($count); $i++) { if ($breadcrumb->_trail[$i]['title'] != HEADER_TITLE_TOP && $breadcrumb->_trail[$i]['title'] != HEADER_TITLE_CATALOG) { $title .= $breadcrumb->_trail[$i]['title'] . ' | '; $meta_description .= $breadcrumb->_trail[$i]['title'] . ' | '; $meta_keywords .= $breadcrumb->_trail[$i]['title'] . ', '; if ($i == ($count-1)) { //$shop_name is hardcoded if you wish to add your shop name to the end of <title> and meta info $shop_name = 'My Shop'; $title .= $shop_name; $meta_description .= $shop_name; $meta_keywords .= $shop_name; } } } if ($title == '') { //below are hardcoded to show meta info when no breadcrumb exists $title = 'My standard shop title'; $meta_description = 'My standard shop description'; $meta_keywords = 'My standard shop keywords'; } //Display <title> and meta info echo '<title>' . $title . '</title>' . "\n"; echo '<meta name="description" content="' . $meta_description . '" />' . "\n"; echo '<meta name="keywords" content="' . $meta_keywords . '" />' . "\n"; ?> Ultimate SEO Urls 5 PRO - Multi Language Modern, Powerful SEO Urls KissMT Dynamic SEO Meta & Canonical Header Tags KissER Error Handling and Debugging KissIT Image Thumbnailer Security Pro - Querystring protection against hackers ( a KISS contribution ) If you found my post useful please click the "Like This" button to the right. Please only PM me for paid work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♥toyicebear Posted March 26, 2006 Author Share Posted March 26, 2006 I did this for myself, if it helps Adds dynamic page titles and meta info to osCommerce based on the existing breadcrumb so no extra queries. Replace <title></title> with .. <?php include(DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'meta_info.php'); ?> create a file called meta_info.php and place in catalog>includes. File contains the following: - <?php /* $Id: meta_info.php,v 1.280 2003/07/12 09:38:07 hpdl Exp $ osCommerce, Open Source E-Commerce Solutions http://www.oscommerce.com Copyright (c) 2003 osCommerce Released under the GNU General Public License */ /********************************************** Modifications by ... Robert Fisher aka Thunderace **********************************************/ // This file uses the breadcrumb class to create SEO friendly page titles $title = ''; $meta_description = ''; $meta_keywords = ''; $count = count($breadcrumb->_trail); for ($i=0; $i<($count); $i++) { if ($breadcrumb->_trail[$i]['title'] != HEADER_TITLE_TOP && $breadcrumb->_trail[$i]['title'] != HEADER_TITLE_CATALOG) { $title .= $breadcrumb->_trail[$i]['title'] . ' | '; $meta_description .= $breadcrumb->_trail[$i]['title'] . ' | '; $meta_keywords .= $breadcrumb->_trail[$i]['title'] . ', '; if ($i == ($count-1)) { //$shop_name is hardcoded if you wish to add your shop name to the end of <title> and meta info $shop_name = 'My Shop'; $title .= $shop_name; $meta_description .= $shop_name; $meta_keywords .= $shop_name; } } } if ($title == '') { //below are hardcoded to show meta info when no breadcrumb exists $title = 'My standard shop title'; $meta_description = 'My standard shop description'; $meta_keywords = 'My standard shop keywords'; } //Display <title> and meta info echo '<title>' . $title . '</title>' . "\n"; echo '<meta name="description" content="' . $meta_description . '" />' . "\n"; echo '<meta name="keywords" content="' . $meta_keywords . '" />' . "\n"; ?> A greate TIP...and it works on all osc pages, bothe the dynamic and the static ones. Basics for osC 2.2 Design - Basics for Design V2.3+ - Seo & Sef Url's - Meta Tags for Your osC Shop - Steps to prevent Fraud... - MS3 and Team News... - SEO, Meta Tags, SEF Urls and osCommerce - Commercial Support Inquiries - OSC 2.3+ How To To see what more i can do for you check out my profile [click here] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♥toyicebear Posted March 26, 2006 Author Share Posted March 26, 2006 I agree, but there is nothing to be done about this that I can see. There's always a cost to pay for extra features.The next version, due out in a week or two, will automatically fill in the tags as the category or product is added.My intention wasn't to post a "mine is better than yours" reply. I was simply replying to a few points. cDynamic Meta Tags has its strengths and should be looked at when setting up a shop.Already in the next version. I couldn't agree more and anyone reading my posts on the subject of SEO will find I mention that almost everytime. Header Tags, or cDynamic Tags, will make a big improvment as far as getting your products listed well. But that is only the first step. Jack Give me a nudge when the next version is out and i will give it a test run... B) Basics for osC 2.2 Design - Basics for Design V2.3+ - Seo & Sef Url's - Meta Tags for Your osC Shop - Steps to prevent Fraud... - MS3 and Team News... - SEO, Meta Tags, SEF Urls and osCommerce - Commercial Support Inquiries - OSC 2.3+ How To To see what more i can do for you check out my profile [click here] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saman Posted April 1, 2006 Share Posted April 1, 2006 Hi, I have made a big mistake... i first began with installing it true the database_setup, and i made a mistake (Install_Catalog) by uploading the header.sql in phpmyadmin in importing file in database. now i am getting this error on this page: http://coolpersia.com/coolshop/catalog/database_setup.php Looks like Header Tags is already installed. Aborting... how can i remove it and start all over again? i want to install it with database_setup.php i really hope someone can help me out, thanks in advance, saman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♥FWR Media Posted April 1, 2006 Share Posted April 1, 2006 Well the DB code that header tags needs is already installed in your DB. Either use it and just upload the files or have a look at the install.sql and remove the tables it adds and start again. Ultimate SEO Urls 5 PRO - Multi Language Modern, Powerful SEO Urls KissMT Dynamic SEO Meta & Canonical Header Tags KissER Error Handling and Debugging KissIT Image Thumbnailer Security Pro - Querystring protection against hackers ( a KISS contribution ) If you found my post useful please click the "Like This" button to the right. Please only PM me for paid work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saman Posted April 1, 2006 Share Posted April 1, 2006 Thank you very much for the fast reply, I am really not so familiar with this, i can't find anything where it says how to remove it or start again (sorry if i am being blind). can't find install.sql either. Would you please explain to me step by step what to do? (i am really not good at this) I do appreciate your help, thanks saman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♥FWR Media Posted April 1, 2006 Share Posted April 1, 2006 install.sql was a generic comment, the mods that you install will often have a file called "something".sql or an sql command in the instructions which needs to be installed to your database. Recheck the mods you have installed and apply any DB mods that they require (I'm assuming that you will check your DB first to see if they are there). Ultimate SEO Urls 5 PRO - Multi Language Modern, Powerful SEO Urls KissMT Dynamic SEO Meta & Canonical Header Tags KissER Error Handling and Debugging KissIT Image Thumbnailer Security Pro - Querystring protection against hackers ( a KISS contribution ) If you found my post useful please click the "Like This" button to the right. Please only PM me for paid work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saman Posted April 2, 2006 Share Posted April 2, 2006 I have searched evertything but i couldn't find a file which is called header.sql, but it's weird i am getting this : Looks like Header Tags is already installed. Aborting... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♥FWR Media Posted April 2, 2006 Share Posted April 2, 2006 In the Header Tag Control package there is a folder called Database_Files the SQL files are in there. Ultimate SEO Urls 5 PRO - Multi Language Modern, Powerful SEO Urls KissMT Dynamic SEO Meta & Canonical Header Tags KissER Error Handling and Debugging KissIT Image Thumbnailer Security Pro - Querystring protection against hackers ( a KISS contribution ) If you found my post useful please click the "Like This" button to the right. Please only PM me for paid work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saman Posted April 2, 2006 Share Posted April 2, 2006 Thanks for the reply again. i know that there is an folder called Database_Files the SQL . i have done the next (don't know if i have done the right thing): 1. i went to phpmyadmin 2. after i logged in, i clicked on import (MySQL) 3. i browsed the file (header.sql) and uploaded it. but before that i have uploaded database_setup.php to the right directory and everything went well. my mistake was that after that i also uploaded header.sql after that when i went to http://coolpersia.com/coolshop/catalog/database_setup.php and i saw this: Looks like Header Tags is already installed. Aborting... and after that it all began... i have searched but couldn't find the file to delete it and start all over. now, is there any chance to continue like this (and follow the steps in the Install_Catalog) or should i begin over again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_mcs Posted April 2, 2006 Share Posted April 2, 2006 Installing the database changes only needs to be done once. You are trying to do it twice. Move on to the next instruction ans you should be OK. Jack Support Links: For Hire: Contact me for anything you need help with for your shop: upgrading, hosting, repairs, code written, etc. All of My Addons Get the latest versions of my addons Recommended SEO Addons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dumb_question Posted October 13, 2006 Share Posted October 13, 2006 I have dynamic header tags controller installed. if I installed the manual header tags contribution http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,207 would I have to disable dynamic header tags controller...in general which one is better? Ofcourse dynamic is easy to work with. Also, does "seo metatags" mod offer any additional benefits? Thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_mcs Posted October 13, 2006 Share Posted October 13, 2006 You can only use one of the contributions at a time. Some people prefer cDynamic and others Header Tags. Of those two, Header Tags is the most optimized for the search engines (last time I looked) and that really is the whole point. I haven't looked at the others in a while but the last time I did, they were just cut down versions of Header Tags. There is a reson Header Tags is so large and that it gives such strong results. It is really the only choice, in my opinion, of course. Jack Support Links: For Hire: Contact me for anything you need help with for your shop: upgrading, hosting, repairs, code written, etc. All of My Addons Get the latest versions of my addons Recommended SEO Addons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dumb_question Posted October 13, 2006 Share Posted October 13, 2006 You can only use one of the contributions at a time. Some people prefer cDynamic and others Header Tags. Of those two, Header Tags is the most optimized for the search engines (last time I looked) and that really is the whole point. I haven't looked at the others in a while but the last time I did, they were just cut down versions of Header Tags. There is a reson Header Tags is so large and that it gives such strong results. It is really the only choice, in my opinion, of course. Jack Jack, Thanks for quick response.Do I need to uninstall dynamic header tags mode before I install manual header tags contribution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tasx Posted October 19, 2006 Share Posted October 19, 2006 I installed the header tag controller and it seems to be working fine. I manually updated the files since I had made changes, most were your basics for design posts, and a few others from contributions. After header tag contoller install, when I try to open "catalog" within the admin section I get this error: Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_CASE in /data/6/0/146/133/472948/user/481882/htdocs/misfit/admin/categories.php on line 1000 line 1000 case 'edit_category': line 1001 $heading[] = array('text' => '<b>' . TEXT_INFO_HEADING_EDIT_CATEGORY . '</b>'); Everything else seems to be working fine. I looked around and not sure what the problem is. Could not locate any info in forum on this. By the way your Basics for design posts are wonderful, Great job, Great results, thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_mcs Posted October 19, 2006 Share Posted October 19, 2006 The error means there is a mistake in the admin/categories.php file. You can compare the included one to find the error. You can look in the Header Tags support thread for how to do that. Jack Support Links: For Hire: Contact me for anything you need help with for your shop: upgrading, hosting, repairs, code written, etc. All of My Addons Get the latest versions of my addons Recommended SEO Addons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 29, 2006 Share Posted October 29, 2006 I have had Header Tags installed for a few months now ... was the 3rd contrib I installed. Yes, it was a long one ... being still very novice at the time, it took me over 2 hours, but I believe I had no errors after the install. I already had over 300 products loaded, so it was a tad daunting going back through each of those products and filling in the header page title, description, and keywords as I desired. But it was worth it. I'm not sure if there is a correlation or not, but after doing this, the bots came to my site for indexing faster and more often. The Header Tags should be standard to the core Osc cart ... just my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_mcs Posted November 14, 2006 Share Posted November 14, 2006 If you install Header Tags, you will have to remove cDynamic Meta Tags (and vice versa) since they both change the same code and only one can be active. As for which is better, if you read through this thread, you will see arguments for both. I personally think Header Tags provides more SEO benefits than the others but there are others who disagree. By the way, if you are looking for "easy," then try one of the other meta tags contributions. They install very easy but are just scaled down versions of Header Tags, which should tell you something in itself. Jack Support Links: For Hire: Contact me for anything you need help with for your shop: upgrading, hosting, repairs, code written, etc. All of My Addons Get the latest versions of my addons Recommended SEO Addons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rachael w. Posted November 14, 2006 Share Posted November 14, 2006 I started another topic (ended up answering my own questions) about the breadcrumb trail and meta tags. here This works very well for me and I had over 400 pages index with the new meta tags in just a couple days. My sales and hits on this site have increased tremendously! I also used this info: here to put a 301 header in to signal the search engines to remove the old entry in the index and replace it with the new one. I've added the Google xml sitemap feed and setup google sitemaps for my site and it is doing its job well. I've also updated my robots.txt file to exclude the popup image pages and some other osc pages which I didnt want shown in the search index. Seems to be working very well for my vintage media site and all it took were some code changes. I just thought anyone searching for all of these soultions could use a place to find them all in one post. :blush: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♥FWR Media Posted November 14, 2006 Share Posted November 14, 2006 I started another topic (ended up answering my own questions) about the breadcrumb trail and meta tags. here This works very well for me and I had over 400 pages index with the new meta tags in just a couple days. My sales and hits on this site have increased tremendously! I also used this info: here to put a 301 header in to signal the search engines to remove the old entry in the index and replace it with the new one. I've added the Google xml sitemap feed and setup google sitemaps for my site and it is doing its job well. I've also updated my robots.txt file to exclude the popup image pages and some other osc pages which I didnt want shown in the search index. Seems to be working very well for my vintage media site and all it took were some code changes. I just thought anyone searching for all of these soultions could use a place to find them all in one post. :blush: Glad someone appreciates and is using it ;) Ultimate SEO Urls 5 PRO - Multi Language Modern, Powerful SEO Urls KissMT Dynamic SEO Meta & Canonical Header Tags KissER Error Handling and Debugging KissIT Image Thumbnailer Security Pro - Querystring protection against hackers ( a KISS contribution ) If you found my post useful please click the "Like This" button to the right. Please only PM me for paid work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rachael w. Posted November 14, 2006 Share Posted November 14, 2006 Sorry I didnt thank all those who put these contribs and code changes out there! I appreciate all your hard work very much! Without this, those who are newbies like me would be lost! :thumbsup: thunderace! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flotec Posted November 21, 2006 Share Posted November 21, 2006 I have tried the Basic Meta Tags contribution as I thought this should be perfect for me. Worked fine on the product_info page but when I tried the modifications on the index page everything went wrong. The problem I think is that I have already modified the index page and the header is not more the usual "Lets see what we have here". I have tried to figure out how to modify the contribution to my site but not succeeded. I have also tried both variants of the contribution but the result was the same. So my question is really, is there an even more simple solution to get header tags on the index pages? Something that take advantage of the already modified header maybe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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