Search Engine Friendly URLS - The Real Fix!!

ok, i saw that there was another post on how to fix the URLS so that they could become SEF, but that fix didn't seem to work for me. If anyone wants search engine friendly urls please read this tutorial. here you guys go....


SEF URLS:
(script installation - easy)
All files that need to be edited pertain only to your spider folder.
[marcusecompressor.com]

---EDITING---

open or create a file called .htaccess and rewrite everything with this:
###################
RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymLinks
Options +SymlinksIfOwnerMatch
RewriteRule ^search([^/]+)-([0-9]+)\.html$ /search/search.php?query=$1&search=$2 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^search([^/]+)-([0-9]+)-([0-9]+)-([0-9]+)-([^/]+)\.html$ /search/search.php?query=$1&start=$2&search=$3&results=$4&type=$5 [QSA,L]
#####################


Notice the folder 'search' if your folder has a different name, change it accordingly.

Lastly, open search-results.html (should be in your template folder - This fix is only for standard template)

Find the lines:


<div id="other_pages">
<?php print $sph_messages["Result page"]?>:
<?php if ($start >1){?>
<a href="<?php print 'http://www.marcusecompressor.com/search/search'.quote_replace(addmarks($query)).'-1-'.$prev.'-'.'10'.'-'.$type_qry.'.html'?>"><?php print $sph_messages['Previous']?></a>
<?php }?>

<?php foreach ($other_pages as $page_num) {
if ($page_num !=$start){?>
<a href="<?php print 'http://www.marcusecompressor.com/search/search.php?query='.quote_replace(addmarks($query)).'&start='.$page_num.'&search=1&results='.$results_per_page.$type_qry.$adv_qry?>"><?php print $page_num?></a>
<?php } else {?>
<b><?php print $page_num?></b>
<?php }?>
<?php }?>

<?php if ($next <= $pages){?>
<a href="<?php print 'http://www.marcusecompressor.com/search/search.php?query='.quote_replace(addmarks($query)).'&start='.$next.'&search=1&results='.$results_per_page.$type_qry.$adv_qry?>"><?php print $sph_messages['Next']?></a>
<?php }?>

</div>



Replace with:

<div id="other_pages">
<?php print $sph_messages["Result page"]?>:
<?php if ($start >1){?>
<a href="<?php print 'http://www.marcusecompressor.com/search/search'.quote_replace(addmarks($query)).'-'.$prev.'-1-'.'10'.'-'.'and'.'.html'?>"><?php print $sph_messages['Previous']?></a>
<?php }?>

<?php foreach ($other_pages as $page_num) {
if ($page_num !=$start){?>
<a href="<?php print 'http://www.marcusecompressor.com/search/search'.quote_replace(addmarks($query)).'-'.$page_num.'-'.'1'.'-'.'10'.'-'.'and'.'.html'?>"><?php print $page_num?></a>
<?php } else {?>
<b><?php print $page_num?></b>
<?php }?>
<?php }?>
<?php if ($next <= $pages){?>
<a href="<?php print 'http://www.marcusecompressor.com/search/search'.quote_replace(addmarks($query)).'-'.$next.'-1-10-and.html'?>"><?php print $sph_messages['Next']?></a>
<?php }?>

</div>


this should give you sef urls, if you have any questions feel free to email me. good luck!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2008 09:16PM by canad1an.

Congrulations...
This work fine!

Not trying to take over your thread by any means, but I thought I would throw in a dirty little way to get SEO urls.

.htaccess file:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^(query=.*)%20(.*)
RewriteRule ^search\.php$ search.php?%1+%2 [N]

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^query=([^&]+)&search=1$
RewriteRule ^search\.php$ /%1.html? [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^query=([^&]+)&search=1&start=([0-9]+)$
RewriteRule ^search\.php$ /%2/%1.html? [R=301,L]

RewriteRule ^(.*)%20(.*) /$1+$2 [R=301,L]

RewriteRule ^keywords/([^/]+)/([0-9]+)$ /search.php?query=$1&search=1&start=$2&a=1 [L]
RewriteRule ^keywords/(.*)$ /search.php?query=$1&search=1&a=1 [L]
</IfModule>

In the initial search this will take the query "my search" and produce the resulting rewritten url: /keywords/my+search

once you click to go to the next page it will accept the query variable as well as the start variable... so the rewritten url will look like this: /keywords/my+search/2

The best thing about this is that it will 301 redirect the old urls into the rewritten urls.

I just typed this up pretty quickly and left out some small parts... if you guys can't figure it out please let me know if you need more info.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/2008 03:09AM by readyman.

readyman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Not trying to take over your thread by any means,
> but I thought I would throw in a dirty little way
> to get SEO urls.
>
> .htaccess file:
>
>
> Options +FollowSymLinks
> RewriteEngine On
> RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING}
> ^query=([^&]+)&search=1$
> RewriteRule ^search\.php$ /keywords/%1?
> RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING}
> ^query=([^&]+)&search=1&start=([0-9]+)$
> RewriteRule ^search\.php$ /keywords/%1/%2?
>
> RewriteRule ^keywords/([^/]+)/([0-9]+)$
> /search.php?query=$1&search=1&start=$2&a=1
> RewriteRule ^keywords/(.*)$
> /search.php?query=$1&search=1&a=1
>
>
> In the initial search this will take the query "my
> search" and produce the resulting rewritten url:
> /keywords/my+search
>
> once you click to go to the next page it will
> accept the query variable as well as the start
> variable... so the rewritten url will look like
> this: /keywords/my+search/2
>
> The best thing about this is that it will 301
> redirect the old urls into the rewritten urls.
>
> I just typed this up pretty quickly and left out
> some small parts... if you guys can't figure it
> out please let me know if you need more info.

Your modifications works perfect. Easy to implent and every search is converted. I suggest that you use this with "Search cloud" mod to get your search queries indexed by google.

Thank you for your kind words... I did try the search cloud mod, [www.sphider.eu], but the problem with it is that when you use the query_log to count, group, and display the links when dealing with a large database.

Basically it would send my server load through the roof and crash my server when dealing with a query log of 100,000+ rows, which posed a major server stability problem considering that I have at a minimum of 20,000 rows added to that table per day. On a side note: the search cloud mod worked somewhat fast with a query_log database under 80-90,000 rows.

I went ahead and changed around how the sphider logged the search queries by created a separate table (popular_searches) that would +1, to the matching query count, if the search query was found in the popular_searches table (I created this table). From what I was witnessing the SaveToLog function (present in commonfuncs.php) just adds another row for the query regardless if the query was present or not in the table... basically you end up with query_log full of multiple queries, with the EXACT same query over and over, that could have been updated by verifying that the current query was in the popular_query db and it if was already added to the popular_query table: thus, update the count by +1.

In my case I utilize both the newly created database, popular_searches, as well as the query_log to show both what was recently searched for as well as what queries are the most popular. Probably not the best method, but it works.

It's a little late tonight, again :-), so I am not going into much detail about the actual db structure and the php code that goes along with it (although it is very simple!)... if needed please let me know and I will provide this info the best I can.



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/2008 11:30AM by readyman.

Yes I suppose it will be very demanding for the server to list the search cloud. For the moment I have to use it to get google to index search queries. I don't know how to limit the DB usage, if you have a solution it would be more than appreciated. As my PHP skills are very limited code examples are appreciated

If I can help in any way just tell me.

Regards
Ability

Here's what I did:

DB:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `popular_searches` (
`id` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
`query` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
`count` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL default '1',
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=114 ;

added to top of search.php:

$update_pop = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM ".$mysql_table_prefix."popular_searches WHERE query='$query'" or die ("Bad query: ".mysql_error());

if(mysql_num_rows($update_pop == 1)) {
mysql_query("UPDATE ".$mysql_table_prefix."popular_searches SET count = count+1 WHERE query='$query'" or die ("Bad query: ".mysql_error());
}

added to commonfuncs.php:

function seoURL($str) {
$placeholders = array(':', '\'', ')', '(', '\\', ',', ';', '{', '}', '*', '^', '-', '~', '`', '=', '|', '>', '<', '?', '-', '!');
$str = str_replace($placeholders, "", $str);
return str_replace(" ", "+", $str);
}

then add this wherever you want to display keywords:

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM popular_searches ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 10" or die("MySQL Error: ".mysql_error());
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {

print "&bull; <a href=\"". seoURL($row['query']) . ".html\" class=\"style6\">". $row['query'] ."</a> ";
}

Probably not the most effective way of doing this because each time the user clicks onto the next page it updates the count, but I found it works for me. Keep in mind that I changed my .htaccess to append .html onto the end of the rewritten urls.

Thanks readyman!

Doesn't seem to work for me with sphider 1,5+. Although I ain't got that many rows in my DB for now and I really like the word cloud. Maybe my developer can build in some cache function to lower the demanding server-requests.

Thanks for your time.

I included the sql code for this. Copy that into the SQL tab of phpmyadmin.

very nice informations, thx all
here is a full example for integration, i hope its helpfull.
A test u can see here: [www.darm-inform.de]

your index.php must contains:

switch($nav)
{
case "suchen":
include("search/mysearch.php"; break;

}





your website template (not that from sphider):

<form action="search/mysearch_modrewrite.php" method="get" id="suchen" enctype="multipart/form-data">

<div style="text-align: center;">
<input name="query" type="text" size="9" id="query" value="" />
<input name="" type="submit" value="go" />
</div>
<input type="hidden" name="nav" value="suchen" />
<input type="hidden" name="search" value="1" />
<input type="hidden" name="start" value="1" />
<input type="hidden" name="resultsperpage" value="1" />
</form>









mysearch_modrewrite.php (form action from your website template):

<?php
print '<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=/suche/' . $_GET[query] . '-' . $_GET[start] . '-1-' . $_GET[resultsperpage] . '-and.html" />';
exit;
?>








your htaccess file:

RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymlinks
Options -MultiViews
RewriteBase /

RewriteRule ^suche/([^/]+)-([0-9]+)\.html$ /index.php?nav=suchen&query=$1&search=$2 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^suche/([^/]+)-([0-9]+)-([0-9]+)-([0-9]+)-([^/]+)\.html$ /index.php?nav=suchen&query=$1&start=$2&search=$3&results=$4&type=$5 [QSA,L]






mysearch.php (its a copy from search.php without layout):


<?php
/*******************************************
* Sphider Version 1.3.x
* This program is licensed under the GNU GPL.
* By Ando Saabas ando(a t)cs.ioc.ee
********************************************/
//error_reporting(E_ALL ^ E_NOTICE ^ E_WARNING);
error_reporting(E_ALL);
$include_dir = "include";
include ("$include_dir/commonfuncs.php";
//extract(getHttpVars());

if (isset($_GET['query']))
$query = $_GET['query'];
if (isset($_GET['search']))
$search = $_GET['search'];
if (isset($_GET['domain']))
$domain = $_GET['domain'];
if (isset($_GET['type']))
$type = $_GET['type'];
if (isset($_GET['catid']))
$catid = $_GET['catid'];
if (isset($_GET['category']))
$category = $_GET['category'];
if (isset($_GET['results']))
$results = $_GET['results'];
if (isset($_GET['start']))
$start = $_GET['start'];
if (isset($_GET['adv']))
$adv = $_GET['adv'];


$include_dir = "include";
$template_dir = "templates";
$settings_dir = "settings";
$language_dir = "languages";


require_once("$settings_dir/database.php";
require_once("$language_dir/en-language.php";
require_once("$include_dir/searchfuncs.php";
require_once("$include_dir/categoryfuncs.php";


include "$settings_dir/conf.php";

//include "$template_dir/$template/header.html";
include "$language_dir/$language-language.php";


if ($type != "or" && $type != "and" && $type != "phrase" {
$type = "and";
}

if (preg_match("/[^a-z0-9-.]+/", $domain)) {
$domain="";
}


if ($results != "" {
$results_per_page = $results;
}

if (get_magic_quotes_gpc()==1) {
$query = stripslashes($query);
}

if (!is_numeric($catid)) {
$catid = "";
}

if (!is_numeric($category)) {
$category = "";
}



if ($catid && is_numeric($catid)) {

$tpl_['category'] = sql_fetch_all('SELECT category FROM '.$mysql_table_prefix.'categories WHERE category_id='.(int)$_REQUEST['catid']);
}

$count_level0 = sql_fetch_all('SELECT count(*) FROM '.$mysql_table_prefix.'categories WHERE parent_num=0');
$has_categories = 0;

if ($count_level0) {
$has_categories = $count_level0[0][0];
}



//require_once("$template_dir/$template/search_form.html";


function getmicrotime(){
list($usec, $sec) = explode(" ",microtime());
return ((float)$usec + (float)$sec);
}



function poweredby () {
global $sph_messages;
//If you want to remove this, please donate to the project at [www.sphider.eu]
print $sph_messages['Powered by'];?> <a href="[www.sphider.eu] src="search/sphider-logo.png" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle" alt="Sphider"></a>

<?php
}


function saveToLog ($query, $elapsed, $results) {
global $mysql_table_prefix;
if ($results =="" {
$results = 0;
}
$query = "insert into ".$mysql_table_prefix."query_log (query, time, elapsed, results) values ('$query', now(), '$elapsed', '$results')";
mysql_query($query);

echo mysql_error();

}

switch ($search) {
case 1:

if (!isset($results)) {
$results = "";
}
$search_results = get_search_results($query, $start, $category, $type, $results, $domain);
require("$template_dir/$template/search_results.html";
break;
default:
if ($show_categories) {
if ($_REQUEST['catid'] && is_numeric($catid)) {
$cat_info = get_category_info($catid);
} else {
$cat_info = get_categories_view();
}
require("$template_dir/$template/categories.html";
}
break;
}

//include "$template_dir/$template/footer.html";
?>





search_results.html (template from sphider):

<br/>
<?php
extract($search_results);
?>

<?php if ($search_results['did_you_mean']){?>
<div id="did_you_mean">
<?php echo $sph_messages['DidYouMean'];?>: <a href="<?php print 'index.php?nav=suchen&query='.quote_replace(addmarks($search_results['did_you_mean'])).'&search=1'?>"><?php print $search_results['did_you_mean_b']; ?></a>?
<br>
</div>
<?php }?>

<?php if ($search_results['ignore_words']){?>
<div id="common_report">
<?php while ($thisword=each($ignore_words)) {
$ignored .= " ".$thisword[1];
}
$msg = str_replace ('%ignored_words', $ignored, $sph_messages["ignoredWords"]);
echo $msg; ?>
<br>
</div>
<?php }?>


<?php if ($search_results['total_results']==0){?>
<div id ="result_report">
<?php
$msg = str_replace ('%query', $ent_query, $sph_messages["noMatch"]);
echo $msg;
?>
<br>
</div>
<?php }?>


<?php if ($total_results != 0 && $from <= $to){?>
<div id ="result_report">
<?php
$result = $sph_messages['Results'];
$result = str_replace ('%from', $from, $result);
$result = str_replace ('%to', $to, $result);
$result = str_replace ('%all', $total_results, $result);
$matchword = $sph_messages["matches"];
if ($total_results== 1) {
$matchword= $sph_messages["match"];
} else {
$matchword= $sph_messages["matches"];
}

$result = str_replace ('%matchword', $matchword, $result);
$result = str_replace ('%secs', $time, $result);
echo $result;
?>
</div>
<?php }?>

<br>


<?php if (isset($qry_results)) {
?>

<div id="results">

<!-- results listing -->

<?php foreach ($qry_results as $_key => $_row){
$last_domain = $domain_name;
extract($_row);
if ($show_query_scores == 0) {
$weight = '';
} else {
$weight = "[$weight%]";
}
?>
<?php if ($domain_name==$last_domain && $merge_site_results == 1 && $domain == "" {?>
<div class="idented">
<?php }?>
<b><?php print $num?>.</b> <?php print $weight?>
<a href="<?php print $url?>" class="title"> <?php print ($title?$title:$sph_messages['Untitled'])?></a><br/>
<div class="description"><?php print $fulltxt?></div>
<div class="url"><?php print $url2?> - <?php print $page_size?></div>
<?php if ($domain_name==$last_domain && $merge_site_results == 1 && $domain == "" {?>
[ <a href="<?php print 'index.php?nav=suchen&query='.quote_replace(addmarks($query)).'&search=1&results='.$results_per_page.'&domain='.$domain_name?>">More results from <?php print $domain_name?></a> ]
</div class="idented">
<?php }?>
<br/>
<?php }?>
</div>
<?php }?>

<!-- links to other result pages-->
<?php if (isset($other_pages)) {
if ($adv==1) {
$adv_qry = "&adv=1";
}
if ($type != "" {
$type_qry = "&type=$type";
}
?>
<div id="other_pages">
<?php print $sph_messages["Result page"]?>:
<?php if ($start >1){?>
<a href="<?php print '/suche/'.quote_replace(addmarks($query)).'-'.$prev.'-1-'.'10'.'-'.'and'.'.html'?>"><?php print $sph_messages['Previous']?></a>
<?php }?>

<?php foreach ($other_pages as $page_num) {
if ($page_num !=$start){?>
<a href="<?php print '/suche/'.quote_replace(addmarks($query)).'-'.$page_num.'-'.'1'.'-'.'10'.'-'.'and'.'.html'?>"><?php print $page_num?></a>
<?php } else {?>
<b><?php print $page_num?></b>
<?php }?>
<?php }?>
<?php if ($next <= $pages){?>
<a href="<?php print '/suche/'.quote_replace(addmarks($query)).'-'.$next.'-1-10-and.html'?>"><?php print $sph_messages['Next']?></a>
<?php }?>

</div>


<?php }?>


<div class="divline">
</div>
<div id="powered_by">
<!--If you want to remove this, please donate to the project at [www.sphider.eu];
<br><center><?php poweredby()?></center>
</div>



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2008 04:35PM by teh_fr33z3r.

I updated my mod_rewrite code above to reflect an issue involving the + sign 301 redirect. The problem was that when google reindexed some of my pages that had already had a %20 (space) in the url it was incorrectly changing, and reindexed, to %2520 instead of the plus sign. I believe this problem has been fixed.

I used readyman's .htaccess rewrite - urls look great, I get the following looking URLs

domainname.ext/search+term.html

However, while the URLs look great, I get this (instead of search results)...

Not Found

The requested URL /search+term.html was not found on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Any ideas?

Thanks!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2010 11:15PM by Convergence.

Convergence Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I used readyman's .htaccess rewrite - urls look
> great, I get the following looking URLs
>
> domainname.ext/search+term.html
>
> However, while the URLs look great, I get this
> (instead of search results)...
>
> Not Found
>
> The requested URL /search+term.html was not found
> on this server.
> Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was
> encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument
> to handle the request.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks!

I get the same thing. Anyone ever figure this out?

~Red

@Readyman,

First of all, thanks.

I have two questions:

1). where shoud the .htaccess file be placed?

2) My search is in its own folder. Therefore, the location of my search.php is like this: www.Mysite.com/mysearch/search.php.
Now, do I need to mod these lines that have referenced to search.php?:
RewriteRule ^search\.php$ search.php?%1+%2 [N]
RewriteRule ^search\.php$ /%1.html? [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^search\.php$ /%2/%1.html? [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^keywords/([^/]+)/([0-9]+)$ /search.php?query=$1&search=1&start=$2&a=1 [L]
RewriteRule ^keywords/(.*)$ /search.php?query=$1&search=1&a=1 [L]

Bump...

The information here are useful I used theses in my project.

You need mod_rewrite on your server red2678

I have this in the .htaccess.:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^(query=.*)%20(.*)
RewriteRule ^search\.php$ search.php?%1+%2 [N]

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^query=([^&]+)&search=1$
RewriteRule ^search\.php$ /%1.html? [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^query=([^&]+)&search=1&start=([0-9]+)$
RewriteRule ^search\.php$ /%2/%1.html? [R=301,L]

RewriteRule ^(.*)%20(.*) /$1+$2 [R=301,L]

RewriteRule ^keywords/([^/]+)/([0-9]+)$ /search.php?query=$1&search=1&start=$2&a=1 [L]
RewriteRule ^keywords/(.*)$ /search.php?query=$1&search=1&a=1 [L]
</IfModule>

I get error:
Not Found
The requested URL /noticias.html was not found on this server.

Why does not it?
What should I do?

Quote
sp436 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I get error:
> Not Found
> The requested URL /noticias.html was not found on
> this server.
>
> Why does not it?
> What should I do?

Do you have this file ? "noticias.html"

cladiron Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I get error:
> > Not Found
> > The requested URL /noticias.html was not found
> on
> > this server.
> >
> > Why does not it?
> > What should I do?
>
>
> Do you have this file ? "noticias.html"

No.
The word "noticias" is a search phrase.
http:/ /www.mydomain.com/search-phrase.html

Sample: http:/ /www.mydomain.com/search.php?query=Noticias&search=1
Desired result: http:/ /www.mydomain.com/noticias.html

What should I do?