Hi, I am very new to Opencart and know next to nothing about website building so I am hoping you nice people can help!
I want to seo the website and have done the google sitemap thing. I wanted to enable the seo url but don't understand what I am meant to do with this "To use SEO URL's apache module mod-rewrite must be installed and you need to rename the htaccess.txt to .htaccess."
Please can someone explain in very simple terms!
Also, how to I seo the site in other ways?
Many thanks and sorry for being an idiot!
PS I am sure there are many posts about this but most of them I found went a bit above my head lol.
Hopefully it will work off the bat for you if you do the following:
1. Enable SEO URLs in your admin panel - System - Settings - edit your store - Server tab (turn on Use SEO URLs)
2. In the root of your store files, you should have a file called .htaccess.txt - Rename this to just .htaccess (remove the .txt from the end)
3. You need to make sure all your products, categories, manufacturers and info pages have a SEO Keyword assigned to them.
For example
Let's say you have a product called 'Yellow Bananas'. On the data tab of the product editing screen, yu will see a field titled SEO Keyword. This is what is used as the SEO URL. So, for our example, I would give the following SEO Keyword to this product 'yellow-bananas'
It is advisable to stick to lowercase alphanumeric characters with dashes or underscores instead of spaces
yellow-bananas (good)
yellow_bananas (good)
Yellow Bananas (bad)
1. Enable SEO URLs in your admin panel - System - Settings - edit your store - Server tab (turn on Use SEO URLs)
2. In the root of your store files, you should have a file called .htaccess.txt - Rename this to just .htaccess (remove the .txt from the end)
3. You need to make sure all your products, categories, manufacturers and info pages have a SEO Keyword assigned to them.
For example
Let's say you have a product called 'Yellow Bananas'. On the data tab of the product editing screen, yu will see a field titled SEO Keyword. This is what is used as the SEO URL. So, for our example, I would give the following SEO Keyword to this product 'yellow-bananas'
It is advisable to stick to lowercase alphanumeric characters with dashes or underscores instead of spaces
yellow-bananas (good)
yellow_bananas (good)
Yellow Bananas (bad)
For other SEO, it is advisable to enter a META Description where possible.
This is searchable on the search engines and also is displayed under the link in the search results.
For your product descriptions and other page content, don't simply just copy paste text from other sources such as manufacturer's sites etc, it will be classed as duplicate content and will not rank as well as individual content.
Try to aim for 150+ words on each page and include relevant keywords phrases that you think your buyers would search for.
Try not to make it robotic, but human readable.
If possible use bullet points to list features. Nobody likes to read paragraph after paragraph of text.
Submit your sitemap to and site link to the top search engines and directories such as DMOZ.
Other than the above, there are many resources on the net relating to SEO, read up on it, keep at it. It is hard work to get good rankings and it does take time.
Use Google's free shopping service to submit your products to.
use social networking sites such as Facebook, twitter and Google+ (to name a few) but do not go out and actively SPAM, it will get you nowhere and probably result in the reverse effect.
Everyone loves a bargain, the word 'Sale' triggers something mentally in people's brains that makes them at least look even if they don't end up buying. I don't mean stick everything on sale in your store, but holding the occasional promotion and promoting it via the methods above, via newsletters to subscribers on your store etc will all help in both getting sales and getting your site out there.
This is searchable on the search engines and also is displayed under the link in the search results.
For your product descriptions and other page content, don't simply just copy paste text from other sources such as manufacturer's sites etc, it will be classed as duplicate content and will not rank as well as individual content.
Try to aim for 150+ words on each page and include relevant keywords phrases that you think your buyers would search for.
Try not to make it robotic, but human readable.
If possible use bullet points to list features. Nobody likes to read paragraph after paragraph of text.
Submit your sitemap to and site link to the top search engines and directories such as DMOZ.
Other than the above, there are many resources on the net relating to SEO, read up on it, keep at it. It is hard work to get good rankings and it does take time.
Use Google's free shopping service to submit your products to.
use social networking sites such as Facebook, twitter and Google+ (to name a few) but do not go out and actively SPAM, it will get you nowhere and probably result in the reverse effect.
Everyone loves a bargain, the word 'Sale' triggers something mentally in people's brains that makes them at least look even if they don't end up buying. I don't mean stick everything on sale in your store, but holding the occasional promotion and promoting it via the methods above, via newsletters to subscribers on your store etc will all help in both getting sales and getting your site out there.
Hi All
I am using opencart on my servers that also has a cms program on so I have a htaccess. file already on the server of give me the pretty urls for the cms site and all works perfectly.
This is the file to make the cms work:
# Switch rewrite engine off in case this was installed under HostPay.
#RewriteEngine Off
#SetEnv DEFAULT_PHP_VERSION 5
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
# 301 Redirect all requests that don't contain a dot or trailing slash to
# include a trailing slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.
RewriteRule ^(.*) %{REQUEST_URI}/ [R=301,L,NE]
# Rewrites urls in the form of /parent/child/
# but only rewrites if the requested URL is not a file or directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ index.php?page=$1 [QSA,NE]
I have the opencart V1.5.x in a folder named marketing and the above htaccess will not work for it. I have looked for htaccess.txt and I can't file it in the opencart download file so where can I find it and failing that i will write a new one the problem is don't know what to put in it!!!
can anyone let me have a copy so I can put it in the marketing folder?
Regards
Frank
I am using opencart on my servers that also has a cms program on so I have a htaccess. file already on the server of give me the pretty urls for the cms site and all works perfectly.
This is the file to make the cms work:
# Switch rewrite engine off in case this was installed under HostPay.
#RewriteEngine Off
#SetEnv DEFAULT_PHP_VERSION 5
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
# 301 Redirect all requests that don't contain a dot or trailing slash to
# include a trailing slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.
RewriteRule ^(.*) %{REQUEST_URI}/ [R=301,L,NE]
# Rewrites urls in the form of /parent/child/
# but only rewrites if the requested URL is not a file or directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ index.php?page=$1 [QSA,NE]
I have the opencart V1.5.x in a folder named marketing and the above htaccess will not work for it. I have looked for htaccess.txt and I can't file it in the opencart download file so where can I find it and failing that i will write a new one the problem is don't know what to put in it!!!
can anyone let me have a copy so I can put it in the marketing folder?
Regards
Frank
Hi, the htaccess is there, it's sometimes hidden, so you need to show hidden files. Anyways here's what mine looks like.
Code: Select all
# 1.To use URL Alias you need to be running apache with mod_rewrite enabled.
# 2. In your opencart directory rename htaccess.txt to .htaccess
# For any support issues please visit: http://www.opencart.com
Options +FollowSymlinks
# Prevent Directoy listing
Options -Indexes
# Prevent Direct Access to files
<FilesMatch "\.(tpl|ini|log|txt)">
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
</FilesMatch>
# SEO URL Settings
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^?]*) index.php?_route_=$1 [L,QSA]
### Additional Settings that may need to be enabled for some servers
### Uncomment the commands by removing the # sign in front of it.
### If you get an "Internal Server Error 500" after enabling, then restore the # as this means your host doesn't allow that.
# 1. If your cart only allows you to add one item at a time, it is possible register_globals is on. This may work to disable it:
# php_flag register_globals off
# 2. If your cart has magic quotes enabled, This may work to disable it:
# php_flag magic_quotes_gpc Off
You want to thank me for my time! 
Click here to donate
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 86 guests
