I'm hoping someone will help me understand the URL_REWRITING feature of the SmartSection 2.1 RC 1 module. I've downloaded the extras zip file, added the two lines to mainfile.php (for rewrite), adjusted the .htaccess in my XOOPS folder to include this line:
RewriteRule ^ss\.([a-z]+)\.([0-9.]+)/ modules/smartsection/seo.php?seoOp=$1&seoArg=$2
and adjusted the line in the smartsection/include/seo_functions.php file to reflect ss for the directory.

The page /ss.item.1/ does indeed display the article (assigned to itemid=1) with the SE friendly URL but the original page still exists: modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=1
Same for /ss.category.2/ as the original page: modules/smartsection/category.php?categoryid=2 still exists. Will that not create duplicate content in search engines?

Also, the links in the breadcrumb menu (SmartSection > CategoryName) and the categories menu block are not rewritten, and instead show the original URLs. I must be missing something. Is there another component in addition to the above I should be using? Does this require someone else's hack (i.e., SHORT_URLS) to work completely? Or should I remove the category menu block and breadcrumb feature?

This site uses XOOPS 2.2.4, PHP v 4.3.10, MySQL 3.23.58, Apache/1.3.33 (Unix)

Afaik the duplicate content issue happens with every rewrite method going around (simplified url for example). I guess you can make sure to always link to the 'corrected' url and then SE wont find the other content (my problem with this is that its hard to check if every url is ok).

Thanks patagon. I guess then the answer is to not use the breadcrumb and menu block since they point right to the original URL. That disqualifies using mod_rewrite for me. I do see that Google and other SEs index URLs containing characters such ? and &topic_id= so I'm wondering how important mod_rewrite is. I'm sure it helps but not if one is creating duplicate pages across one's site.

We use mod_rewrite on most of our sites so it is frustrating that it is not available with XOOPS (completely, that is). I recently read in another post that the next major XOOPS version will offer search engine friendly URLs. I wonder if it will address the issue of breadcrumbs, menus and blocks containing the original URLs...?

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Hi

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Not if no links are available pointing on original URLs.

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Regarding the breadcrumb, I cannot reproduce that. Can you post an URL where we could see this live in action. Or perhaps i'm not understanding the issue correctly ? Can you see this bug on SmartFactory's Library ?

As for the Category block, yes this, slipped through our testing as not used on the SmartFactory. It shall be fixed by final release.

Cheers !

Hello marcan,
Thank you for your reply. No, I do not see this on the SmartFactory site - the URLs look fine there. I will have to double check to see what I might have done wrong and let you know. Perhaps I am missing a setting - I have done this:
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Is there anything else I need to do/add?
Thanks again, marcan!
Cuidiu
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I think there is a little error in (example below) text with instructions for turn on rewrite function:



To rewrite work I change this line to:




For me, this change solved the problem.

You are right. This will be fixed in the final.

Cheers !

Thank you marcionline! That fixed it.

Cuidiu