Using VM2 without "SEO suffix"

[izig]

Hi,

Is it possible to use VM 2.0.24 with Joomla 2.5.14 (both latest) without any "SEO suffux"? (Without any 3rd party plugin)
With a clean install I see the SEO suffix can be empty in the SEO configuration but then no product is accessible.

Thanks,
Izi

[izig]

After some reading I see that it's mandatory to have the "SEO suffix" in order to have a working shop.
My current store uses sh404SEF and I would like to start using the internal SEF solution instead.

I'll appreciate any tip that will assist me with the following situation.
My store have the following URLs for products:
http://www.my_store.com/product_name

And for categories:
http://www.my_store.com/category_name

With the categories there is no issues and I can still have the same URL after disabling the sh404SEF.
For products I'll need to redirect the following URL:
http://www.my_store.com/product_name

Into something like that:
http://www.my_store.com/category_name/product_name-details

Is it possible without any 3rd party tool? Doe's Joomla Redirect can handle it?

Thanks,
Izi

[jjk]

I'm not shure, because I never used sh404sef with Joomla 2.x. But my assumption is that the Joomla redirect manager will not catch a 404 page not found error, because VirtueMart will probably automatically redirect to your homepage. However, it should be possible to add the old url and the new url manually into the Joomla redirect manager. If you click on 'New' in the Joomla redirect Manager, a form with old url/new url shows up.
I think you can try it on your test website.

If you feel comfortable using phpMyAdmin, you could probably export your old urls from a sh404sef database table and import them into the Joomla xxxxx_redirect_links table.

[izig]

Tried adding a Redirection rule with no success, the old URL doesn't work like the rule doesn't exist.
In the Redirect table, I don't see any access to the old URL.

I will further investigate this and update.

[jjk]

Tried adding a Redirection rule with no success, the old URL doesn't work like the rule doesn't exist.
In the Redirect table, I don't see any access to the old URL.

VirtueMart doesn't throw a 404 error when somebody enters an obolete url. Therefore the Joomla redirect manager doesn't catch a 404 Error. If you want to use the Joomla redirect manager, you would have to add both, the old and the new url manually into the redirect list. However, the redirect would work only for the search engine crawlers (I'm not 100% shure if the crawlers catch this case, because I didn't test it myself). Because of the way the VM router works, both your old and the new url would work if you enter them manually into your browser.

If your normal url is for example:

Code Select Expand

http://www.my_store.com/category_name/product_name-details
and you would instead replace the category_name with some garbage like:

Code Select Expand

http://www.my_store.com/lsdkfjsldkjf/product_name-details
VM would still find it.