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#2943 – Transfer of content from one website to another

Posted in ‘sh404SEF’
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Wednesday, 09 November 2016 10:07 UTC
Lavers69
 HI

I wonder if you can help me. I have two websites which are set up with exactly the same settings in sh404sef. I am looking to close down website 1 (www.xxxx.com) and transfer about 20 high ranking articles to website 2 (www.xxxx.com). I will then do 301 redirects from website 1 to website 2 for these 20 articles.

When I add the 20 articles to website 2, I want to try and keep the url structure the same (apart from the domain name). One issue I have is that the urls for the two websites are structured slightly differenty (which is strange because I have double-checked the configuration settings in sh404sef for both sites and they are the same). The issue is for Website 2 the Main menu link text is being inserted into the URL, but not on Website 1. So for example:

Website 1 urls: http://www.xxxx.com/best-festivals-south-france/mare-di-moda.html is an article stored in Category "South France tourism" and the sub-category "Best festivals South France". To get to this article it is found by clicking on the Main Menu item "France tourism" and sub-menu item link "Best festivals in South France". So basically it is quite a clean url, with none of the menu links or the Parent Category being inserted into the URL.

However, on website 2, the URLs are a bit of a mess. So for example, a similar article which is linked from a sub-Main menu link looks like this:

http://www.xxxx.com/markets-festivals/languedoc-markets-festivals/languedoc-festivals-festival-avignon.html

What is happening here is that "markets-festivals" is the title of the sub-menu link and "languedoc-markets-festivals" is the title of the content sub-category. So the Main Menu link text is being inserted into the URL. This is not ideal, but I do not want to disturb the URLs on Website 2 by changing the configuration settings.

What I want to do is to transfer across these 20 articles and then create custom URLs. However, given that I will be using 301 redirects from website 1 to website 2 anyway, I don't want to add in a second 301 redirect to a cleaner URL. Is it possible to create a custom url on website 2 for these 20 articles which will always be stored in the database and not wiped out if I have to purge the URLs at any time in the future?

I hope that you can help

regards

Iain Laverock
Wednesday, 09 November 2016 11:48 UTC
wb_weeblr
Hi

sh404SEF does not use menu items to build URLs, at least not for com_content and with default settings.

- What sort of content are you talking about?
- What settings do you have under "By component" for the extension generating that content? is it all left on "Use default handler" and "Use sh404SEF plugin if available"?

Is it possible to create a custom url on website 2 for these 20 articles which will always be stored in the database and not wiped out if I have to purge the URLs at any time in the future?
Custom URLs are not deleted when Purging (nor page title, descriptions, etc)

Rgds
 
Wednesday, 09 November 2016 12:03 UTC
Lavers69
Hi

Thanks for coming back to me. It is just normal Joomla content. The menu links I am using are Category blog links

Under By Component the settings are Use default handler and Use sh404sef plugin if available.

It is just strange that they are both set up the same, but one is behaving differently. Anyway, from what you say about the Custom URLs, that seems to be the way forward for these 20 pages I will be transferring. Thanks for your help.
Wednesday, 09 November 2016 12:49 UTC
wb_weeblr
Hi

The menu links I am using are Category blog links
It's the same for categories links, we just don't use menu links. Have you checked those are not custom URLs?

Rgds
 
Wednesday, 09 November 2016 12:51 UTC
wb_weeblr
Hi again,

There is one exception to the "no menu items" rule, it's when you create a link (blog or list) to the "Uncategorized" category.

Rgds
 
Wednesday, 09 November 2016 20:19 UTC
Lavers69
Hi

I think that I may have found the cause of my issues. When I create an article it creates a non-sef URL to view the article (for example: index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=101&catid=107&id=508&lang=en&view=article which is turned into this SEF URL by sh404sef : http://www.xxxx.com/best-south-france-sites/best-south-of-france-cities-to-visit.html). In this example the category is best-south-france-sites and the article title alias is "best-south-of-france-cities-to-visit". This sef URL is perfect.

However, when I set up a menu link as a category blog to pull up all the article in this category, what happens is that there are now 2 paths to the same article. The URL to the article in the category blog from the menu link now becomes: http://www.xxxx.com/best-south-france-sites/best-south-france-sites/best-south-of-france-cities-to-visit.html - which is what I want to avoid.

Is there a way to stop this without having to use a 301?

Thanks

Iain
Thursday, 10 November 2016 08:30 UTC
wb_weeblr
Hi

Sorry, that doesn't make any sense and is not how sh404SEF behaves. What you describe is Joomla SEF behavior. sh404SEF would always create the SAME URL for an article, precisely because it doesn't use the menu item.

1 -
best-south-france-sites/best-south-france-sites/best-south-of-france-cities-to-visit.html
What is the non-sef URL recorded in the URL manager for this SEF?

2 -
When I create an article it creates a non-sef URL to view the article (for example: index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=101&catid=107&id=508&lang=en&view=article
What creates this link? you have a module on the front page that links to your new articles? your frontpage is a category ?

Rgds
 
Thursday, 10 November 2016 09:28 UTC
Lavers69
Hi

Thanks for coming back to me on this. Yes, this was what I thought would happen with sh404sef and it has been causing me issues because I obviously end up with duplicates of a lot of pages.

This is the clean URL which is produced by Joomla view article, with no menu link or category blog

Non-SEF url index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=101&catid=107&id=507&lang=en&view=article
This produces this URL: best-south-france-sites/best-places-in-france-to-visit.html (shurl: k38k)

This is the contaminated URL produced when the article is arrived at from a category blog when a user clicks on a menu link

Non-SEF url index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=391&catid=107&id=507&lang=en&view=article
best-south-france-sites/best-south-france-sites/best-places-in-france-to-visit.html (shurl: k36f)

It seems to be this different com_content&temid which is triggering it.

This is how I have set up the Menu link to get to the category blog

Menu title: Best South France sites
Alias: best-south-france-sites
Menu item type: Category blog
Category: Best South France Sites
Link: index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=107 (this is produced automatically)
Target window: Parent
Template style: Use default
Menu: Main Menu
Parent item: -Languedoc tourism

My site global configuration is set up as follows:
Search Engine Friendly URLs: Yes
Use URL Rewriting: Yes
Adds Suffix to URL: Yes
Unicode Aliases: Yes
Include Site Name in Page Titles: No

If you need access to my admin panel it is:

http://www.xxxx.com/administrator/
User: xxxx
Pass: xxxx

Thursday, 10 November 2016 09:41 UTC
wb_weeblr
Hi

This is the clean URL which is produced by Joomla view article, with no menu link or category blog
There is a misunderstanding here. Joomla view article does NOT create a link. A link (to an article or anything else) is created in a menu, in a module, inside of another article.

with no menu link or category blog
If there is no menu or category blog, or module, or something else, there is no link.

Anyway, I connected, and the issue is pretty simple: you have enabled all the Menu Itemid options:



Those are off by default, and enabling is causing exactly what you are seeing (ie: Always insert menu item, etc).

You'll have to disable them back to their defaults, then the only way to get back the original URLs is to Purge, so that new ones are created again.

Rgds
 
Thursday, 10 November 2016 10:18 UTC
Lavers69
Ah! OK, thanks very much for this. I will implement this straight away.
Friday, 25 November 2016 05:34 UTC
system
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