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Optional Field Index

Submitted by srl2112 on Tue, 2006-04-18 20:40 in

Is it too complicated or impossible to add one more optional Field Index? After reading the Category Filter forum response, I have a feeling it is not reasonably do-able. I'm just not sure if I'm asking the same question. I'm looking to enable hyperlinks for Search:

Merchants
Categories
Brands
All Products

P.S. Is excel the standard way to parse and edit data feeds?

Thanks - Steve

Submitted by support on Wed, 2006-04-19 04:28

Hi Steve,

Can you clarify what you mean by enabling hyperlinks for those items? You can create links to a specific category or brand search by either;

i) Linking to the appropriately mapped sub-directory if you are using search engine friendly URLs, or

ii) Linking to search.php with an appropriate query in the "?q=" componenent of the URL.

For example, if I wanted to create a link to a search for all Sony products on WebPriceCheck.co.uk, I could do that as follows:

http://www.webpricecheck.co.uk/search.php?q=brand:Sony

I'm not sure that's what you mean though, so if you could give some more info that will help...

Cheers,
David.

Submitted by srl2112 on Wed, 2006-04-19 22:55

Hi David

Just how the home page has Search or Browse: Merchants, Categories or Brands, - I was wondering if one more could be added. Each of the above goes to what looks like an index page with all of the clickable links (as opposed to product search results). I was seeing if there was a way to add one more that could be called All Products.
If you click on it , it would not produce search results, but rather a clickable links page to each and all of the products. It seems like a major rework. The program is awesome the way it is now - but just a yes or no would be appreciated.

Thanks Steve

Submitted by IG on Thu, 2006-04-20 05:59

If you have a lot of products, it would not make a lot of sense to show them all on one page. That's what the Google sitemap is for.

Cheers, IG

Submitted by support on Thu, 2006-04-20 06:02

Hi Steve,

That's the long and the short of it i'm afraid. There are several issues associated with creating a product index...

Firstly, the page could be huge - and Search Engines are known to dislike pages with too many links on them. Secondly; it would require an "unbuffered query" to the database as there would be RAM issues in making a query with so many results.

The idea is that it is possible to reach every single product page on your site via the Merchant index; and with that in addition to the Google sitemap feature the search engines shouldn't have any problems.

Cheers,
David.

Submitted by srl2112 on Thu, 2006-04-20 06:28

I thought that I could "free up" an "index category" by copying the source code of the brands onto a page (called brands.html or brands.php?) in the html directory. I thought that I could have a link to that page called : Brands. Then I would reuse the optional field
for Brands and use it for Product or something else. I tested that theory, but I just got Page Not Found when I click on the "links" on the "Brands" page. Obviously I don't know what I'm doing. But I'll always try something. I'll look into the Google Sitemap feature next.

Thanks for your reply - Steve