Convert PopShops pages to PT

Hello Retro135, and welcome to the forum!

With "rewrite" enabled ($config_useRewrite = TRUE in config.php) and .htaccess in place (made from a copy of htaccess.txt in the distribution), Price Tapestry will automatically create category pages with the URLs

/category/Category-Name/

So potentially, all you might need to do is use Category Mapping to make sure that your feed categories match up with the existing /category/ folders that you have on your site.

If it looks like it might not be a simple as that, if you could let me know a couple of existing URLs that you do not wish to lose search engine traction for (I'll remove before publishing your reply) and I'll work out how best to do the migration...

Cheers,
David.
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PriceTapestry.com

1. Actually, I'm still several steps behind. Should I do one install as: mysite.com/stores/? Then all categories/category-name will follow? Some of my categories have a hyphen in the name: PT category won't accept a hyphen, so can't match several categories. I'll 301 those pages.

2. I don't understand Category Mapping, I think what I have is different. It's more like /category/page1.html, /category/page2.html, etc. and each page is a different sub-category (based on multiple keywords that I've used to extract products from multiple merchant feeds). So I'm not sure how I can achieve that. Don't understand what "alternatives" is in Category Mapping.

I don't want anything on the main category page (or would like to add my own layout).

3. All my pages are .html. I'm still trying to figure out header/footer as I need to add varying info in the sidebar.

I know I sound like a real PITA now, but once I get a grasp on this, I know I'll be flying through.

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Hi,

Yes - I would get started with Price Tapestry in a sub-directory. /stores/ is good - so as you install the script, line 6 of config.php would be;

And create .htaccess (from htaccess.txt in the distribution) with line 5 as:

(make sure that $config_useRewrite is set to TRUE at line 8 of config.php)

The easiest way to think about Category Mapping is effectively one big "Search and Replace" filter. Its purpose is to let you combine or rename slightly different feed categories (as merchants never use exactly the same names except in very generic cases) into a single category name on your site.

For example, let's say 2 merchants have the Televisions categorised as follows:

Merchant A: TVs

Merchant B: TV

...but on your site, you want to use the single category name "Televisions", so you would create a new Category Mapping entry with the name "Televisions", and then in the Alternatives box on the configuration page, you would enter

=TVs
=TV

(the "=" indicating an exact match against a feed category).

The results would then be on your site as

http://www.example.com/stores/category/Televisions/

...and subsequent pages;

http://www.example.com/stores/category/Televisions/2.html
http://www.example.com/stores/category/Televisions/3.html
etc.

This would give you 2 options for your existing pages, for example the existing page:

http://www.example.com/Home-and-Garden/Televisions.html

You could either 301 redirect to the equivalent new page:

...or alternatively, rewrite to the new version:

Note that the above would be in a top level .htaccess, not the Price Tapestry .htaccess file in the /stores/ folder.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,
David.
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PriceTapestry.com

Hi David,
TY for your prompt answers! Already have installed & configured. I did read the manual (yes! :-) with the televisions example, except I'm not understanding how to configure a larger category, then subcategories (the individual pages created from keywords) under it. So /category/ never has a "name," e.g. /homeaccessories/lamps/tablelamp.html, /homeaccessories/lamps/floorlamp.html, for example. It's always /category/tablelamps/???.html

Don't understand how you get the individual pages, 2.html, 3.html. Sorry, I'm missing some elemental understanding here about keywords, how to control which merchant feeds are allowed, etc....and not even sure what to ask at this point. I'm usually excellent at figuring out how the finger bone is connected to the hand bone, etc., but am just completely lost here as I'm not starting from scratch. I'm just going to try and muddle through.

Hi,

I didn't want to include too much information above so I was initially referring to basic Category Mapping only, but Price Tapestry, as of 15/01A now supports full Category Hierarchy Mapping which should let you set-up a URL structure very similar if not identical to your current pages.

Have a read of Category Hierarchy Mapping and that will describe the steps involved in enabling and then creating your hierarchy, so if you create a category "Home Accessories" with a sub-category "Lamps", this will have the URL on your site (in the /store/ installation)

/store/category/Home-Accessories/Lamps/

Pagination is handled automatically by the script - the above URL will show page 1 of the results for that category, with subsequent pages being

/store/category/Home-Accessories/Lamps/2.html
/store/category/Home-Accessories/Lamps/3.html
etc.

If you would like to remove /category/ from the URL this is indeed possible but requires a few modifications and careful changes to .htaccess to ensure that site operation isn't affected so if once you've had a play with Category Hierarchy Mapping you'd like to modify the URL structure slightly let me know your preferred format and I'll describe the changes required!

Note that having enabled Category Hierarchy Mapping, no results will be displayed for node categories until feed categories have been mapped into them (you can do this either from the Configuration page for an individual node, or using the Reverse Mapping tool where you can simply map feed categories into your hierarchy all on one page. After managing your mappings all feeds much re-imported for the changes to take effect.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,
David.
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PriceTapestry.com

TY David! Will have to try on Friday or Sun. I appreciate your assistance.