Using search engine friendly URLs with OpenCart will boost your presence in the search engines and increase your click-through-rate when customers search for your products. If you have a large inventory, this can be a daunting task.

We've created a script that you can schedule as a cron task or run manually from your browser that automatically generates search engine friendly URLs for every active product and manufacturer in your store in a matter of a couple seconds. The script is super fast and light and will not put any noticeable load on your server while it processes. Most of our clients have chosen to schedule a daily cron task for this script.

The script works by deleting all existing product and manufacturer url aliases in the 'url_alias' table. It then regenerates new URLs from the product/manufacturer titles and formats them in a search engine friendly format. Product URLs will include the product title and model number (recommended by Google) while manufacturer URLs will include the manufacturer name.

The delete function can be disabled (instructions provided within the script file), thereby preserving your existing URL aliases and creating the new aliases in addition to your existing ones. While the option is there, we recommend allowing the delete function to avoid sending multiple links of duplicate content to search engines when their bots scan your site.

For example, mysite.com/one-link-to-a-product and mysite.com/another-link-to-the-same-product can actually HURT your search engine ranking. To avoid this, the script first removes existing URL aliases before it generates the new ones, so you only have one link per product or manufacturer. The link would then only change thereafter if you change the title of the product, change the model number (included in the URL), or change the name of a manufacturer.

Instructions are also provided in the script to alter the number of characters each word must have to be included in the URL (if you want to exclude short words like 'a','the', etc.).

This script is already in production use on multiple clients' sites and has been validated for the OpenCart versions selected on the Downloads tab. This script should work with all versions of OpenCart that use the url_alias table.

If you would like to beta test the script for a version that hasn't been validated, we will provide the script to you for free as long as you're willing to let us know whether it did or did not work. If a particular version of OpenCart does not work with this script, we will gladly replace it with a modified copy for you.

If you would like to beta test the script for free, please e-mail us at support@bigdealhosting.com with your domain name.

The only table affected by this script is the 'url_alias' table. We recommend making a backup copy of the 'url_alias' table prior to running the script in case you want to revert back to your original URLs.

Free live chat support is available at BigDealHosting.com. If live chat is unavailable, please feel free to open a support ticket. Our support staff is available whether you've already purchased the script or have questions before you buy.