Hello!

I am running an e-commerce website which is pretty much complete in almost every aspect.

I already have sef/human readable urls with the use of Yagendoo sef pro plugin which is pretty basic on its functions/features.

I was dreaded with some 40K ( yep, thousand ) 404 error pages in Google Webmaster tools during last summer. Up until now, I have managed to drop them to 10K with some 301 redirects from within nginx. But 301 redirect is not permanent and it's not good for Google organic search and SEO in general.

What I wanted to know is if I can retain the url structure I already have in my website after installation of your component. You can see the structure in the website : www.sexopolis.gr ( adult novelties e-shop )

And because the characters are in Greek, here is the structure :

www.sexopolis.gr/el/MenuAlias/ID-Category/ID-Product

I basically want to be able to have urls which depend on the Menu Alias, because on each menu page I have different modules setup and I want them to keep their positions as they are now.

Another issue I need to know is if I'll be able to track duplicate content and have a log of 404 error requests. I have been playing with sh404sef and I've seen that they have 404 error logs, but I didn't like the fact that I had to do a custom plugin in order for the menu alias to appear in the url. ( As I was told by their kind and fast support )

Last but not least, what is the impact on the server when using the component ( always of course )? I run a 1GB ram VPS on a very reliable host ( www.vr.org ) and it's setup with nginx + php5-fpm + apc cache + nginx microcaching and the overall speed of the website is very satisfying and it can deliver even when in high loads ( 2,3+ )

I am asking the issue of speed because I have read here and there that there is speed deterioration after some time. I understand that it stores data in the database, but I wouldn't like to have my website run slower just because I am running a component, no matter how important that component may be.

Thanks a lot for your precious time, and congratulations on your hard work.

Best regards,

Bill K.

Hello Bill,

I can see on your website that the URLs currently use the structure of:
www.sexopolis.gr/ID-MenuAlias/ID-Category/ID-Product

JoomSEF with JoomSEF extension for VirtueMart can follow this structure except the ID for menu part - currently the menu alias can be added only without the ID.

Whether the correct menu alias is used in the URL depends on VirtueMart's ability to use the correct menu in the original URL, but that shouldn't be a problem on your website unless it's currently handled by your Yagendoo SEF plugin.

Of course using the component slows down the site a bit, because for each displayed SEF URL a database request is made. JoomSEF uses caching of the URLs to lower the impact. But the real impact is impossible to predict. You can make a testing copy of your website and try our free version of JoomSEF and set VirtueMart handling to JoomSEF basic rewriting - that way you won't need to purchase the VirtueMart extension and the URLs will be stored in database, so the performance impact should be simulated quite well.

Hello and thanks for your answer!

Yes, when you saw the website I was ( still am, partially ) using the Mijosef component.

I made a mistake in my first post though, I just wanted the menualias on the url not its ID as well.

This is because I have setup different menu aliases for every department in my shop, and up until now it's the most efficient way of browsing and assigning modules to pages.

So, does Joomsef provide this functionality of having different menu alias whenever possible or it uses the "default" menu alias for each component? Right now I have 10 menus which are Virtuemart items and they all have their separate alias in each page.

Also, do you have a refund policy?

I'm asking about the refund policy because I've spent some 30 hours almost non stop trying to figure out the most effective way of having clean urls without duplicate entries ( I suspect Joomifsh may had to do with that but I'm not sure. nevertheless 10K 404 error pages is a SEO nightmare ) and it seems that it's very difficult to setup without having to compromise or sacrifice very important parts of the aldready setup configuration.

I will try to test the free version if possible and check to see about the performance issue.

Thanks a lot for your time and your help.

Yes, JoomSEF supports different menu aliases in its SEF URLs, but it depends on the underlying Joomla and VirtueMart configuration - if Joomla selects correct menu item to use in the URL, JoomSEF will generate correct menu item alias in the SEF URL.
You can check this by disabling SEF completely in Joomla's Global Configuration and check whether each section of your website uses different Itemid in the non-SEF URL - the value of Itemid variable is the ID of menu item that will be used.

We currently don't offer any refund policy.