Not sure if this has been discussed anywhere before. I searched but couldn't find it. Please point me to the right direction if this topic already exists.

Anyway, I've an online shop built in Joomla and Virtuemart and I bought Artio which I think is worth every penny. I couldn't be any happier with this plugin specially for virtuemart. Everything works like a charm except this one issue. I've single product but multiple URL, which is not ideal of course. This is my scenario:

I"ve "Product C" which belongs to both "Category A" and "Category B". My product URLs are currently like this:

www.mydomain.com/products/CATEGORY-NAME/PRODUCT-NAME.html

So, for "Product C" I've 2 different URLs. I changed all product urls to www.mydomain.com/products/PRODUCT-NAME.html to avoid multiple URLs for the same product and it works too except a slight but to me a big issue.

Now what happens is, whenever I select "Product C", in the breadcrumbs it shows the product is under "Category A", even if I come to that product page from "Category B". Even the "Category A" is always highlighted on the left side bar category menu when I get to that product page.

This is not what I want. I want "Category B" should be highlighted on the left side bar category menu and breadcrumb should reflect the same.

Is there anyway to achieve this? I'd really appreciate your advice and help.

O, I manually modified the SEF URLs.
Waiting for all your responses.

Cheers.

Hello,

1) I am glad you like JoomSEF

2) there is no need to change URLs manually, you can do this in the extension configuration, where you can set whether the product URL shall be:
a) just PRODUCT_NAME
b) PARENT_CATEGORY/PRODUCT_NAME
c) PARENT_CATEGORY/SUBCATEGORY1/SUBCATEGORY2/.../PRODUCT_NAME
as well as other settings

3) you cannot have 1 URL with different highlighted menus depending on the path you used - that is simply not possible; there must be always unique idenitfier to be able to highlight correct menu item - in case you want just 1 URL, there can exist just single identifier and so just 1 menu item can be highlighted; so you can have one or another, not both at the same time

However, what I would recommend you is using the configuration 2c) - that means the full product path. You will have multiple URL for each product, but it will be dependent on the current category tree and thus very clear to users. Also, this should make no harm to your SEO position as it is not "aritificial", but somehow "logical" duplicity. (in fact it is not duplicity, as there are different things -> at least the product path)

The theory behind this and reasoning is party described in our FAQs and Docs - for more details, see info on Itemid values.

Hi Jan,
Thank you very much for your reply mate. Let's have a look at it again:

Point 3) I don't want multiple categories on the menu to be highlighted at the same time. I want either Category A or Category B to be highlighted depending which Category page you came to the Product A page from. So if I come from Category B, i want Category B to be highlighted not Category A or Not Category A & B. At the moment Category A is always highlighted. If I keep product URLs to the following format then everything works fine:
www.mydomain.com/products/CATEGORY-NAME/PRODUCT-NAME.html

But as I said, I am hoping to have the following URL without the CATEGORY-NAME:
www.mydomain.com/products/PRODUCT-NAME.html

So if I have option "2a" setup in the configuration then will the above scenario work?

UPDATE
I've changed the URL type from the config (I've set "Add categories to URL" to No. Hope this is right.) and now it has created 2 urls for 2 Categories for the same product. Like the following:

www.mydomain.com/products/PRODUCT-A.html
www.mydomain.com/products/PRODUCT-A-2.html

And I am sure, if I change the product URLs manually now (for both to read www.mydomain.com/products/PRODUCT-A.html) then it will be back to square one. Or will it?

UPDATE 2
Yap, as expected. After changing the URL manually (now both URLs are same in the DB), it came back to square one. Again, Category A is selected and highlighted no matter which category page you come from.

Is there any way I can achieve what I want? Thanks in advance mate.

That is not what I meant. I meant that you cannot have 2 menu items (categories) including the same product and having single URL, that will act differently each time (meaning once category A is highlighted and second time it would be B) based on where you go.
If you want single URL for the product, always A or B will be highlighted, but always just one of them, they will not be switching. Believe me or not, what you want to do is not possible without different URL or at least extra parameter(non-SEO) added to the URL.

Hey Jan,
I hear what you're saying mate..what I was after would've been ideal if it was achievable but having categories plugged into the url wouldn't hurt that much I guess...

anyway, thanks a lot for your help mate...

cheers..