Building/Using SEO friendly breadcrumb URLs

[papi34]

After implementing the various MM5.5 search engine optimization options....is there an .htaccess statement/rewrite that would bring me to a Breadcrumb URL: (ex. http://www.bronsondesign.com/table-clocks/06908.html)
whenever someone clicks on any product from any category page.

Right now, it goes to to:
http://www.bronsondesign.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=BDS&Product_Code=06908&Category_Code=table-clocks

I'd like the end result be a short breadcrumb URL (i.e. NOT product URL) displayed with the category tree expanded appropriately.

...or better yet, is there some miva code that could be used on my category pages to dynamically build the correct SEO friendly Breadcrumb URL?

[Barrett]

Yes rebuild the bread trail url strings to your liking in the templates.
I am using sebenza's templates that made this fairly straightforward. Not sure how this compares to the stock templates right off till I get time to look at those.

[papi34]

Yes rebuild the bread trail url strings to your liking in the templates.
I am using sebenza's templates that made this fairly straightforward. Not sure how this compares to the stock templates right off till I get time to look at those.

D'oh....I stopped reading Pete's how-to article after the "Link to a Category from the Category Tree" step. I should have read entire search engine friendly links tutorial (http://internetmarketingengine.com/ecommerce/search-friendly-links-tutorial-mm5.html). Perhaps the answer is in there somewhere.

[Barrett]

Here's my current cat breadtrail build in a Sebenza template.
It's got my plan character spacer things and a span id tag for some formatting could experiment with.
I'm overseas this week so I won't be that fast in replies.
Hope it helps.


<mvt:comment> *** Breadcrumb Trail *** </mvt:comment>

<div id="breadcrumb"><a href="http://www.bronsondesign.com">StoreFront</a> <mvt:foreach iterator="crumb" array="breadcrumb">► <a href="/page/&mvta:store:code;/CTGY/&mvt:crumb:code;">&mvt:crumb:name;</a></mvt:foreach> ►<span id="currentcat"> &mvt:category:name; &mvt:global:Ttl_Products;</span></div>

<mvt:comment> *** End Breadcrumb Trail *** </mvt:comment>

[Pete McNamara]

Perhaps the answer is in there somewhere.

Sort of. You can create sef breadcrumb links on all pages except product pages, under the circumstances below:

You can only create a breadcrumb link on a product page if the category code is passed. I don't recommend passing the category code when doing SEF links so if you followed this advice you wouldn't be able to create search engine breadcrumbs from the product page back to the category page. In my experience, that downside is more than offset by the search engine friendliness of not creating duplicate pages (i.e. links to the same product page:

mydomain.com/p/3491-widget.html
mydomain.com/p/545/3491-widget.html
mydomain.com/p/213/3491-widget.html

where 545 and 213 are category codes, 3491 is the product code and widget is the product name.