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    Merchant Optimizer Help

    I realize that Bruce G is the best person to go to with this. And he has been fantastic, as he always is. But I'm up against a little deadline and since he and I have a 3 hour time difference between East Coast and West Coast, I thought I would try putting this out here this morning in case anyone knows the answer.

    I have Merchant Optimizer installed (but not Live) on my Miva 5.5 site. And I have built my product and category pages, which look good. But this site does NOT use the Miva Storefront page as its home page. It has a static HTML page called index.htm which includes links to various Miva product pages.

    Bottom line is that I'm trying to accomplish two things:

    1) Use Optimizer so that when someone clicks a link to a Miva product page anywhere on my site, on either a Miva or non-Miva page, they automatically get the Optimizer-generated static page.

    2) Use Optimizer while still being able to keep a non-Miva home page rather than the Storefront page.

    If anyone can help, I'd be VERY grateful.

    Thanks,
    Scott
    Last edited by shooter56; 02-22-13, 04:38 AM.

    #2
    Re: Merchant Optimizer Help

    1. You can change your .htaccess file to redirect to the /optimizer/product/page.html or /optimizer/category/page.html

    2. You can keep the non-miva storefront page, just change the links to point to the optimizer directory

    Note: you'll need to provide a solution to keep session_id when transitioning through the static and miva environments or you will drop baskets.
    Last edited by alphabet; 02-22-13, 05:26 AM. Reason: typo
    http://www.alphabetsigns.com/

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Merchant Optimizer Help

      Just a note of caution, it is always best practice to backup your /optimizer/ directories and .htaccess file before making changes or going to live mode.
      http://www.alphabetsigns.com/

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Merchant Optimizer Help

        I can't remember accurately, but I think Optimizer either offers to make the relevant htaccess entries for you, or its manual may have them; one of the two. They basically look something like this:

        RewriteEngine On
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/mm5/merchant.mvc
        RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} Product_Code=(.*)&
        RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/optimizer/p/%1.html [R=301,L]
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/mm5/merchant.mvc
        RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} Product_Code=(.*)$
        RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/optimizer/p/%1.html [R=301,L]

        Those two look similar, the difference is the query string condition. The one ending in ampersand is designed to catch URL's that don't have the product code at the end of the string, the second one catches URL's that have the query string as the final variable in the string. You can use something similar to strip out category URL's. Obviously tune the store url and optimizer url's to suit.
        David Hubbard
        CIO
        Miva
        [email protected]
        http://www.miva.com

        Comment


          #5
          Re: Merchant Optimizer Help

          Thanks for your reply, David. I love Hostasaurus too :) Been with you more than 10 years!

          Optimizer's User Guide does provide a template for an .htaccess file. Modified for my site, mine looks like this:


          I don't know ANYTHING about .htaccess files, so I'm just substituting my domain and directories for those in the template. Maybe there's a typo in here somewhere. Do you see anything obviously wrong with the file? When I uploaded this file to my httpdocs directory last night, I got this error message.

          Internal Server Error
          The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable
          to complete your request.

          Please contact the server administrator to inform of the time the error
          occurred and of anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

          More information about this error may be available in the server error log.


          The other issue involves my static HTML home page, index.htm, which I use in place of the Storefront Miva page. Without the .htaccess file, when I go live with Optimizer, that file actually gets deleted from my httpdocs directory and I get a blank page as a home page

          David, you've helped me with Optimizer with this client's other site, ShowBusTours.com, in the past. I could sure use your help today as their giant sale starts tomorrow at 9am.

          Many thanks for your help

          Scott

          I can't see the graphic I inserted when I view this message, so here is a link to a picture of my .htaccess file:
          http://firinglinedesign.com/ERASEME4.jpg


          Originally posted by ILoveHostasaurus View Post
          I can't remember accurately, but I think Optimizer either offers to make the relevant htaccess entries for you, or its manual may have them; one of the two. They basically look something like this:

          RewriteEngine On
          RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/mm5/merchant.mvc
          RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} Product_Code=(.*)&
          RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/optimizer/p/%1.html [R=301,L]
          RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/mm5/merchant.mvc
          RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} Product_Code=(.*)$
          RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/optimizer/p/%1.html [R=301,L]

          Those two look similar, the difference is the query string condition. The one ending in ampersand is designed to catch URL's that don't have the product code at the end of the string, the second one catches URL's that have the query string as the final variable in the string. You can use something similar to strip out category URL's. Obviously tune the store url and optimizer url's to suit.
          Last edited by shooter56; 02-22-13, 10:08 AM. Reason: link to graphic

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Merchant Optimizer Help

            Optimizer has an option to populate the site index page with the SFNT page so it should end up putting that file back. Might be an issue of running it in staging mode vs live mode. I've never used staging mode but I saw an install of it just this week that did the same thing where switching between the two, or perhaps installing it in staging mode, deleted the previously generated pages including the index page.

            In any case, your image looks fine, any chance the [R=301,L] stuff is on its own line or is it just line wrapped in the picture? Obviously needs to be at the end of the rewriterule lines. As long as that's correct, check the site's error_log file to see what error is reported; it should identify which of the directives has a problem but I don't see anything obvious from looking at what you posted.
            David Hubbard
            CIO
            Miva
            [email protected]
            http://www.miva.com

            Comment


              #7
              Re: Merchant Optimizer Help

              Thanks David. The picture is an exactly accurate representation of my file in a text editor, so the [R=301,L] IS on it's own line in all three instances. So are you saying it should be bumped up to the line above it? The final character on each of those lines is a ? Should there be a space after the question mark? Or does the [R=301,L] just go immediately after the question mark?

              Thank you,
              Scott
              Last edited by shooter56; 02-22-13, 10:22 AM.

              Comment


                #8
                Re: Merchant Optimizer Help

                Yeah bump it up and leave a space; the syntax is RewriteRule<space>pattern to match<space>pattern to rewrite to<space>[flags]
                David Hubbard
                CIO
                Miva
                [email protected]
                http://www.miva.com

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: Merchant Optimizer Help

                  Ok, so the edited .htaccess file is here:

                  http://firinglinedesign.com/ERASEME5.jpg

                  So, should I make Optimizer live in the Admin panel, then upload the .htacess file? Does that sound right?

                  Scott

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: Merchant Optimizer Help

                    I'd make optimizer to live mode first, then generate the pages, then upload the htaccess.
                    David Hubbard
                    CIO
                    Miva
                    [email protected]
                    http://www.miva.com

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Re: Merchant Optimizer Help

                      I'm live with Optimizer, I generated the pages, then uploaded the .htaccess file. And here's what I have for the site now
                      Internal Server Error


                      The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Please contact the server administrator to inform of the time the error occurred and of anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
                      More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

                      Could I possibly PM you my Miva login and FTP credentials and have you take a look? I would REALLY appreciate your help.

                      Thank you.
                      Scott
                      Last edited by shooter56; 02-22-13, 10:34 AM.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Re: Merchant Optimizer Help

                        I have removed the .htaccess file so that the site can be accessed again. Optimizer is still currently live, so when you type in http://peterpansports.com, you get the (blank) Storefront page. But Optimizer IS converting the links in the navbar and left column
                        Last edited by shooter56; 02-22-13, 10:37 AM.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Re: Merchant Optimizer Help

                          Go ahead and open a ticket on it, attach the htaccess and then just shoot me an email with the ticket # and I'll check it out.
                          David Hubbard
                          CIO
                          Miva
                          [email protected]
                          http://www.miva.com

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Re: Merchant Optimizer Help

                            Thank you! I am emailing you the ticket # and site access info now

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Re: Merchant Optimizer Help

                              Just thought I'd update this post. I did get Optimizer correctly configured thanks to incredible support from Bruce at Phosphor Media. He went way beyond anything I could have expected and he just wasn't going to stop until he got Optimizer running on our site.

                              It's worth noting that Optimizer is normally about a 15 minute install. So I want to point out that my issues were NOT related to the module, but rather the result of some design choices I made when I originally created the site. So no one should take my experience to be at all typical.

                              Many thanks, Bruce. You really came through for me!

                              Comment

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