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Sh404 breadcrumb and category duplicate URLs

Bug Report
Sh404 has a bug in how it handles breadcrumb categories and auto generated category links in the section lists. We assume this problem also applies to blog category layouts.

The issue is this.  We have set custom redirects for a number of categories.  Our system is set to generate SEFs using the hierarchy of /category/article-title.html

If linking to a category directly via the menu manager, the system works perfectly. They system will generate the SEF /category/index.html, as we have it set to do.  We can manually set a custom redirect of the category to be /whatever.html.  The link in the menu items changes perfectly.  But, if we navigate to the category list page via a section menu, the list page will have a link to the category/index.html.

Additionally, when we navigate down to an article either through the category menu link, front page functions or latest news modules, the category link in the breadcrumb links are also showing category/index.html.

So, now, we have duplicate urls, which is bad seo.

Curiously, this issue does not seem to occur for custom redirects for the section links.

Though we found the /category/index.html link in the sh404sef SEF control panel, when set to a custom redirect, it did not “stick”.  When clicking save, the default SEF returned in the sh404sefsef control panel. After numerous attempts, we gave up. 

The solution:
Though this issue should be dealt with by the programmers, in the meantime, we fixed the problem using .htacces 301 redirect.

IE:

Redirect 301 /category/index.html http://www.domain.com/customCategorySEF.html

If and when this issue is formally resolved, the manual .htaccess redirects should be changed.

Note: Be sure to set your .htaccess file to have “RewriteEngine on” if it is not.