Item and Category Cross Linking

 

Cross linking is the ability for one item to link to another item.  

You can create links to items and categories by copying and pasting the URL to the item or category page. This will work, but can be problematic if the URL needs to change, and it takes up a lot of space in the description.

WebAlliance provides an alternative smart cross linking method to make the process much easier to work with.

Cross linking of items and categories takes place in the product description. The common use case for cross linking is seen when a product’s description makes reference to an additional product, or perhaps an item or category that is related to a that product.

For example, the description on the item might read something like this:

This drill bit works very well when you have plenty of room to work. For tight spaces, use item number RDH1000 instead. See our entire line of drill bits in the Drills category.

In the sample above the item being viewed references another item (RDH1000) and a category (Drills). By turning those references into links, customers can jump directly to the referenced item or category.

To make that happen, simply enter the following in the item's description in your ERP:

This drill bit works very well when you have plenty of room to work. For tight spaces, use [PART]RDH1000|item number RDH1000[/PART] instead. See our entire line of drill bits in the [CAT]12|Drills[/CAT] category. 

It will look something like this on the page (the blue text will be links to the item and category respectively):

Syntax

When replacing the values in the following syntax, do NOT include the symbols < or >.  Those symbols are just part of the documentation syntax to show you where to enter the actual part number, Category ID, or description.

The descriptions entered for PART_DESCRIPTION and CAT_DESCRIPTION must NOT contain the following characters: “[ ] | /”. These characters are used to define the data and will cause erroneous results if placed in the description.

  • The syntax available to create links to an item are:
    • [PART]<PART_NUMBER>|<PART_DESCRIPTION>[/PART] - This will generate a link to the part number specified and the link text will be the part description specified.
    • [PART]<PART_NUMBER>[/PART] - This will generate a link to the part number specified and the link text will read “View Item: <PART_NUMBER>”
  • The syntax available to create links to a category are:
    • [CAT]<CAT_NUMBER>|<CAT_DESCRIPTION>[/CAT] - This will generate a link to the category specified and the link text will be the category description specified. Note that the category must be referenced by the Category ID number.
    • [CAT]<CAT_NUMBER> [/CAT] - This will generate a link to the category specified and the link text will read “View Category: <CAT_NUMBER>”. Note that the category must be referenced by the Category ID number. It is highly recommended to use the first syntax when creating category links so that you can provide a friendly description of the category to the customer, rather than a category code.

To get the Category ID for a particular category, navigate to the category page on the website and view the URL of the page in your browser's address bar.  The Category ID will be the number after /CatSearch/ in the page URL.  For example:

yourdomain.com/CatSearch/3/drills