Duplicate content is regarded by many bad for search engine optimization. Though it could be argued whether this is needed or not, you might be tempted to make the Magento^TM webshop only accessible through Joomla!^TM and not any more by accessing the Magento application directly. While MageBridge translates every single Magento-link to a MageBridge link, visitors can still visit the Magento application if they would know the direct URL. Because MageBridge^TM serves the same content as Magento does, this is duplicate content. And if visitors can access Magento directly, there is a (very small) chance search engines will find out about this as well.

The best strategy would be to redirect every visitor from Magento to Joomla!. But if somebody visits a specific URL in Magento, it would be unfriendly to redirect that user to the default Joomla! homepage - you want to redirect the user directly to the same page within Joomla!. Lucky enough, converting the Magento URL into a Joomla! URL is easy. MageBridge uses the Magento URL-system, so a rewrite of the old Magento page to the new Joomla! page is very easy.

https://MAGENTO/nine-west-women-s-lucero-pump.html
https://JOOMLA/shop/nine-west-women-s-lucero-pump.html

Editing .htaccess

Note that this strategy involves hacking of the .htaccess file of Magento. Before you start off changing things, make a good backup of the current .htaccess file. Also note that editing RewriteRules requires a solid understanding of how Apache works and how RewriteRules work. The example below is merely given as a suggestion, not as a working file for all environments.

The strategy involves blocking visitors from accessing the main index.php file, while the MageBridge entry-point (magebridge.php) is still accessible. Open up the .htaccess file and locate the section beginning with <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>.

The main change is to replace the redirect to index.php with a redirect to your Joomla! site.

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

############################################
## enable rewrites

    Options +FollowSymLinks
    RewriteEngine on

############################################
## you can put here your magento root folder
## path relative to web root

    #RewriteBase /magento/

############################################
## workaround for HTTP authorization
## in CGI environment

    RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]

############################################
## always send 404 on missing files in these folders

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(media|skin|js)/

############################################
## rewrite non-existing files/directories that are not the admin

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/admin/
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/admin$
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://JOOMLA/shop/$1 [R=301,L]

############################################
## rewrite requests for the default homepage

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/$
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://JOOMLA/shop/ [R=301,L]

############################################
## rewrite everything else to index.php

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l
    RewriteRule .* index.php [L]


</IfModule>

Note that we use SEF URLs here - we have enabled SEF from with the Joomla! Global Configuration. The page "https://JOOMLA/shop/" is served by a Root Menu-Item (configured from with the Joomla! Menu Manager) with an Alias "shop". Now with this change, if a visitor would visit the URL "https://MAGENTO/nine-west-women-s-lucero-pump.html", he/she will be redirected immediately to the URL "https://JOOMLA/shop/nine-west-women-s-lucero-pump.html".

One step further

Following the example above, the Magento site will still be accessible by using /index.php/ in the URLs. To redirect those URLs as well is a bit more tricky, because the backend of most third party Magento modules will use different paths then the default admin-path. You will need to add extra rules for those modules as well.

The following rules will redirect all other pages as well, except for URLs with "/admin" or "/magebridge" in them.

############################################
## rewrite requests for /index.php/ pages except for admin-pages

    RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} /index.php
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/magebridge/
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/admin/
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/admin$
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/js
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/skin
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/media
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://JOOMLA/shop/ [R=301,L]