Mirasvit Last Updates — November 2024
-
Andriy Kovalenko
- Our News & Updates
- Dec 3, 2024
- 7 min read
The final month of autumn is behind us, and we're ready to share the latest updates our team has implemented to improve our extensions. What's new, and how can it impact your work?
For instance, with Advanced Reviews, you can now configure an email request for customers to leave a review about a purchased item when their order reaches a specific status (of your choosing). This feature helps you collect more reviews and build trust in your store.
In Advanced SEO Suite, our team has rolled out seven updates aimed at enhancing your site's performance and boosting the visibility of your content.
With Blog MX, a new feature allows you to share blog posts with a limited audience before making them public—for example, to get approval from clients or partners.
Let's take a closer look at these and other updates, as well as how you can activate them.
Table of Contents
- Product Labels
- Google Page Speed Optimizer
- Advanced SEO Suite
- Layered Navigation
- Blog MX
- Advanced Reviews
- Help Desk MX and RMA
- Automatic Related Products
Product Labels
🔥 Improved label indexing speed
The Product Labels extension now indexes pages faster, which is particularly helpful for stores with a large number of store views and items.
Previously, when you created or updated a Product Label Rule, the module had to reindex the changes to apply the label. For larger stores with multiple storefronts and extensive catalogs, this process could take a significant amount of time. However, with this update, the indexing speed has improved considerably.
This feature is enabled automatically and requires no additional setup.
Google Page Speed Optimizer
🔥 Removed built-in exceptions for WebP images
Previously, in the Google Page Speed Optimizer module, certain exceptions were coded to skip the optimization of images with classes like lazyOwl, owl-lazy, swiper-lazy, etc. These images weren't optimized on our side to avoid potential conflicts.
Now, with the latest update, these exceptions have been removed, enabling optimization for such images as well, which will improve the loading time of your pages.
To implement this change, simply update the module to the latest version, and the adjustment will activate automatically.
Advanced SEO Suite
This November, Advanced SEO Suite took the lead with the highest number of new features.
🔥 Alternate links for landing pages
We've added support for hreflang tags for Landing Pages.
If your store has multiple store views with Landing Pages for different languages, the module now includes these alternate versions in the appropriate tag. This helps search engines correctly recognize the alternatives, increasing the likelihood that customers will first see a landing page in their preferred language.
This feature is enabled by default if the Enable Link Rel="alternate" and hreflang option is activated. You can enable it via Marketing > Advanced SEO Suite > Settings > General Settings > Alternate/Hreflang.
🔥 Option to remove changefreq and priority tags from sitemaps
The <priority> and <changefreq> tags are now ignored by search engines. To better utilize the space in your sitemap (and reduce its overall size), you now have the option to Remove changefreq and priority tags from sitemaps in the Extended Site Map menu.
The space freed up by removing these tags can be used for links to categories, products, or CMS pages.
To enable this feature, navigate to Stores > Configuration > Mirasvit Extensions > Extended Site Map > Additional XML Sitemap Settings > Remove changefreq and priority tags from sitemaps > Yes.
🔥 Removed the "Automatically send XML sitemap to Google" configuration
Due to changes in Google's "ping" endpoint, the Automatic Sitemap Submission feature has been removed. Sitemaps will now be submitted by default without manual configuration.
🔥 Optimized retrieval of product alternatives
We have optimized the process of retrieving information about the availability of equivalent product pages in other languages (alternatives). This enhancement speeds up the loading of product metadata and the entire product page—subtle but statistically significant improvements.
🔥 Enhanced the cleanupMeta method to preserve whitespace when stripping tags
We have improved the cleanupMeta method to ensure it preserves whitespace when removing tags. This enhancement increases stability and helps prevent bugs caused by incorrect code interpretation.
🔥 Added support for URL Aliases when generating alternate URLs with SEO-friendly filters
There was an issue where changing the store view didn't update the alias in the URL for the new page, leading to 404 errors. Now, URL aliases generated by the module using SEO-friendly filters will be processed correctly.
As a result, the number of unexpected use cases causing 404 errors due to aliases or mismatched page content will decrease.
🔥 Improved SEO Toolbar with Ajax-based IP checks
With the implementation of AJAX in the allowed IP verification function, this process is now slightly faster and uses less traffic.
Layered Navigation
🔥 Added two item modes to the Brands menu: link and popup
In the Layered Navigation extension, you can now choose how Brands are displayed when clicking the Brands button in the navigation panel. There are two modes available:
- General: This mode opens a page listing all the brands on your site.
- Modal: This mode displays a popup window with the brands without loading a new page. It reduces data load time and keeps users on the current page. However, the modal window also includes a link to the full brand page.
For example, it might look like this:
To select a mode, go to Stores > Configuration > Mirasvit Extensions > Brands > General > Brands Menu Mode.
Blog MX
🔥 Post status: Access by Direct Link (can be protected with password)
An exciting new feature has been introduced in the Blog MX module. You can now share blog posts with a limited audience before making them public.
For example, if you've written an article that needs to be reviewed by partners or clients, you can assign it a special status. This ensures the post won't be visible to other site visitors—only to those with a password-protected direct link you provide.
To enable this feature, set the post status to Access by Direct Link instead of the usual Published or Draft.
Once saved, a direct link will be generated for you to share.
Advanced Reviews
🔥 Added review reminder emails
The Advanced Reviews module now includes a new feature that helps you gather more product reviews, ultimately boosting customer trust in your online store.
When a customer places an order and it reaches a specific status (which you can choose), the module sends an email requesting a review for the purchased items. Note: only one email will be sent per order.
To enable this feature, go to the module settings: Stories > Configurations > Mirasvit Extensions > Advanced Reviews > Notifications > Review Reminder Settings. Select the order status that will trigger the email.
Help Desk MX and RMA
🔥 Ability to attach several attachments in bulk
Our developers have introduced a feature that addresses the same issue across two modules—Help Desk MX and RMA. You can now upload multiple files to tickets at once, significantly speeding up your workflow.
Previously, when working with tickets in these extensions, files had to be added one at a time: select, upload, repeat. This routine process consumed valuable time. With the new feature, you can upload multiple files in a single action, optimizing your ticket management.
This functionality is enabled by default and requires no additional configuration. To use it, simply open a ticket, click Add Files, select the desired number of files, and click Open (or Upload).
All selected files will be added to the ticket simultaneously, and users will see them listed in the attachments section. However, ensure the files meet the ticket size requirements (typically up to 2MB) and are in one of the supported formats (e.g., jpg, png).
We also recommend giving your files clear, descriptive names to avoid confusion.
Automatic Related Products
🔥 Ability to set random order for products in related products block
This feature was added to the Automatic Related Products extension at the request of a client to avoid monotony in displaying items within the related products block. It effectively allows for new combinations to appear with each page load.
The new functionality can be used in combination with configured Selection Rules for more precise product filtering (in this case, the module will randomize items based on the rules).
To apply this update, navigate to: Product Block Config > Order By > Random Order.
That's all for the November updates!
We welcome your suggestions for improving our extensions—together, we can achieve their maximum efficiency.
Mirasvit Support Engineer
From meta tags to the sitemap, the Magento 2 SEO Extension gives you full control over every SEO-related feature in your store.
It automates the SEO work you'd otherwise do by hand - templated meta tags, rich snippets, redirects, sitemaps, cross-links and a built-in SEO audit - across every page type. That is why 2,435+ Magento stores rely on it.
A help desk built into your Magento admin. Customer emails and contact forms become tickets, routed to the right department and agent, with workflow rules, satisfaction surveys, reports and AI tools. Every ticket shows the customer's orders and earlier tickets.
Product Labels adds sale, new, stock and brand labels to product images by rules and product attributes, so they appear and disappear as prices, stock and the catalog change.
Labels can show the real discount or the stock left, use one of 12 editable templates or your own image, and appear on category, search and widget listings and on the product page, on Luma and Hyvä.
Blog MX runs your blog inside Magento, with Page Builder posts, comments, and SEO checks in the admin you already use. Every post, category, author, and tag can differ per store view.
AJAX layered navigation for Magento 2 with multi-select filters, price sliders and SEO-friendly filter URLs.
The same extension adds brand pages, an "All Products" page, landing pages, smart filters and infinite scroll, with Hyvä support built in.
Google PageSpeed Optimizer speeds up Magento 2 for Core Web Vitals: it bundles and delays JavaScript, applies critical CSS per page type, converts images to WebP and lazy-loads them without delaying the main image.
Built-in PageSpeed Insights monitoring shows how each change affects the desktop and mobile score of your pages. Works with Luma and Hyvä themes.
The Automatic Related Products extension fills related, up-sell and cross-sell blocks for you. It picks products by rules you set, using what your customers actually buy and view, and shows how much revenue each block brings, so you keep the blocks that sell and change the ones that don't.
Advanced Reviews adds an AI summary, photos and separate pros and cons fields to Magento 2 product reviews, and sends review request emails after each order to bring in new ones.
A Verified Buyer badge or a buyers-only rule shows shoppers which reviews to trust, and review grouping fills the review block of variants and similar products, on Luma and Hyvä.
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