Early Impacts Shopping Cart : Home Page Location

Early Impacts Shopping Cart sets a site Home page 2 folders deep. Advice?

[saxman]

Early Impacts Shopping Cart sets a sites Home page 2 folders deep. I was wondering if anyone has had a problem with Search Engine Ranking with the use of Product Cart. I love the ease of customization and interactivity with AJAX, but after using it with a number of differnet sites I have found that it is a pain to get page 1 SERPs with it. I am curious if this has something to do with the fact that when you implement it, it sets everything in the "productcart/pc/" folder (2 folders deep from the _root directory!) Of course there is a redirect in the _root, but I was under the impression that Search Engines (when I say Search Engines, I mean Google) don't like redirects to your "index.asp" page, especially two folders deep from the _root. I am trying to talk our programming department into implementing a new system of setting the "index.asp" page up in the _root directory and duplicating all of the <include> files that go with it and then harcoding the links on that page to a category pages in the "productcart/pc/" folder of the site.

I could use all of your help and advice here so please don't hold back. I would love to hear about everyones experiences with Product Cart and/or the topic of the "index.asp" page being redirected two pages deep alone.

Thanks for the feedback - Saxman

[wrkalot]

I can't speak directly to Product Cart but the one I use does something similar. I created a new default.asp page in the root, removed the redirect, utilized header, footer, nav include elements, then hard coded the body content. A pain but it worked.

[saxman]

Thanks wrkalot, did you notice any difference in your SERPs becasue of it?

[wrkalot]

I did this prior to launch so I can say. My fear was that it would effect it though.

[Ledfish]

I use it and have done the same as wrkalot and that worked ok.

The one problem I have had is getting category or product pages to rank anywhere near something considered good. I came to the conclusion that this was due to my template over-powering the unique content. Unfortunately, I can not overcome this issue without sacrificing usablity and so I opted to to what was right for my customers, at least until I can find a workable solution.

[saxman]

This is pretty much the exact same problem I have been encountering.

You say you opted for what is right for your customers, but don't you agree that high SERPs are of the highest priority when it comes to eCommerce sites? If we don't get them the traffic they need to do business they are dead in the water, right?

Ledfish, may I ask you what it is that you do, or were you implying that you keep the redirect in the /productcart/pc folder?

Thanks for the feedback!

[Ledfish]

Don't get me wrong, I surely would love to get high SERPs for interior pages and I'm hopeful that at some point I will find a solution.

What I was trying to say though was that any of the solutions I have come up with so far, that would cut down on the likeness from page to page, thus boosting the percentage of unique content, would mean that I would have to sacrifice customer usability in favor of the the search engines and I'm not willing to do that. Sure it might help SERPs, but it won't help build a loyal customer base and that is the most important thing for longevity of my site. So baring a solution, I have just opted to do what is best for the customer for the time being.

As far my comment about the default page, I was saying that like "wrkalot", what I have done is build my own default page that lies in the root directory of the site and I have gotten that page to rank very high. Considering that it is my homepage, it should anyway, but I have worked hard to make that page rank extremely well for my biggest keywords.

I'm certainly open to talking with anyone and brainstorming about possible causes and ideas on how to get productcart interior pages to rank well. So hopefully this thread will keep going, but if it doesn't or if you want hit me up with a PM and maybe we can talk on the phone to compare notes.