Yahoo Shopping Cart

no 301 and no SSIs

[Lorel]

I redesigned a site that was build in Yahoo shopping cart. According to Yahoo tech support there is no option to 301 direct the non-www version of the domain to the www version.

Also no SSIs available so all menu/header/footer data has to be added manually on every page. It was also on shared hosting so couldn't get a dedicated IP

Even though I have added full urls and base href hoping Google would recognize the preferred version of the domain Google now has both versions listed in the site command and is not bringing any generic traffic even though the owner pays for Adwords.

I suspect the whole site is crippled by using Yahoo shopping.

Anyone else experience these problems with this shopping cart?

[LaDonna]

A good place to get all the information you may need to know about Yahoo stores is the forum at Y Store Tools.
LD

[your_store]

The site is definitely not crippled by being a Yahoo Store. Yes there are certain pitfalls to avoid, the non-www version being one of the largest. I've alway gotten around it by point all the navigation to absolute urls with the preceding www. However, I have tens of thousands pages to use.

As for SSI, you have to use Yahoo's proprietary language RTML for any template work. It can be a pain to learn, but at least there are a few books on the subject now. When Yahoo Store first started, the only way to learn RTML was through trial and error. Now those were some fun times ;)

[topguy29]

No way to direct the non-www version? That is asinine. I was going to use them before I started, but I am glad I chose a different route. It seems they have way too many restrictions.

[Lorel]

They also add a bit of code to the bottom of every page as it loads and doesn't validate--8 errors on every page.

I cannot abide the lack of 301 redirects or the other restrictions so I'm moving the client.

thanks for you input folks.

[Stores]

When Yahoo Store first started, the only way to learn RTML was through trial and error. Now those were some fun times

ahh...those were the days :)

[minnapple]

I had a close business acquaintance, that has an inside track with the senior yahoo tech guys, ask about 301 issue at a recent conference.

In short, don't expect to see that type of functionality anytime soon.

[psage]

There's another problem. The "Keep Shopping" link in the cart and the "cancel" in checkout return to your store using a yahoo store URL, not your own URL.

The way we deal with that in our Yahoo store is to use all fully-qualified hrefs. So instead of "mypage.html" use "http://www.mysite.com/mypage.html".

This means that even if someone ends up on mysite.com they will be at www.mysite.com after the first click.

[Stores]

The domain redirect option in the manager should fix that.

[Retrobate]

I wish I had checked this forum before setting up with Yahoo Shopping. I Hate it -Hate it -Hate it. Every little thing I try to do is a pain. Currently I'm trying to create a blog using Movable type program and have had to delete the directory because I changed my mind and wanted to try different blog tools to get it to look the way I want.

All the previous directories have been deleted as far as I can see, but cannot re-install to a new directory with the old name, as it keeps telling me that a previous install exists! I have this issue every single time I try to delete something from Yahoo. I have deleted an Email addy months ago and it keeps showing up every now and again, tried to recreate an email addy that was deleted but get the same "already exists" type of prompt.

I have finally convinced the boss man to drop them. I consider myself fairly capable of webdev even though I know no code really- Yahoo will tell you these are easy tools to work with but I have yet to find ANY easy function in their store system other than publishing.

If you want to use it, be a pro- cause I'm outie!
Toodle-oo Yahoo

[Wlauzon]

I had a close business acquaintance, that has an inside track with the senior yahoo tech guys, ask about 301 issue at a recent conference.
In short, don't expect to see that type of functionality anytime soon.

Apparently his "inside track" is not all that inside...?

Yahoo! Domain Redirect Setting:

[help.yahoo.com...]

But, what do we know, we only sell around $6 million a year on Yahoo.

[edited by: Wlauzon at 1:56 pm (utc) on Aug. 14, 2006]

[minnapple]

Wlauzon

Sorry for the confusion.
What I meant is that you cannot do page by page 301 [ i.e. old page domainname.xyx.php - new page domainname.xyz.html ] redirect, when you change from another platform to the yahoo platform.

Site wide 301's are not an issue, as you pointed out, that is real basic stuff.

Bill