Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Has anyone experienced problems with getting OS Commerce sites indexed in google? I'm only really assuming it's an OS commerce issue as there is no other logical explanation.
We have;
> rewritten the URL's to html format (3 months ago)
> Implemented dynamic meta tags (3 months ago)
> implemented an XML Google sitemap (2 weeks ago)
However, Google is still only indexing the old dynamic URL's and old generic meta (title & descrip).
I don't think it's a time issue as other google sitemaps that we submitted at the same time have had the desired effect.
Can this be an OS Commerce issue or had google crossed the site off their chistmas card list? (the google PR hasn't changed and no unethical linking strategies are being used)
Thanks in advance!
Lee
Thanks for the list of things to do. It's good to keep all of this in mind.
Over time I learnt all about the SEO shortcomings of osCommerce and put fixes in for them. I know now I can never upgrade to the newest osCommerce :) Too much work adding all my modifications back in!
So now I don't have any of the problems mentioned in this thread:
* Session ID's in URLs
* Duplicate page problems
* Lack of meta tags
* etc etc
AND YET...
still having problems with Google indexing us... I wonder why? My personal theory is that osCommerce makes a template type website (i.e. most pages on the site look much the same) which is common with spammy sites. So Google is treating osCommerce sites like spam websites. So what to do? Build more trust?
You may be right on the template being the problem with google. However, that is a very poor way check for spammy sites. Most sites use some sort template system.
I have a simple 10 page site that I created. It's all hand coded, no duplicates yet 5 of the 10 pages show up as supplemental.
My osc stores used to rank very high in the serps until big daddy. Now one of them still does very well and the rest are horrible. I get beat by sites that have fewer links less on page text less anchor text etc.
Any tips to get rid of the supplementals that we currently have?
The doctype declaration shows 4.01 transitional but w3c says it's not declared enough because it doesn't show strict or loose, etc.
Any thoughts on the best way to go?
Sticky mail me.
I have some tips to get indexed and stay indexed.
Why not share them publicly and avoid the Sticky Mail route?
1. When using zen cart you should install it at the top level Example [mysite.com...] and not [mysite.com...]
2. I have two zen cart sites, one uses the www and the other one does not. The non-www site was indexed a lot faster and I have never had any issues with pages dropping from the index. Zen creates long web address like mysite.com/index.php/cpath1 etc.... I am a firm believer that the www only adds 4 more characters to the url and just makes it that much harder for Google to index. My advice, use the non-www.
3. The site has no www 301 redirects. This is because if a spider comes in on a www, the next link it will follow is the non www Google is smart enough to figure it out.
4. Make sure your Meta tags for your home page are good and your individual Meta’s are within standard. You will have to edit some minor php to achieve that. The good thing is that if you are lost, you can post on Zen’s forum and someone usually will reply within 24 hours. Most of the time it will be someone on the development team who is very knowledgeable.
5. Make sure your php/html is clear on products. Make sure your paragraphs have <p> typed information and </p>
6. Have your site themed towards one or two products only! Have no more than 200 items total in the store. These 200 items will create about 800 urls. Make sure you have the product reviews on and tell a friend. These pages will show up in the Google supplemental index, but customers do post some good content there from time to time that will help the site. ONE BIG THING, MAKE SURE YOUR KEYWORD IS IN YOUR URL. If you sell blue widgets, try to get [bluewidgets.com!...] That is a very large key.
7. Try to keep the main categories down. If you have pdf's for product information make sure they have links from the products in the cart.
8. When you start building a store, download Zen; make a decision on how you are going to structure the store. Build your home page first and once that is complete, submit it to the search engines and create a Google site map. Get googlebot visiting it very quickly.
9. Build your category and product pages. Keep updating your site maps as you build, etc...
10. When your store is complete, go to Zen carts website and submit your stores url to the showcase area. It will be published on Zen’s site almost immediately and you will have one very good link from a PR 6 or 7 page.
11. Once the store is complete. Submit it and forget it as I say. Do not make changes daily to it. The only thing I ever do is update prices may be once a month. The issue with dynamic carts like Zen is when you add one product, you are actually creating 3 or 4 urls and you are also adding links to other pages. So one simple addition can mean you are actually changing content and links on 10-20 pages. In other words, let the pages age. Google seems to like that.
Then site back and relax for 6 months, and Google will have you solidly indexed. The good thing is MSN loves zen cart and you will usually get fully indexed in a week.
Jeff
[edited by: tedster at 6:10 am (utc) on May 27, 2006]
[edit reason] Charter [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]
Are you saying that all internal links are hard coded as http://domain.com.... then (without the www in URL)?
Having that, and a 301 redirect to the www version would certainly be an issue.
If I were designing it, then I would have put the <base> tag on every page to clarify the domain, instead of including the full domain in every link (and made the base domain the same as the target domain of the redirection).
The whole site is non www so to answer your question, yes the whole site by default is non www. I made sure via my webserver host that this was done properly.
(Personally, my take I bet a small part of the way google indexes is by url length and alphabetical order. This is just a suspicion but if you have http://example.com verses http://www.example.com obviously E comes before W. Plus its 4 characters shorter)
There are no redirects from www to non www in the site because no matter what link the robots follow, it will lead to non www on the following link. That is where google/msn/yahoo will be smart enough to index the right page.
[edited by: tedster at 10:31 pm (utc) on May 26, 2006]
[edit reason] use example.com - others may be real [/edit]
Confirm with "view source", not by simply running the mouse over the links.
OK, so if someone else wanted it set up as www.domain.com on their own site, could it be done that way instead?
Are all the intenal links fully relative, or root relative starting from a "/", or fully qualified with a full domain included?
Is there a place in Zen to specify what the root of all URLs actually is?
I would suggest keeping away from the www version if you are going to choose zen for the domain you choose and stick to the non www
If someone happens to type in the www they will get to your site regardless.
Against:
Yes it is a pig with regards to coding and also W3C compliance. The store is great if you have few categories and products, but becomes a real pain to manage as it grows.
The whole session management thing.
For:
The search engine optimised URL's work and we have so far had no problems.
The main problem that I see is caused by stores having duplicate product titles and descriptions. It doesn't take a programmer to chuck up a default store (free with a lot of hosting) and import through excel 2000 - 3000 products and descriptions provided by a manufacturer.
This manufacturer provides the very same data to hundreds of others and all of a sudden we have loads of websites with the same content and a load of people thinking that they are going to get rich by jumping on the ecommerce wagon.
MSN, Yahoo and Google well indexed for older sites. New sites MSN, Yahoo ok - Google not so good. I think this is an issue with Google and not Osc
I would be interested to hear if those having problems with Google are those people who sell products that are available widely on the net.
I really do not know why you think the sessions management is a pain, I have had no issues. The WC3 coding is a bit painful though.
As far as indexing, following my tips I laid out in my first post and you should have no issues with getting indexed by google. Microsoft really indexes it fast. Yahoo struggles a bit though.
I also do not understand about duplicate titles per product either, you can specify individual meta' for each product. Now the categories are standardized but they are working on that for their next release.
I also do not understand about duplicate titles per product either, you can specify individual meta' for each product. Now the categories are standardized but they are working on that for their next release.
I meant that duplicate titles and product descriptions on the web overall is what seems to cause this problem, with manufacturers supplying the same data to everyone. Also scrapers taking the product desc for their own websites. I already use individual meta title, desc and keywords fed from the product data.
No problems overall apart from the newer sites getting fully indexed by Google.
1. Generate a page with links to all your shop pages.
2. If products are renewed frequently - set a script into cron that will re-generate this page every day.
3. Put a link to this page on index page.
Seems to add some value :)
If I could only work out why Google is indifferent to new ecommerce sites I would have nothing to worry about. Perhaps its just an age thing or lack of relevant links. But then as a business how is it possible to get good relevant one way links. Impossible?
I just do not sell products I have a lot of scientific and how my products work on my site as well.
I find a lot of college students who are doing papers on the net love the information I have posted.
