Session id's

Converted to Dynamic & Traffic Dropped

[T4x4]

We converted our site over to dynamic (OS Commerce) on March 10. Since the old site (4 yrs old) was well indexed and ranked good for our targeted terms, we did a ton of 301 redirects. For the first week after the swap, traffic was pretty much normal. However, for the past three weeks it is down 30-50% This is the busiest time of the year for us, so naturally I am a little concerned over the decline in visitors.
Thanks in advance. Wondering if the session id's in the url are giving the SE's a fit? Google has seemed to re-index okay, but MSN and Yahoo! have bottomed out. If the session id's are the problem, how do I get rid of them?

Thanks in advance!

Jack

[mcibor]

Session ids can only be stored in cookie or in url. I heard once, that only about 5% of users have their cookies disabled, but I'm not an expert on this (I'm writing a dedicated program for a specific company, not the whole crowd, so I just tell them - you need to have this, this, etc.)

I think that what you can do is to check somehow if user has his cookies disabled and then run the session in url, otherwise in cookie. I can't find any other suggestion.

Hope this helps!
Michal Cibor

[jd01]

I don't normally work with session id's, but was wondering if you have thought about using the old static URL's then mod_rewriting to the dynamic? Not sure if it will work for your specific application, but if you can... you don't have to worry about the 301's, or the search engines, because the URL's will appear to the user and the SE's as static.

[T4x4]

I think that you are probably correct. However, I've had no experience with the mod_rewritting script. I have done a little research this afternoon, but definately need to do more. If I understand this correctly, by doing the mod-rewrite piece of code, I can return to my old, short, well indexed url's...

[jd01]

That is correct. See you in the mod_rewrite forum.

Start here [webmasterworld.com...]

and here [webmasterworld.com...]

Justin

[T4x4]

Thanks!