e-commerce site

meta refresh

[Allybongo839]

I have a client that has just developed an e-commerce site with a provider. All the ecommerce pages are held on the providers servers. My client already has an existing domain name/space and his index page consists of a meta refresh straight to his new ecommerce site.

Is this going to annoy the search engines as I am very aware of meta refresh being a big no no.

In what other ways could this ecommerce site fail in terms of rankings ie. dynamic urls etc.

Thanks in advance!

[agerhart]

Is this going to annoy the search engines

It certainly sounds like it.

In what other ways could this ecommerce site fail in terms of rankings ie. dynamic urls etc.

There are many variables that will dictate how well your site does within the search engines, on-site and off-site.

Dynamic URLs are not a large problem, as you can use a mod-rewrite or ASAPI filter to help out.

Get rid of the Meta refresh. Make sure that your pages are optimized with the basics for all of their target keywords. Make sure that the search engine spiders can access each page by including a search engine friendly navigation, a sitemap, and making sure that the URLs don't contain too many special characters (&,?, etc.) or session IDs.

[Allybongo839]

Thanks for your reply :)

Unfortunately there seems to be nothing I can do as I rang the ecommerce company yesterday and the only modifications I am allowed to make are to the template pages ie. changing title, description etc.

I asked about the meta refresh and there is nothing they can (or won't) do about it.

I have a feeling this is not going to be one of my bigger successes!

Thanks anyway :)

[shasan]

you can use a javascript refresh. I don't think that will bother search engines as much... *think* being operative word.

[agerhart]

>>> javascript refresh

It may not be as bad as the Meta refresh, but it isn't the ideal setup either.

Allybongo839,

If the design/development company is being stubborn about you making changes, go straight to your client. Tell your client that unless they allow you to make the necessary changes to the pages, he won't see the results that he paid for...plain and simple.

[lorax]

>> there is nothing they can (or won't) do about it.

Your client is looking at them as the "authority" for managing the ecomm side - I'd make it clear to your client that there's little you can do about achieving any sort of improvements for the site's rankings with the SEs.

[Allybongo839]

Thanks guys :)

It's a nightmare I know! Aside from the meta refresh there is only 1 template for all the products as they are created on the fly. I can put a title and description on it but as it has to cover all the products it has to be generic which isn't going to help much.

The only way I can see a way round is to create static html pages for each different product sector detailing exactly what is available for each sector (about 8 sectors) with 'click here to enter shop'. Obviously not trying to spam, more like an html version if it was a flash site.

What do you think? He's spent a lot of money and is not going to change it and I don't know enough about cold fusion to know how to change it :(