e-commerce plugin install

[helpmeplease]

Hi Everyone,
New to the forums.I have a wordpress site now at www.mysite.com and want to add an e-commerce plugin. My hosting provider recommended that I do a second install of wordpress at www.mysite.com/shop subdirectory, They said that some of the shopping plugins do not play well with some of the other plugins and that this would help. Also how would this affect the SEO. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

[lorax]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld.
It's always a good idea to have a "sandbox" where you can build and test but it has to be kept up to date. Ideally it has it's own database too - just in case you inadvertantly delete something you shouldn't have. As for SEO, just put the sandbox behind a secure access (username & pwd) and they won't ever see it.

[helpmeplease]

Thanks for the reply. This will have its own database and separate passwords etc, the hosting provider suggested this be a permanent setup not just a testing environment Does this sound like the correct way to set this up. The current blog is brand new and has no content on it yet.

[marketingwebaus]

This seems a little strange to me.

There are multiple ways do to e-commerce on a website, to me one of the main reasons you would pick a wordpress based e-commerce solution would be the fact it can integrate into an existing site. Putting it on a separate install defeats the purpose as I see it - you might as well use a dedicated e-commerce system like opencart or prestashop etc if you are going down that path.

Just my thoughts, others may not agree.

From an SEO point of view, the fact it's different installs wouldn't affect much as search engines look at the generated code, not the back end scripting and database that is generated code. Obviously all the normal stuff re setting up the site properly to be search engine friendly still apply.

Which e-commerce plugin are you using? If it were me I would look at which plugins you are using, and search to see if there are any known issues. Then would do a test install to see how it goes, and test etc. Obviously new versions could create new problems, but it's less likely than if you don't test at the start.

Relying on a general comment from a host about "some plugins don't play nice with some e-commerce software" is just that, a blanket statement that likely may not apply to your situation.

[alika]

It is incredibly important to back up everything - files, databases, etc. - before you install an ecommerce plugin. It's a major plugin, and you just never know how your blog will react to this new plugin

I just installed wp ecommerce on a site with contents. It broke all my pages and posts. The URLs stopped rendering. My posts showed only if I use the Wordpress default templates, but even then the posts showed up as one long continuous blog in every post URL

I had to put up a backup of the whole site to remove everything. Deleting the plugin did not remove its tables, so you really have to erase everything

From my experience, a separate install of an ecommerce site will be a very good approach. There's too much at stake if you mix it with your blog content.

If the site is just an ecommerce site, that would be ok. But if it has a blog and an ecommerce component, I'd just put them in different installs.

[helpmeplease]

marketingwebaus
The reason for going with the blog at the .com domain is for seo purposes. Wordpress is very seo friendly (from what I heard, and have seen) Thanks

[helpmeplease]

alika
Yes the blog is at the .com The plan is to create a lot of content, internal and external seo, and to do the shopp e-commerce plugin on a separate database, separate install at the .com/shop. There is not alot to backup right now, but we will when we move forward. Thanks