HomeHome Product Discus... Product Discus...SmithCartSmithCartGoogle SEO & Crawling Concerns with SmithCart CatalogGoogle SEO & Crawling Concerns with SmithCart Catalog
Previous
 
Next
New Post
6/1/2011 7:04 AM
 

We are having issues with the SEO and Google web crawling for our website (operabracelets.com).  When Google recently changed their SEO algorithms, we dropped from the first page of the search results to the 7thpage, which is killing our business!

After we researched the issue, we found that Google is only crawling 6 of our web pages and apparently not seeing all of the 30+ pages within the SmithCart catalog, which houses most of our content.  The only way for those pages to come up in a search is to physically type in a phrase that is part of the page, which will almost never happen for someone searching.  Also, none of the pictures in the catalog are coming up in searches. 

We were wondering if the fact that the Catalog pages are secure (https) is now causing Google to not crawl the pages.  If that is a possible reason for the huge drop in our search engine rankings, is there any way to have the catalog pages with the text and pictures be a non-secure page and only the checkout process be secure?  Also, can alt-text be added to the pictures to make them more visible to Google?

If the entire catalog has to be secure, what would you recommend we do to make the information crawlable to Google?  The only solution we can think of is to make 30+ “duplicate” pages that include these photos, text and keywords. This seems to be a lot of work that will confuse site visitors.  Please advise thoughts on how we can deal with the situation in the most efficient way.

FYI, we are running SmithCart 2.88 and DNN V05.02.02.  Thanks for your help!

 

 
New Post
6/1/2011 10:24 AM
 
Are you signed up with Google's Webmaster tools?
 
New Post
6/1/2011 10:47 AM
 
You are running cart v2.88 an older version of the cart before we made alot of the SEO enhancements. The current version of the cart is 4.32. If you upgrade your cart to the latest version your cart will be SEO friendly. I recommend testing the upgrade in a sandbox first before running it on a live site. As always before you install any modules on a live site make sure you have a full backup.

-Scott

Scott Kelly
Project Manager
DotNetNuke Consulting, DotNetNuke Store and DNN Ecommerce
 
New Post
6/1/2011 12:08 PM
 

Yes we are!

 
New Post
6/1/2011 12:09 PM
 
Brady wrote:
Are you signed up with Google's Webmaster tools?

Yes we are!   We know the basics, but if there is a specific functionality within Webmaster tools that we should be using, please let us know!

 
New Post
6/1/2011 12:26 PM
 
Scott Kelly wrote:
You are running cart v2.88 an older version of the cart before we made alot of the SEO enhancements. The current version of the cart is 4.32. If you upgrade your cart to the latest version your cart will be SEO friendly. I recommend testing the upgrade in a sandbox first before running it on a live site. As always before you install any modules on a live site make sure you have a full backup.

-Scott

 Thanks for the information, Scott!  I have a few questions:

1) Do we need a specific version of DNN to run the new version of SmithCart?

2) Can we run the new version in a hidden (from user view) page on our existing website for testing purposes or do we need to run it on a separate website?  I want to be sure there are no conflicts with v2.88 that is now installed.

3) Is there a simple way to export the products and sales information from our current SmithCart install into the new version or do we have to re-enter all of the product and sales information again?  This could be an issue, especially with already reconciled sales, as we do not want to lose this information when we upgrade.

4) We have made some minor changes to the code (as per your direction back when we originally installed the module) to make modify the appearance of the SmithCart (colors, scroll bar, etc.).  Will the same simple coding changes work with the new version or has that coding changed significantly?

5) Is there a cost to upgrade to the new version?

Thanks for your help!

 
New Post
6/1/2011 1:42 PM
 

Nothing in particular.  Except for the Sitemap.xml is pretty darn important.

OperaBracelets wrote:

Brady wrote:
Are you signed up with Google's Webmaster tools?

Yes we are!   We know the basics, but if there is a specific functionality within Webmaster tools that we should be using, please let us know!

 

 
New Post
6/1/2011 2:42 PM
 

I just posted a new "how to" article on how to configure friendly urls in DNN and Smith Cart.  Here's the link:

http://www.smith-consulting.com/Forum...


Scott Kelly
Project Manager
DotNetNuke Consulting, DotNetNuke Store and DNN Ecommerce
 
New Post
7/1/2011 4:42 PM
 

I followed your instructions here but In my sandbox I am still having trouble with seo page names.  I have added lowercase seo urls to all catagories and products a few were updated with capitals but I found and changed them all, but this is what I still get "/pd/tabid/63/ProductID/2/vrs4/Default.aspx" .  This is a fresh install with only smithcart 4.36 installed. 

 
New Post
7/1/2011 10:12 PM
 
Hi Steve,

Which version of DNN are you running?

Did you set up your "Friendly Url Settings" under the Host Settings?

Thanks
 
New Post
7/2/2011 11:54 AM
 

Hi Kevin,

 

I am running DNN 562.

I have the freindly urls box ticked, and I have also set both parent and child catagories seo page names and made sure to use lower case and the same with  the one product imported and this is what the url displays    http://localhost:35226/pd/tabid/63/ProductID/1/vrs3/Default.aspx

 
New Post
7/2/2011 8:38 PM
 

The reason the category name isnt showing as the page name is because your dnn portal is not setup for friendly urls. When the tabid shows in your url and default.aspx is the page name indicates friendly urls are not configured in your portal. Normally, if you check friendly urls in your host settings it enables friendly urls in most cases.   Sometimes upgrading dnn from earlier versions can be the cause, have you upgraded your dnn portal or is 5.6 a new install?   Also, the issue could be caused by not having the proper setup for friendly urls in your web config. If you open up your web config and search for" friendlyurl" do you have any entries? Here are a couple of posts that may help:

http://www.dnncreative.com/Forum/tabid/88/aft/30516/Default.aspx
http://www.ifinity.com.au/Blog/EntryId/61/Understanding-DotNetNuke-Friendly-Urls-and-Url-Rewriting-for-SEO

Also, if you download a trial of the Url Master module from Ifinity im sure it will solve the URL SEO issues on your DNN site,  Once friendly urls are enabled in your portal the category and product names you configure in the cart will show up as your page names.


At your service,
Dave Smith
DotNetNuke Consulting, DotNetNuke Store and DNN Ecommerce
 
Previous
 
Next
HomeHome Product Discus... Product Discus...SmithCartSmithCartGoogle SEO & Crawling Concerns with SmithCart CatalogGoogle SEO & Crawling Concerns with SmithCart Catalog