9 replies to this topic

[ginomeano]

I'm trying to get an online perfume retailer's site in better SEO shape. The site utilizes Xcart and has an HTML generated directory of products as well as the dynamic pages.

Some things I have questions about on tasks that I have done are:

1) - I modified the php/tpl so that there is a META NOINDEX/NOFOLLW tag on ALL the dynamic pages and included a robots.txt file for good measure.

2) - Changed the 302 redirect to a 301.

3) - Took the hompage that was generated dynamically and created an index.html file out of it, rewriting most of the product links to target the static page links. the index.html page is now the page that the 301 redirects to.

4) - Rewrote the Home link to target index.html sitewide.

5) - Created an XML sitemap listing the static pages and an HTML sitemap, which is listed on the footer.

6) - Rewrote the tilte tags to be SEO friendly.

7) - Submitted site to over 100 directories.

The text on the site for the product descriptions are good, according to the idea of the ideal format I've been getting from reading throughout this (wonderful) site so I havent changed them at all.

The titles of the static pages have been generated as "Product Name :: Brand :: Category :: Biz Name. Is this a concern or is it ok?

Their site has over 4000 product pages and has been up for a little over a year. It's not even in the top 1000. 6 days ago, there weren't even any meta tags on the (dynamic) homepage.

Has anything I've done caused harm at all? Any input on the preceding would be greatly appreciated!!!

[sweepthelegnate]

4) - Rewrote the Home link to target index.html sitewide.

why'd you do that?

[ginomeano]

I read recently that Google likes to see numerous links back to the homepage of the site. The previous code had it going back to the /home.php page which is no longer the homepage...

[sweepthelegnate]

I read recently that Google likes to see numerous links back to the homepage of the site. The previous code had it going back to the /home.php page which is no longer the homepage...

ah I see...I read it as you changed the link from <http://example.com> to <http://example.com/index.html> I was questioning the logic of that, but seeing as you didn't do that - nevermind

[ginomeano]

ah I see...I read it as you changed the link from <http://example.com> to <http://example.com/index.html>  I was questioning the logic of that, but seeing as you didn't do that - nevermind

LoL....had me thinking I screwed up for a minute.... I'm trying to be as meticulous as possible on this project

[Jill]

Sounds to me like you've covered your bases well, ginomeano!

My only concern is that you're sure the noindex, nofollow is only on the dynamic pages and not the static? And are you sure you have your robots.txt file correct?

If you've got those down pat, you sound good to go!

[bwelford]

You certainly seem to have done things correctly, ginomeano. So there's no obvious explanation as to why things haven't come together yet. However Google now has a time cycle measured in months for fully indexing and ranking web pages, so perhaps it's a question of time.

One small improvement might be to regard http://www.yoursite.com/ as the correct URL for the Home page. This is also the URL you would hope others might use in giving you inlinks (the Yahoo! word for what Google calls back links, but much more appropriate I feel. ). What happens is that http://yoursite.com/, http://www.yoursite.com/ and http://www.yoursite.com/index.html each have their own slice of information within the Google database. If all three are used indiscriminately, then each slice has roughly one third of the authority. If you try to force everyone to use only the http://www.yoursite.com/ version, then all the authority piles up there and this will have a significant effect in SEO terms.

[ginomeano]

My only concern is that you're sure the noindex, nofollow is only on the dynamic pages and not the static? And are you sure you have your robots.txt file correct?

Yep! The noindex/nofollow meta is added to the tpl file on the cart that is called when generating the dynamic pages...although one thing I just realized from your question Jill is that I'm going to have to change it back if/when a new catalog of static pages needs to be generated....thanx 4 asking!!!

The robots.txt file is coded properly and prevents the bots from going to the dynamic pages only, since I disallowed the php pages that generate the content individually; checked and confirmd it works on Google Sitemaps>Robotst.txt

One small improvement might be to regard http://www.yoursite.com/ as the correct URL for the Home page.  This is also the URL you would hope others might use in giving you inlinks (the Yahoo! word for what Google calls back links, but much more appropriate I feel. ).

Thanx for pointing that out! I think I was so caught up in coding the yesterday that I overlooked that!!!

[Michael Martinez]

The titles of the static pages have been generated as "Product Name :: Brand :: Category :: Biz Name. Is this a concern or is it ok?

Their site has over 4000 product pages and has been up for a little over a year. It's not even in the top 1000. 6 days ago, there weren't even any meta tags on the  (dynamic) homepage.

I cannot imagine doing keyword research for 4,000 pages on one site, but you want the title tags to resemble natural search expressions as much as possible.

I would pick about a dozen products and do some keyword research on them to see what people actually use to find those types of products. That may give you some insight on whether your title formatting will help, hinder, or have no impact.

[ginomeano]

I would pick about a dozen products and do some keyword research on them to see what people actually use to find those types of products.  That may give you some insight on whether your title formatting will help, hinder, or have no impact.

Dubly noted!