Problems with Shopping Carts

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Shopping carts by nature exist as dynamic creatures changing upon each new view. Imagine taking a series of photographs of the same object. The lighting changes. The shadows change. The item remains the same. The same thing happens when search engines attempt to visit dynamically generated URLs containing question marks (?) and ampersands (&). Unfortunately, not all search engine spiders can traverse these garbage URLs making it virtually impossible to have your pages indexed.

Some search engine spiders navigate dynamic URLs. Of those that do, some search engines end up indexing pages multiple times due to the session id's in the URL. This causes duplicate content which in turn decreases the value of one or all pages with the same content.

Google specifically states it will not index all dynamically generated web pages. But how does Google know the pages are dynamically generated? Simple. Google knows only what you show it. Show Google dynamic URLs or session id's in the dynamically generated links and Google knows you have a dynamically generated site.

Some shopping carts have attempted to remove this problem by using URL rewrite techniques. Rewriting the URL fails to resolve the full set of issues programmed into dynamic web sites. Session id's and other dynamic information still exist unless accurately controlled.

Typically dynamic systems share the same page title, Meta keywords and Meta descriptions. The nature of this concept prevents the web pages from performing well in the search engines. Each page must stand on its own merits and present information specific to the page's topic.

Some shopping carts now provide the ability to generate static HTML pages. Even with this ability those shopping carts fail to be truly search engine friendly. Duplicate content. Duplicate pages. No search optimized URLs.

Shopping carts that employ the use of frames cause other problems. Frames by their nature do not meet the conceptual views of the web. Framed pages exist as pages in the website, but their inter-site navigation fails to exist.

The Solution

Shopping carts must meet the requirements of the search engines in order to be search engine friendly. Simply throwing the moniker onto the description of the shopping cart does not make it search engine friendly.

The research and development, seven long years, of Merchant Metrix took a scientific approach. We developed each proposed solution into a website we owned. As each element was tested, we added new elements until we had our full solution planned.

Search engine friendly shopping carts must comply with the following:

Merchant Metrix produces highly optimized web pages designed to work with each search engine spider. Knowing what each search engine spider wants helps in developing a solid shopping cart.

Shopping Cart Marketing Concepts

Optimistically all shopping cart owners and programmers sought to retain customers and rightfully so. However, before you can retain customers you MUST get them to your site.

During development of Merchant Metrix we focused upon customer acquisition. We took our strong knowledge of marketing and small business and developed strong customer acquisition tools. Development of strong marketing tools never ceases; such is the case with Apple Pie.

Merchant Metrix provides the following benefits:

Merchant Metrix is the LEADER in the development of customer acquisition tools. Our continued development process will bring new tools for acquisition and additional tools for retention.

Contact us today at 405-329-8500 or use our contact form to schedule a demo and learn if Merchant Metrix is right for your business.

articles » shopping carts