Search Engine Friendly Shopping Carts

by Lee Roberts

Understanding the Problems with Non-Search Engine Friendly Shopping Carts

CGI-BIN Directories

CGI-BIN directories have been ignored for the most part by more search engines than I would care to count. The reason for this is because the URL created by the CGI scripting language includes the question mark (?) and ampersand (&).

Until a couple of years ago no search engine would even dare approach a CGI-BIN directory. Google™ can index those pages, but their success is not always 100 percent. Other search engines do not have the capability to index within the CGI-BIN directory which limits the site owner's ability to be found.

This single fact led many e-commerce site owners to find search engine optimization companies to optimize their web sites and build doorway pages linking to the items within the CGI-BIN directory.

There are two types of set up for the CGI-BIN e-commerce system.

Situation #1:

The e-commerce system is dynamic and uses a flat-file or database that presents the items and categories in a dynamic fashion. This requires the site owner to build pages external to the CGI-BIN directory that links to the items in the e-commerce system. Because site owners may not be trained on search engine optimization they would end up hiring a search engine optimization company to build these pages which are called doorway pages.

Situation #2:

The second situation calls for external pages that connect directly to the cart page which shows the items ready for purchase. This is distinctly different from the above situation because the system relies upon external pages that have "add to cart" buttons or links. When the link or button is clicked the link informs the shopping system that an item has been selected to add to the cart.

This situation requires the site owner to add the items to a flat-file or database for the shopping system to know the price. It also requires the site owner to maintain the external pages with the correct information. If either side of the equation was ignored the system would fail and items could not be added to the cart for purchase.

Scripting Languages

Scripting languages are similar to CGI-BIN situations due to the fact that they rely upon the question mark (?) and the ampersand (&) to inform the database which elements are needed for the page presentation. These two elements prevent many search engines from navigating the site properly. If the search engines cannot navigate the site, the search engines cannot index the pages on the site.

This has let many e-commerce site owners to employ the skills of search engine optimization companies to build doorway pages. These doorway pages promote the products and then add links to the item in the e-commerce system where the item can be added to the shopping cart. Depending up the set up of the e-commerce system a link may be added that adds the item directly to the cart where the quantity may be adjusted.

This requires the inventory and prices be maintained in to places. First, the database the scripting languages accesses and second the external pages.

Both the CGI-BIN and scripting languages can increase the cost of doing business online because of the increase in hours spent maintaining the web site.

Meta Data

Both CGI-BIN and scripting language versions of e-commerce typically re-use the same Meta keywords and Meta descriptions throughout the entire e-commerce site. The categories and items then have the same keywords used on the front page and the other pages of the site. This creates problems when we review the situation with oranges and apples. Certainly fruit would apply, but it wouldn't be a good keyword if we were attempting to sell Mandarin Oranges or Delicious Red Apples. We would want keywords and descriptions that meet the needs of the individual products for the pages that present the individual items. Categories could be as broad as Fruit, but could be as concise as Apples.

For the Mandarin Oranges, the optimum Meta keywords would be:

The Meta description would be best as follows:

However, as mentioned above these systems typically do not allow for individual Meta keywords and Meta descriptions. The nature of these systems actually holds your item and category pages down in the search engine results.

Page Titles

Page Titles announce the topic of the page. In the majority of e-commerce solutions available the Page Title simply reflects the name of the site or the name of the company. This does not help in optimizing a page about Mandarin Oranges unless the name of the company is The Mandarin Orange Company.

When a person does a search in the search engines they look at the titles provided. If your page comes up first in the search engines and is among a series of results that list off names of companies and your Page Title is reflected as Mandarin Oranges the search will more than likely click on your link. Page Titles allow for advertising the topic of your page and should be programmed to correspond with the topic of your page.

When optimizing a page for a web site the Page Title is considered one of the most important elements available to the SEO professional. Page Titles play an extremely important role in proper optimization and should not be used haphazardly.

URL Rewrites

URL rewrites are programming techniques that allow the returned URL to be more search engine friendly by removing the question mark (?) and ampersand (&) from the returned URL found in the location or address bar. This enables the search engines to index the page without having variables or session id's interlaced into the URL.

There are two types of URL rewrites. Each meet the same purpose, but the advanced URL rewrite is more search engine friendly. The following examples will give you an idea of the important factors.

Non-URL Rewrite URL

http://www.yourdomain.com/shop.php?cat_id=1&item_id=2

The above URL indicates to the database that the returned information should be from the category with id equal to 1 and the item id equal to 2. This works fine for the system because it understands the variables. Many search engines however do not understand this form of URL.

Simple URL Rewrite

http://www.yourdomain.com/shop/1/2.html

The simple URL rewrite will take the URL and modify it so that it appears without the question mark (?) and ampersand (&). This enables all search engines to index your all of your pages, but still lacks in some important areas.

Advanced URL Rewrite

http://www.yourdomain.com/oranges/mandarin_oranges.html

The advanced URL rewrite enables your URLs to include your keywords. This is another location search engines look for important information about your pages. Being able to include keywords in your URL helps elevate your page to the top of the search engine result pages.

Hidden Session ID's

Hidden session id's are not exactly hidden, but they are typically hidden from view of the visitor and not placed in the returned URL. The links with session id's include the question mark (?) and therefore can prevent many search engines from navigating and indexing your site.

Some people attempt to defeat this problem with cookies, but cookies present a different problem. Since some people are concerned with privacy issues they block cookies and therefore are unable to shop if the cart requires cookies. Session id's keep a temporary record on the visiting computer while keeping a corresponding session number in memory or in a database.

Heading Tags

Heading tags are identified with the following HTML tags: <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, <h5>, and <h6>. The <h1> tag is the most important heading tag while the <h6> tag is the least important.

When a page uses the <h1> tag it informs the search engines that the page is about a specific topic and elevates that piece of content above the remainder of the content. The remainder of the content is then considered supporting information and should include the same words in more than one instance for best results.

ALT Attributes

ALT attributes provide a two-fold function. The first function is to allow the site to become accessible to the blind user. Because blind users cannot see the picture the ALT attribute allows for a description of the image. This aids the blind user in understanding the information available on the page.

The ALT attribute also allows for adding keywords or the product name in a text element for the product picture. This adds relevance to the content and is used by the search engines to elevate the positioning of the page in the search engine results.

Flash Navigation

Flash is an interesting tool used for presenting information in an interesting and interactive manner. Many designers use Flash to create web sites because they can control the environment. Flash requires plug-ins for the browsers to navigate and use the site.

If a navigation element is created in Flash the links are hidden from the source codes for the page and therefore inhibits the search engines from navigating through the site. This single fact blocks the site from becoming completely indexed by the search engines.

JavaScript Navigation

JavaScript navigation brings to the table several issues that need to be understood. First, the codes are executable on either the server-side or the client-side and require the ability to utilize JavaScript. The majority of search engine spiders or robots are not programmed to parse the information in the JavaScript to reach the subsequent pages.

Second, if the visitor is unable to use or has turned off JavaScript support they are unable to navigate the site. This creates problems for these users when they attempt to utilize the site.

The only work around when including JavaScript navigation elements is to provide a link set some where on the page that the visitor or search engine spider can navigate through.

Frames

When frames came out the reason for them were simple; browsers were did not have great caching capabilities. Because of this the browser would continually have to download the navigation buttons, logos, and other images. This slowed down the performance of web sites since broadband was not available at that time. Browsers have improved their caching capabilities and therefore this technique is no longer needed.

Search engines index each page on its own without the concerns of supporting pages or pages required for the site to function correctly. Therefore, if a page has no links on it or only links to a limited set of other pages, the visitor may not be able to find the remaining pages. Additionally, the average Internet user may not understand how to get to the main page of the site or as is typical, they'll leave and find another site to use.

Coding to Standards

Some people will debate this issue and continue to utilize their same coding techniques and utilities.

Coding to Standards means that the pages are programmed to be valid and comply with the standards established by the World Wide Consortium or the Internal Standards Organization. The World Wide Web Consortium has several different levels of HTML programming available. These programming languages are HTML and XHTML, just to name a couple. Search engines can index the pages even if they are not standards compliant, but being standards compliant ensures that the broadest array of browsers can use the pages.

Coding to standards also means that there are ways to increase the relevance of the pages by using techniques not available to non-standard compliant pages.