mod_rewrite

As you can see the cart is based on index.php?something=something etc… this is not a good format for search engine guide lines, maybe using .htaccess and mod_rewrite to have it in a format like index/something/something/ :slight_smile:



Just an idea



James

Isn’t this what the Product Catalog is used for… to be search engine friendly? My current cart displays product paths in the same PHP format and I am usually in the top 5 of all search engines.

Yes Dis I think you are correct, from what I can see it works well.



Martin

it is just an extra addition to SEO

I can blow all of you out of the water with mod rewrite on any day for all serps and SEO you choose.



Why?



Well it is easy. Most bots only wish to crawl so deep before they get tired and move on. Now the majority of the bots I have seen will not go two files deep to try to find an html file to make you go higher in the search engines.



IF you place your catalog in the root of the account, then it will work, but if it is deeper, give it up. Now I am not saying place the file catalog in the root. This will NOT work, I am saying the entire catalog contents (html pages) into the root.



The catalog feature is a bad mind thought for SEO. Engineers think it is a good mod to add to a store and offer people for SEO purposes, but they are engineers and not SEO gurus. They do not understand bots, or they would be in that business. They understand code and they make stores for us. They are not bad people, just misguided.



If they made a good mod rewrite script, ALL php pages would appear html to serps. All you then need to do is protect some files in robots.txt. file and you will be ok. You no longer need to worry about depth when the entire cart is html. You will also need to block php pages from bots after you add the rewrite mod and block the catalog file from being crawled. You do not want to be hit with double content and placed in sandbox.





Take the catalog and trade it in on mod rewrite please! This makes every single page appear as if it is html and the bots love this and will eat them all up and you will soar in search engines.





Trust me on this one, do research yourself and or ask and SEO guru what they think, they will tell you I am sure after they stop laughing.