Even after say 3 years now it is still to clear to me at best where CS Cart shines in terms of default SEO implementation and where it is lacking compared to say Open Cart, Magento and other platforms.
Quite honestly I do not think it is lacking so much but there clearly a few SEO onsite addon's / modifications that are worthwhile investing in.
And some are but are quite cumbersome to having it implemented in all ready existing webstore.
Some SEO addons conflict with other addons or even otherSEO addons that seem to compliment the other but in all reality more often not.
In all honesty what do you consider CS Cart weaknesses and or plusses in terms of SEO straight out of the box as you install it and which addons are a must have. Please name the addon and or the developer of that addon. If you are developer yourself and have an addon why should I as customer buy your addon and how clean is your code in such a way that it can coexist with other third party addons.
Through trial and error my experience is that sometimes you wish you just could start all over building up your site and just import all the products and it's features, descriptions etc, individual discounts settings, sales taxes etc and start over again by installing and applying a theme and the all the addon's you are sure of that they do not conflict.
Yes,I'm wondering the same thing, mainly from an Automated SEO viewpoint.
Out of the Box you need to manually enter all the Meta-tag fields, page Title, Image Alt/Titles and Search words.
It bothers me that CSCart is lacking in this area out of the box.
What bothers me more , to the point of not buying any addons for this until cscart v5 is released, is that there are warnings from the addon devs about overrides from other third party addons and changes to core files needed due to the lack of hooks.
At the very lease, cscart should be talking with the addon devs to provide the needed hooks in the standard cscart.
It would be good to hear from CSCart Dev's here to get some recommendations.
And from the addon, devs regarding which addons conflict with which?
Yes,I'm wondering the same thing, mainly from an Automated SEO viewpont.
Out of the Box you need to manually enter all the Meta-tag fields, page Title, Image Alt/Tittles and Search words.
It bothers me that CSCart is lacking in this area out of the box.
I hear you also and while it is good to read that is mainly an automated / non automated issue. There are some "decent to good very good addons" that can tackle that but I also see an overlap there among what developers create and put on the marketplace how they sometimes create addon's that are similar to what their competitor is putting on the market but theirs is lacking in one area while shining in some other and of course the developers hardly have the means to fullfill our our needs and many more wants for price I would like to pay or / can afford at the moment. Nobody's fault here just annoying.
I can workaround it somehow is what I am trying to say but actually I am happily suprised by your answer as in I am like many others I guess always looking if the grass of the neighbour is greener than mine. Hence if someone elses Magento beats my CS Cart.
What bothers me more , to the point of not buying any addons for this until cscart v5 is released, is that there are warnings from the addon devs about overrides from other third party addons and changes to core files needed due to the lack of hooks.
At the very lease, cscart should be talking with the addon devs to provide the needed hooks in the standard cscart.
It would be good to hear from CSCart Dev's here to get some recommendations.
And from the addon, devs regarding which addons conflict with which?
I did read about the "upcoming" V5 but then I again that is the same as it was when there was talk about V4 when I was just introduced to V3.0.4
I think CS Cart should provide more hooks for both versions V4.x and later V4 iterations like my current V4.5.2 store and V5.
I would not mind paying some fee for those hooks if it means I am less likely to run into issues when adding new addons to my store(s).
Ive been looking at the Advanced SEO Suite for CS-Cart v5.2 by 4sprung but have 2 issues with it.
1. I thought that having a products feature variant names added to the Title Meta Desc'n and SEF URL would be a good thing for SEO, but I dont think this addon does this.
2. Its Cost of US299 per store!
So If I need this for 4 stores, thats nearly US1200 for just the addon licenses. That's more than a cscart ultimate license.
This is why CSCart need to lift their game regarding SEO management.. This is shopping cart software thus, if the software is to make sales (perform its task) I feel it needs intelligent SEO management built in!
Which brings me to another gripe... Its great that CSCart now have the unlimited stores version, Ultimate. But the addon Devs don't seem to be jumping onto this with "Ultimate" unlimited stores licenses.