Why are Some E-commerce Solutions Not Search Engine Friendly?

There are many factors that come into play when attempting to determine if an e-commerce system is not search engine friendly. These factors are important to understand and can help you determine if the system is right for you.

CGI-BIN and Scripting Languages

Shopping Carts or e-commerce systems using the CGI-BIN format typically utilize the PERL scripting language. When a search engine finds /cgi-bin/ in a URL it typically ignores it. There are however some search engines that can index beyond the /cgi-bin/ element of the URL. However, there are many that cannot and do not index beyond the /cgi-bin/ element.

Then we have the database driven shopping cart or e-commerce system that operates on one of the more advanced Object Oriented Event Driven (OOED) languages such as PHP, ASP, .NET, .JSP, or Cold Fusion (just to name a few). These advanced languages utilize the question mark (?) and ampersand (&) in the URL to identify the variables required to pull the information out of the database and into the dynamically generated page. Not all search engines are able to index beyond the question mark (?) or the ampersand (&) making it difficult to be indexed by all search engines.

Meta Data

Shopping carts or e-commerce systems typically re-use the same set of Meta keywords and Meta descriptions throughout the dynamically generated pages. This simply means that an orange would have the same Meta keywords and Meta description as an apple. Obviously this does not work very well for search engines that utilize the Meta keywords and Meta descriptions. The Meta keywords and Meta descriptions should be based upon the product or the category.

Page Titles

Page titles are one of the most important elements in search engine optimization. Page titles inform the purchaser that your page offers exactly what they are looking for. Since many e-commerce solutions re-use the same page title which is typically the company name or the site URL that it can prevent your site from moving to the top of the search engine results. Each page should stand on its own.

URL Rewrites

Many programmers use URL rewrite technologies to make the URL's friendly to the search engines. However, not all rewritten URL's are created equal. Some people rewrite URL's to simply remove the question mark (?) and ampersand (&) from the resulting URL. However, this does not provide the best form of rewritten URL.

Hidden Session ID's

Hidden session id's are session id's that are placed in the link, but not in the resulting URL. Because session id's use the question mark (?) or ampersand (&) in the link, this causes many search engines to cease attempting to index the site.

Session id's are used to keep track of the visitor as they add items to their cart for purchase. Not all shopping carts utilize session id's, but those that do can cause problems if not properly programmed to keep the session id's out of the links. Some programmers use cookies, but those can also be problematic if the shopper turns cookies off like so many people do.

Heading Tags

Heading tags are those tags that identify the importance of a piece of content and elevate it above the remaining content. For example, an

heading tag is the most important of all heading tags. When a page uses the

tag it announces to the search engines that the enclosed text is of vital importance and it is usually the topic of the page.

For example, a page about Mandarin Oranges that uses an

tag enclosing the words Mandarin Oranges identifies to the search engine that the main topic of the page is, in fact, Mandarin Oranges. This can elevate your page above all others that talk about Mandarin Oranges if they do not utilize the

tag.

Over use of the

tag on a single page can be considered "spam" by the search engines. This can get the page banned and may even get the site banned for "spamming".

ALT Attributes

ALT attributes are typically ignored in the majority of CGI-BIN and scripting language e-commerce solutions for various reasons. These reasons could be as simple as the belief that the site owner or webmanager doesn't understand the value of these fine attributes to the programmers didn't understand their value and though the exercise of adding extraneous information was not worth the effort. However, they are just as important as the other content describing the item or product.
Flash Navigation

Some programmers feel it is important to utilize Flash to enhance the site presentation. Unfortunately, this hinders the search engines from navigating through the site because Flash does not utilize standards linking technologies.

JavaScript Navigation

JavaScript is an executable script residing on either the client-side or the server-side. This technology allows for the use of "eye candy" and is does not allow navigation through the entire site by some search engines because they cannot execute or parse the codes to perform the navigation required to reach the other pages.

Frames

Frames provide an easy way to manage navigation in one window while providing the content in another window. While this may sound good, but the problem with this situation is the internal pages get indexed without the frameset. That means if a person finds that page, they can't navigate to the other sections of the site.

Coding to Standards

Many times when a site is developed the programmer writes codes that are not standards compliant. This can create problems in many of the browsers available and mean that the visitor isn't able to utilize the site. If the visitor isn't able to use the site, the visitor isn't able to shop.