Moving a large ecommerce site to new cart/host worries!

[888Knivesrus]

My partner and I own and run 888knivesrus.com. The cart is a softcart by Zoovy.com who a few years ago switched to a success fee based pay structure and as such our monthly fees are in excess of $800. We have found a company to move and host our site with a customized cart but are worried about getting hurt by a drop in sales. 68% of our visits are organic and 52% of that is from google.

How much can we expect to get hurt by the move if our product and category link structure stays the same, and how much if the link structure changes?

Thanks for any advice/input.

DC Williams
888 Knives R Us

[Dubbya]

It's going to hurt, there's no way around it and no way to foresee the impact that moving to a new host and changing the site (cart) structure will have.

Retaining your domain name and ensuring that your links stay intact will minimize severity. Be prepared for a slight, though temporary, drop in rankings. Keep doing what you're doing and hope for the best.

Considering that your currently paying $800/month in fees, a slight drop in sales would be offset by the reduction in operating expenditures. All in all, it's probably a good move if you're payouts are significantly lower.

Opinions abound as to how to complete the move successfully but it can be a little more complicated with regard to moving an ecommerce site.

I read a few guides before I came across one that will be of the most use. Matt Cutts of Google has provided a guide to changing web hosts while minimizing negative impact on traffic and SERP rankings. I think it'll best address your concerns.

Moving to a new web host

One caveat, don't shut down your current email service until you're certain that the DNS changes have fully propagated to your new email server as well.

[888Knivesrus]

Thanks Dubbya,

Read the article by Matt. Excellent information. Did not know all the info about TTL.

DC

[cw1865]

You might want to check out americommerce which permits custom urls, so you can keep the urls the same, will make the transition smoother, but it will take you a long time, I checked out your site (nice site), but you have some long dynamic urls that you would have to copy, so each page will take a while, plus you will have to go down their learning curve.

[Jon-WebsiteCM]

In my experience, if you move to a new solution but keep the domain, urls, general page copy, and page titles in tact, you should see little to no search engine impact.

If your solution is custom, you can have an seo url mod created to keep the urls in tact. Depending on the flexibility your current host allows, there are several ways to automate the creation of a url list for import elsewhere. If you move to a pre-built solution, there may be one already created. We offer such a module for X-Cart for example.

[Peter (IMC)]

I'd go with Ecommerce Shopping Carts & Search Engine Marketing by Merchant Metrix

My opinion is not completely independent because I'm involved in the development of that cart, but it's got all the SEO features you need to be sure it is search engine friendly. And every maior change of a website can show some bumps, but depending on how well you rank now, it can even go up. (my experience with most sites is that it just goes up.)

Also they don't charge based on how much you sell. It's a flat fee independent of your sales. (hosting included)

[songstershops]

888Knivesrus I feel your pain - as Dubbya says, its going to hurt. It will take time to get the new pages indexed and for you to climb back to where you were before. Depending on what cart software you use, you could rank better or worse for your individual pages.

Ranking for your Individual specific products will look after themselves when your new pages are indexed - especially if you use the same product titles.
Personally I wouldn't bother with trying to replicate the urls you have as cw1865 suggests - that would be too much work and one missing or added character will mess it all up anyway.

A new cart is a perfect opportunity for you to take a look at your present system and determine what doesn't work and to fix it with the new system. It maybe something as simple as your product titles. Take the time with the new cart to build better titles and descriptions for your individual products and/or categories.


I have several e-commerce stores and planning is everything. The good new is its July - if you get on the project now you should be back to "normal" well before the Christmas season.
A good custom 404 page should take care of visitors who find your old urls. Make your 404 page match your new cart theme and include a blurb for the visitor telling them the page has moved. If you integrate your 404 page with your cart it will have the category structure so the visitor will still be able to search your store.

Be picky with your cart software and make sure it will do everything you need before you make the move. I know that sounds like common sense but you would be surprised how many people add to their wish list during or after a build and find out its not going to work.

There are quite a few shopping cart systems out there to choose from . There are several that aren't worth the price and a few free ones that are priceless- do your homework.

Good luck with your move

Debbie

[advancedmerchant]

I think that if all your URL's remain the same, the hit will be minimized, and your new cart, if it is more SEO friendly, may score higher in Google Organic.

I thought the Zoovy Exodus was over years ago! You sure stuck with it for a long time!

[subsystems]

I ran into a problem trying to find a shopping cart for a client.
This one problem demonstrates the weakness most shopping carts have.
Their product lines involve 30 brands, 1500+ products and with the color options its something like 50,000 distinct products that can be ordered.

Say you are setting up a new car dealership. You send Brand A, Brand B and Brand C.
Each Brand has a master list of colors they use for their vehicles. So Brand A uses 25 different colors. Brand B uses 30 different colors and Brand C uses 10 different colors. I should point out that Yellow in Brand A is not the same as Yellow in Brands B or C and so on.
Additionally there are 21 different models of vehicles for Brand A, 18 in Brand B and 12 in Brand C.
Just looking at Brand A...
Product A only comes in 14 of the colors that Brand A uses. Product B only comes in 8 of the colors and Product C only comes in 5 of the colors. And so on for the other Brands and Products.

Because there will be so many different color choices and each product is only available in what is produced for that product, a simple option list for each brand will not work correctly. You don't want people ordering Product B in a color that it doesn't come in.

Lets say you are in the Admin for Brand A, Product A, you put in the usual Product SKU, Name, Description Price etc which most handle well. But then you need displayed the full color list for Brand A and a check box next to each color for that brand so you can select which of those this product is available in.
Then on the actual site that product will display the usual stuff for Product A and only the color options it comes in.

I don't know why shopping cart programmers don't think about this stuff. I was told by one company to simply create an option list of all the colors for all Brands and just select the ones for that Product. They don't see the problem with displaying a massive list on the Admin Product page and trying to figure out which "Performance Yellow" is the one that belongs with the current Product. The swatches are not the same for the different brands even if the name of the color is the same. What Brand A calls White is metallic and Brand B calls While a color that looks more like Cream.
You can't just change the names of the colors because someone looking for Product A in White is not going to understand why the White is listed as Brand A White.

Think about how many industries suffer the same problems with carts. Clothing with sizes and colors. One Brand calls a Medium one set of measurements while another calls Medium a different measurement.
Then you have electronics. White, Blue, Green, Gray, Yellow and Black may not be the same between brands. The Blue might be transparent plastic while a different Brand their Blue is Navy.

Anyone else ran into this trouble with carts?

[Webnauts]

I have no time to tell so much here, except of that the best way to go for an e-commerce application is Ubercart! A free open source e-commerce shopping cart.

[songstershops]

Subsystems - you bring up good points.

You could set up the colors and sizes as attributes. The different shades of "white" wouldn't be a problem as you would add those shades in your master list of attributes. Then when you create the product you assign the specific color and size attributes to the product.

Its a bit of a chore to set up but it does work

A possible solution to having such a large list in the admin is to name the color option title something brand specific. So instead of it saying "colors" it could say "Ford Colors" and then all the color options would be available under that heading. Then "Chevy Colors" etc

The other option is to create a product page for each style in each color and just keep the sizes as attributes.
I just recently "finished" (are they ever really finished?) a store that sells heating and air conditioning systems.

I used attributes for the complete systems
You can see it here
This is a pretty basic design cart but the attributes do work well for the product and the cart is easy to navigate.

Coming up with a user friendly design and giving the customer all the options is a challenge sometimes - but it is possible to do without costing a fortune.

Hope that helps

Debbie

[888Knivesrus]

Thank you for all the replies. I think that I will be able to keep the url's the same when I migrate. I researched already xcart, cubecart, zencart, crelance, vpasp and for various reasons determined that none of them were a perfect fit although several were considered seriously. I finally have settled on commercehelper.com which is their cart customized to my specifications which alleviates a few of the problems discussed in this thread.

We stayed with zoovy so long because of how much trouble it is to leave considering their proprietary software. Our site has over 6000 products most of which have product options.

GoECart tried to migrate our site and failed miserably. Cost us a lot of money that we do not have the time or resources to recoup.

This move will be paid for on a credit card and if the move is not completed successfully on time we can always do a chargeback.

We have to have a solution where we can hit the ground running as we only have 3 people managing this monster and it produces 600 to 800 orders a month.

DC
888 Knives R Us

[Terry Van Horne]

Well I guess you are learning an expensive lesson in why proprietary systems often jump up and bite you in the asse! That said, I have to assume judging by the info provided this is profitable but... could be more profitable. I would stay away from "out of the box" ecom solutions they come with a long piece of rope so you can tie your hands up nice and tight! If you go to another "out of the box" solution then have you fixed it or just moved from one problem to another.

If you look at it in another light you might want to checkout developing your own cart. That gives you total control. In any event the name is hardly a big factor in the success. I would leave the current site running and start developing your own cart a category at a time and redirect to the new site using 301 as you complete the new site category... when you are all done.... 301 the whole site. You've lost no value from the old sites promotion and you'll have a cart and site that is totally under your control with the ability to do everything your little heart desires.

[cupotico]

I own an e-commerce site developed “in house” includes DB, Dynamic Server pages, the whole deal. I moved it completely to a new hosting company last year.
The move took me 24hr and the entire site, url, links structure stayed the same.

I had no damage for my SERP or Ranking what so ever.

The only two things i would recommend are:
1. Check the IP of the new hosting, that it is not hosting "bad sites" ( in case you will be using a shared hosting).
2. Set up your site completely with your new Host/Shopping Cart Company, test it and only then make a fast switch.

[morestar]

Originally Posted by Dubbya

It's going to hurt, there's no way around it...

it may not hurt, its not in googles best interest to hurt us so...

i did the same thing, a few times, in ecom, straight switches and google liked it...we got higher in the serps.

you never know till you know the algos...so, take the risk cause you want to and expect a small dive, but you might go up, just be careful and do as much of the proper stuff you should do (name conventions etc, the regular 'seo' stuff)...

[mawells]

If you're looking to develop your own shopping cart, you might want to check out PHPRunner. I haven't used their shopping cart template yet (although I'm about to), but I have used it for other sites like real estate and basic dynamic MySQL table administration. Works very fast and you can control the entire store yourself without knowing a lot of programming (although knowing at least HTML will give you more options for customizing).

I don't know the URL for their site off the top of my head, but if you Google PHPRunner you'll find it.

[optifocus]

Originally Posted by 888Knivesrus

How much can we expect to get hurt by the move if our product and category link structure stays the same, and how much if the link structure changes?

If you are going to change entire link structure of the website, IMO, changing the design will affects in rankings, though you can get back rankings in short while by building quality links...

[DonnaEddington]

Hi...the only pain would be to move the content..providing you own the URL...then setting up a new cart and merchant service account/ssl...is not that difficult (it should be included in your hosting fee from whom ever you move to or in the fee for the cart). Moving the content can be a blessing in that if you have it all in a database...then a simple import is all you need to do...if not getting the products in a database that you can then move and grow with your business is the best thing you can do going forward. We have lots of clients on a variety of different carts dependent on the need...
There are lots of options out now in carts both off the shelf and custom applications...your new choice of a web dev company should be able help you...
d

[ingenuity1996]

Originally Posted by 888Knivesrus

My partner and I own and run 888knivesrus.com. The cart is a softcart by Zoovy.com who a few years ago switched to a success fee based pay structure and as such our monthly fees are in excess of $800. We have found a company to move and host our site with a customized cart but are worried about getting hurt by a drop in sales. 68% of our visits are organic and 52% of that is from google.

How much can we expect to get hurt by the move if our product and category link structure stays the same, and how much if the link structure changes?

Thanks for any advice/input.

DC Williams
888 Knives R Us

We recently did a huge migration ($xx,xxx) in terms of a new front end for our client EXcaliberPC.com - Notebooks, Storage, Memory, Hardware, Networking and more! to bring them up to the next level. We were originally concerned about loss of traffic due to new urls, we did the old and the new site however there was so much new improvements on the new front end including allowing for a lot of content on product pages like this: ASUS G70S-A1 17" Notebook. ASUS G70S-A1 that after the migration traffic has not dropped and neither did the orders. Most of their traffic is organic according to google analytics.
I think if your site has good unique content you dont have much to worry about, I was curious to why you switched providers? $800 is actually not a lot of money at all depending on how much or a backend you have ie the entire platform. If it is strictly a "shopping cart" with little or no backoffice then yeah it is a little high.

[888Knivesrus]

We do not have a database except what is on Zoovy's servers. Zoovy does not have ftp. I can only export 500 products at a time and the way they format their database for their proprietary zhtml is a pain to map to a new database, but it is possible.

800 is not bad for a back office system at our volume, if it works. Zoovy is constantly rolling out new patches and features with minimal testing before going live. It always results in downtime and cumbersome workarounds for us. They offer many "features" that we do not use because many of the products we sell are against other sites policies, ie adwords, paypay, ebay, amazon and most of the others I have checked. When we choose Zoovy they were flat fee based on modules and database size. We still use them as such but are paying for all the other stuff we don't and can't use. They will not negotiate on price.

The new solution is a custom cart that we will own, thank god! The move and cart has been quoted a $5700. Hosting will be about $100 a month. I have no idea how much bandwidth our site uses as Zoovy says they don't track it, which I doubt.

DC

[ingenuity1996]

but who will maintain the new site? do you have your own guys? or do you have to find someone to fix it at an hourly rate? If you are paying $800 a mont in commissions, you must be doing decent volume where if you have 1 day downtime it really cuts into your bottom line. $100 a month I think is only for hosting and no coding or other website related fixes am I correct?

[cw1865]

Originally Posted by 888Knivesrus

We do not have a database except what is on Zoovy's servers. Zoovy does not have ftp. I can only export 500 products at a time and the way they format their database for their proprietary zhtml is a pain to map to a new database, but it is possible.

800 is not bad for a back office system at our volume, if it works. Zoovy is constantly rolling out new patches and features with minimal testing before going live. It always results in downtime and cumbersome workarounds for us. They offer many "features" that we do not use because many of the products we sell are against other sites policies, ie adwords, paypay, ebay, amazon and most of the others I have checked. When we choose Zoovy they were flat fee based on modules and database size. We still use them as such but are paying for all the other stuff we don't and can't use. They will not negotiate on price.

The new solution is a custom cart that we will own, thank god! The move and cart has been quoted a $5700. Hosting will be about $100 a month. I have no idea how much bandwidth our site uses as Zoovy says they don't track it, which I doubt.

DC

Be very careful here. If you're paying $800 because of performance, that means you're doing ok. I understand why you are upset; essentially you feel that on a monthly basis you're paying way more than you have to.

There is such a thing as being penny wise and dollar foolilsh. If you migrate and it backfires, you're going to be moaning for a long time; maybe a month, maybe a day, or worse, maybe forever.

A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.

In your first year after doing the migration, instead of spending $800 * 12 = $9600 (math right?), you will spend $5700 + $1200 = $6900

You're going to risk this wonderful sales platform that you have devoted time, effort and sweat for less than $3K?

What percentage of gross sales are they taking?

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by cw1865

Be very careful here. If you're paying $800 because of performance, that means you're doing ok. I understand why you are upset; essentially you feel that on a monthly basis you're paying way more than you have to.

There is such a thing as being penny wise and dollar foolilsh. If you migrate and it backfires, you're going to be moaning for a long time; maybe a month, maybe a day, or worse, maybe forever.

A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.

In your first year after doing the migration, instead of spending $800 * 12 = $9600 (math right?), you will spend $5700 + $1200 = $6900

You're going to risk this wonderful sales platform that you have devoted time, effort and sweat for less than $3K?

What percentage of gross sales are they taking?

I think you missed the part where he explained about the often occuring down time of the system and the frustrations that go with that, not too mention a probable loss in sales as well.

[sweet12]

read a few guides. Matt Cutts of Google has provided a guide to changing web hosts while minimizing negative impact on traffic and SERP rankings. I think it'll best address your concerns.