SEO Question

[ukgeezer]

We had a very successful site written in html that had approximately 250 items and attracted more than 18000 visitors/month.
In April we launched a replacement ecommerce site in php with 2000 products that barely reaches 5000 visitors/month. I have checked Google and found that five months after launch only about 1305 pages have been indexed by Google.
I have added an RSS feed that lists the sitemap as well as submitting the sitemap.xml feed to Google. Is there anything I should be doing to get the rest of the site indexed or do I have to rely on Google eventually indexing the new pages?
Would it help if I continually modified those pages that have yet to be indexed so that the generated site map indicates recent changes?

[morestar]

We had a very successful site written in html that had approximately 250 items and attracted more than 18000 visitors/month.
In April we launched a replacement ecommerce site in php with 2000 products that barely reaches 5000 visitors/month. I have checked Google and found that five months after launch only about 1305 pages have been indexed by Google.
I have added an RSS feed that lists the sitemap as well as submitting the sitemap.xml feed to Google. Is there anything I should be doing to get the rest of the site indexed or do I have to rely on Google eventually indexing the new pages?
Would it help if I continually modified those pages that have yet to be indexed so that the generated site map indicates recent changes?

a long time ago i took an html site that was selling mapel syrup and turned in into a working ecommerce site using OSCommerce as the template.

their rankings and traffic drop down substantially, now looking back for plenty of reasons.

Curious but have you thought about going back to the original template?

[innominds]

Other than submitting a sitemap, I don't find any other solution to your problem.

[ukgeezer]

Morestar>>

The original site built traffic over several years and it maybe that I am just being impatient. We have considered going back to the html version and this may be the way forward. We are also using the OSCommerce platform. I would be interested to know your "plenty of reasons"

[morestar]

ya, every install of OSCommerce that I've re-done a website with, every one of them have lost their rankings...

if I were getting that many hits with the html version and lost that many hits with OScommerce I would definitely go back to the HTML version...

you're selling a product right?

are you finding OSCommerce is really not doing anything special for you?

[danlefree]

I'm assuming you've taken pains to implement the product and category names in URL's with osCommerce - have you also set up 301 redirects from the old content to the present content?

Assuming that your product pages map to the same/very similar content from the old .html's, you might throw together a 301 redirect mapping script (http://www.webproworld.com/discussion-forum/89332-how-do-you-redirect-url-0a-splitting-up-html-extension-htm-0al.html#post459022) (like that one) to get Google to pick up on the relationship between the old content and the new content.

[morestar]

I'm assuming you've taken pains to implement the product and category names in URL's with osCommerce - have you also set up 301 redirects from the old content to the present content?

Assuming that your product pages map to the same/very similar content from the old .html's, you might throw together a 301 redirect mapping script (http://www.webproworld.com/discussion-forum/89332-how-do-you-redirect-url-0a-splitting-up-html-extension-htm-0al.html#post459022) (like that one) to get Google to pick up on the relationship between the old content and the new content.

ya he can do all that but in the end it will take months more to get the rankings and traffic he was getting.

if i owned his business i would want my rankings back up today. the only question is will his rankings go back to normal if he uses the same template as in the past.

[Ace]

Try keeping old URL's or Links or Pages live means Use osCommerce as an extension of previous website

[scgalvin]

Yah, I think not having those 301 redirect would be a big problem. I have old sites with urls address that I would like to update along with a new CMS, but I'm scared to death that I would lose ground in the search engines. Specially when I hear stories like these.

[ukgeezer]

you're selling a product right?

are you finding OSCommerce is really not doing anything special for you?

Yes we are selling products and we selected OSCommerce on recommendation. The developer we selected has visually done a good job with the data that was provided. I have subsequently had to work on the product descriptions to add content to improve Google rankings. We have another site that uses ZenCart as the platform and if I were asked to judge them, I would say the OSCommerce site is more user friendly, both from a User and Customer point of view.

[ukgeezer]

I'm assuming you've taken pains to implement the product and category names in URL's with osCommerce - have you also set up 301 redirects from the old content to the present content?

Assuming that your product pages map to the same/very similar content from the old .html's, you might throw together a 301 redirect mapping script (http://www.webproworld.com/discussion-forum/89332-how-do-you-redirect-url-0a-splitting-up-html-extension-htm-0al.html#post459022) (like that one) to get Google to pick up on the relationship between the old content and the new content.

Thankyou for this Dan. I did produce lists of new urls for redirecting visitors and they seem to have worked correctly. Thinking about it though, I do still have some external links directed to pages that no longer exist and adding a redirect to the new home page may have an effect.

[ukgeezer]

Try keeping old URL's or Links or Pages live means Use osCommerce as an extension of previous website

Ace, I did consider this at the time of development, but decided against because I didn't want to be penalised for duplicate content.

However, your suggestion is not without merit and creating a new folder with the old site may be a possible solution.

[morestar]

Idea: why don't you throw about 4 pages up from the previous site and monitor them?

[innominds]

I suppose it will lead to a conflict.

[morestar]

it really shouldn't should it?

I'm sure their names are different that the new page names, just html pages and he could then monitor their traffic and the site's overall traffic and see if any conflict arises - which I doubt would happen but if it did he could just yank them and try another approach.

[Manpasand]

I think 301 redirect could be a problem with your site. It also depends how is your website's URL structure.

I suggest you to throw your site link here.

[morestar]

good idea, we should see it...

but can you 301 all your old pages to new ones right now?

you could even make your old pages conform to the current template and again, add them back up again, start with about 5 pages....

[ukgeezer]

I think 301 redirect could be a problem with your site. It also depends how is your website's URL structure.

I suggest you to throw your site link here.

Hi Manpasand,
I didn't include the site url because I understood that there were restrictions. But here goes Laserjet .co .uk HP Printer Specialists (http://www.laserjet.co.uk)

[ukgeezer]

good idea, we should see it...

but can you 301 all your old pages to new ones right now?

you could even make your old pages conform to the current template and again, add them back up again, start with about 5 pages....

Morestar, you are correct I could trawl through my old pages and reproduce using the new template and this is something I may have to do. I put it off because the old site had become a reference site of old product rather than an ecommerce site showing current products where there is stock available for sale, but then that may well have been its strength. I will look at this again, thanks

[morestar]

Morestar, you are correct I could trawl through my old pages and reproduce using the new template and this is something I may have to do. I put it off because the old site had become a reference site of old product rather than an ecommerce site showing current products where there is stock available for sale, but then that may well have been its strength. I will look at this again, thanks

ok so for instance, do you have an HTML page for the Mono Laserjet specifically?

[ukgeezer]

ok so for instance, do you have an HTML page for the Mono Laserjet specifically?

Hi morestar, I have put up a typical html page. Unfortunately the navigation bar which was an include is not showing correctly but you can see the basic layout of the <a href="http://www.laserjet.co.uk/TEST/ laserjet4350.htm">original website </a> and compare it with the equivalent <a href="http://www.laserjet.co.uk/q5407a-p-1116.html">new page</a>

[morestar]

Hi morestar, I have put up a typical html page. Unfortunately the navigation bar which was an include is not showing correctly but you can see the basic layout of the <a href="http://www.laserjet.co.uk/TEST/ laserjet4350.htm">original website </a> and compare it with the equivalent <a href="http://www.laserjet.co.uk/q5407a-p-1116.html">new page</a>

OK so you have a page there that isn't identical to the rest of the site right? So why don't you add the elements that need to be added to make it the same OR just start linking to those pages from a few pages on your site so as not to over-do exposing them right away?

What do you think?

[ukgeezer]

OK so you have a page there that isn't identical to the rest of the site right?

Yes, I have the old site in this html format. In some cases with individual printers on a single page or as in this case with four variations of the same printer on a single page.


So why don't you add the elements that need to be added to make it the same OR just start linking to those pages from a few pages on your site so as not to over-do exposing them right away?

What do you think?

I could add the older printers that are not covered by the new web site but this does not get over my main problem which is to get the 664 pages on my sitemap that have not been visited by Google.

I will read up on Google Webmaster Tools to see if I can resolve my problem. Thanks for your assistance

[morestar]

Ohhhhh, hm, those 664 pages. I and most people have that 'problem'...I think it just takes time. I've submitted xml sitemaps that had over 500 pages and so forth but only to find that google had 'found' only 255.

Getting links to those other pages should help and also add links to some of those pages from your home page too, maybe in the footer or a little nav to the left.

The site is really nice to look at though and right trusting...I would purchase from that site for sure....