Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Custom URL's with Bigcommerce Issue (Is it worth it?)
-
We're building out a store in Bigcommerce, who for all intensive purposes is perfect for SEO besides the fact that you can not change the URL's to be custom. My question is, does this kill the SEO value of bigcommerce, despite everything else being great?
So for example the URL's for a category page would be something like this www.mysite.com/categories/keyword and the product URL's are pulled in by product name, so product URL's could be something like www.mysite.com/products/Product-Description-Long-223.html (notice the words will be capitalized and their is no way to remove the trailing .html)
I could go with Interspire (the liscenced version of Bigcommerce) or Magento so I can custom edit this stuff. But then its a lot more work for my employee's on the buildout.
-
Thanks, yea I can use canonicals with bigcommerce. I just wasn't sure how much the URL structure really influences the rankings of the page. Like if everything else is perfect, but there is one variable in there that isn't (ie having /categories/ in the URL) how much that would actually effect the results.
-
The question that matters is what does SEO need from URLs?
-
That they be static.
-
That they feature your keywords.
What does Big Commerce do?
-
Provide static URLs (at least, based on what you've shown; I'm not a salesman or anything and have no affiliation)
-
Features product name (which presumably you control, and can thus include long tail KWs).
Granted, it's slightly less easy to type out the product page URLs for anyone wanting to link (they need to remember the caps and .html) but that's the least of your issues. I'd imagine you can just set up a 301 to make the urls typed in redirect if they get the casing wrong.
Lastly, regarding custom URLs, consider scalability. If the store succeeds ... are you really going to give each product page a custom URL manually? Not likely... So it's not that important.
-
-
My company has been working with eCommerce storefronts for close to 7 years and this would be a deal killer for me. Out of all the shopping carts on the Market, Magneto is HANDS DOWN the greatest and offers the most scalability for clients bar none! It is more complicated to setup than most but once you have the hang of it you can get a store built out really quick and in the end its just so much better.
I personally, have worked with infopia, zencart, yahoo stores, volution, channel advisor (crooks), 3Dcarts, pinnicle cart and more.
Bottom line, URL Structure in eCommerce is as crucial as Title and Meta Descriptions.
-
I think you have answered your question already. This comes down to price over SEO value. Sure, the perfect pretty URL's would add something to the product and category listings pages, but depending on the competition in your market and the ongoing budget for Link Building this may not be an issue if you're on top of it all.
If you'd rather outlay a little more cost upfront, then it might be an idea to get it 100% from day 1
Hope this helps!!
Aaron
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Dead end pages are really an issue?
Hi all, We have many pages which are help guides to our features. These pages do not have anymore outgoing links (internal / external). We haven't linked as these are already 4th level pages and specific about particular topic. So these are technically dead end pages. Do these pages really hurt us? We need to link to some other pages? Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Is there a way to redirect URLs with a hash-bang (#!) format?
Hi Moz, I'm trying to redirect www.site.com/locations/#!city to www.site.com/locations/city. This seems difficult because anything after the hash character in the URL does not make it to the server thus cannot be parsed for rewriting. Is there an SEO friendly way to implement these redirects? Thanks for reading!
Web Design | | DA20130 -
ECWID How to fix Duplicate page content and external link issue
I am working on a site that has a HUGE number of duplicate pages due to ECWID ecommerce platform. The site is built with Joomla! How can I rectify this situation? The pages also show up as "external " links on crawls... Is it the ECWID platform? I have never worked on a site that uses this. Here is an example of a page with the issue (there are 6280 issues) URL: http://www.metroboltmi.com/shop-spare-parts?Itemid=218&option=com_rokecwid&view=ecwid&ecwid_category_id=3560081
Web Design | | Atlanta-SMO0 -
Does Google count the domain name in its 115-character "ideal" URL length?
I've been following various threads having to do with URL length and Google's happiness therewith and have yet to find an answer to the question posed in the title. Some answers and discussions have come close, but none I've found have addressed this with any specificity. Here are four hypothetical URLs of varying lengths and configurations: EXAMPLE ONE:
Web Design | | RScime25
my-big-widgets-are-the-best-widgets-in-the-world-and-come-in-many-vibrant-and-unique-colors-and-configurations.html (115 characters) EXAMPLE TWO: sample.com/my-big-widgets-are-the-best-widgets-in-the-world-and-come-in-many-vibrant-and-unique-colors-and-configurations.html (126 characters) EXAMPLE THREE: www.sample.com/my-big-widgets-are-the-best-widgets-in-the-world-and-come-in-many-vibrant-and-unique-colors-and-configurations.html (130 characters) EXAMPLE FOUR: http://www.sample.com/my-big-widgets-are-the-best-widgets-in-the-world-and-come-in-many-vibrant-and-unique-colors-and-configurations.html (137 characters) Assuming the examples contain appropriate keywords and are linked to appropriate anchor text (etc.,) how would Google look upon each? All I've been able to garner thus far is that URLs should be as short as possible while still containing and contextualizing keywords. I have 500+ URLs to review for the company I work for and could use some guidance; yes, I know I should test, but testing is problematical to the extreme; I look to the collective/accumulated wisdom of the MOZVerse for help. Thanks.1 -
Does it do harm if you add a rel="canonical" tag on a page that doesn't need it?
If a page is clearly unique and there is obviously no canonical tag needed, does it hurt anything if one has been added?
Web Design | | jaychow0 -
How to put 'Link to this article' HTML code at bottom of article & is it helpful?
Hello, I was thinking about putting a box down at the bottom of my client's main articles that let's the reader easily copy the html code it takes to link to the article they're reading. Maybe I'd put it after the author bio. Do any of you do this? If so, what format do you use? It has to look nice of course. This is a non-techie industry. Thanks.
Web Design | | BobGW0 -
URL structure for multiple cities?
Hi, i am in the process of setting up a business directory site that will be used in a number of cities, though i am initially launching with only one city. My question is, what is the best URL structure to use for the site and should i start using this URL structure from day one? At the moment i am using www.mysite.com.au as my primary website where it contains all listings for the the one initial launch city. Though to plan for the future i was considering this URL structure: www.mysite.com.au/cityname so for example, if i launch in the city Sydney initially then all website traffic that goes to www.mysite.com.au would simply be redirected (302 temp redirect?) to www.mysite.com.au/sydney. When i expand to other cities www.mysite.com.au would simply be a "select your city" screen that then redirects to the city of choice (similar to www.groupon.com page). How would doing a 302 redirect from www.mysite.com.au to www.mysite.com.au/city impact on SEO for the initial launch? Or should i just place this on the root domain since no other cities exist at the moment?
Web Design | | adamkirk0 -
Custom 404 Page Indexing
Hi - We created a custom 404 page based on SEOMoz recommendations. But.... the page seems to be receiving traffic via organic search. Does it make more sense to set this page as "noindex" by its metatag?
Web Design | | sftravel0