upSEO - site maps in osCommerce
Site maps help the users to find information they are looking for on the web site, and also help search engines a lot to index all pages of the web site. A site map is usually represented as a tree starting from the main page. A site map is like a navigation help for visitors of online store.
osCommerce site map
A site map for an online store would include:
- main categories
- sub categories of main categories
- best selling / featured products in a separate branch of the tree
- information pages
There exists a contribution for osCommerce that generates site maps. It can be
downloaded from this page and can generate site maps automatically based on the product catalog tables.
In osCommerce a link to the site map can be put into the footer or into the Information box.
Google and Yahoo! site maps
Google and other search engines have introduced their own site maps to get more precise and up to date information about changes in the web site structure. Updates to the site maps are provided by web masters and store owners directly.
Since the site map is submitted into the search engine directly, it is processed promptly, and the pages it consists of are indexed promptly as well. Again, any changes in the product catalog structure will be known to the search engine once the latest version of the site map is submitted. Therefore the search engine site map needs to be regenerated (preferably automatically) each time anything changes in the product catalog.
Google site map is an XML file that should be submitted into Google Web Master’s account. In order to become an approved web master for a certain web site, Google usually requires the web master to either upload a file with certain name to the web site, or add a temporarily META tag to the web site pages. Once the ownership / editing rights are approved by Google, and web master can submit the XML site map of the following format for Google site map index file.
Of course the files generated by the script can be altered if needs to be in order to highlight certain products or categories that are likely to change more often than the others, or are far more important than the others.
A contribution is available on osCommerce that can generate site maps for Google. It is based on the product catalog. It can be downloaded from this page. It’s preferable to use a contribution like this than 3d party site map generation tools. Having this contribution installed the store owner receives control over the process of site map generation and flexibility for further modifications.
Yahoo! site map submission service is a simpler solution that only accepts plain CSV files with only one column web page URLs. The site map file can be uploaded to https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
May 18th, 2007 at 8:35 am
Google does not index our site… We add our url several times. and generated sitemap
May 21st, 2007 at 2:29 am
Hello Selim,
There could be several reasons for that - for example the site may be a relatively new one, and still be in what’s called “Google sandbox”.
I can see that the main page of your web site was indexed by Google on the 17th of May, can you tell us when did you put the site live?
Best regards,
Vadym
November 11th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Hello Vadym,
At the time of reading your blog, I also apply patches you suggested to my .htaccess to improve pagerank. My site had been around for a year but poor in pagerank. I have installed oscommerce SEO for about 6 months now. Could you give me a good advice?
TQ.
Rgds,
Walter C
November 12th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Hello Walter,
I suppose you may want to consider a more complex approach than just applying that .htaccess. As far as I can see you still have the link to the main page split into two in your web site (http://www.ebooks-collection.com/index.php and http://www.ebooks-collection.com/).
You may also want to use several osCommerce contributions that convert standard URLs into the so called “search engine friendly” ones.
Also, I would suggest the following very important things:
a) get more unique authentic content onto your web site, add descriptions to categories of products and also author biographies
b) back links - you need to get back links to your online store. It might be a good idea to consider talking to web masters of web sites that sell complimentary products and asking them to place links back to your site. Or, if it’s possible, ask your authors if they would be willing to add a link to your site (i.e. to a web site where readers can buy those books online)
Best of luck with the online store!
Vadym