Want to sell on the Web? You need e-commerce software.
Want to update your Web site's content without waiting for and paying extra to your Web developer? Then you want a Content Management System (CMS).
E-commerce and CMS systems can present problems to search engine indexing. Many create Web sites that look like Spam to search engines. As a result, search visibility lags or is limited.
What do you need to worry about to avoid looking like Spam when selecting such a system?
Many systems create multiple URLs for the same pages or pages that look the same to search engines. That sets of Spam filters and penalties at the search engines.
Navigation-driven URLs or systems that include path variables generate multiple URLs. Session IDs are even worse generating what looks like new URLs every time the search spider crawls your site.
How do you know the system you are considering is search engine friendly? After all, many e-commerce and CMS vendors with these problems claim their systems are search engine friendly, when they are not.
Ask the vendor for a list of Web sites built with their software. Then download XENU link checker at http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html. The software is free.
Install XENU and check each of the Web sites that the vendor provided. Does XENU finish the report, or does it go on and on? If XENU cannot finish crawling the sites, then the sites' software creates URL loops that will make your site look like Spam to search engines.
Even if XENU finishes crawling the sites, this may not mean the software will always build search engine friendly sites. But you will quickly eliminate the most problematic e-commerce or CMS software.
Labels: Organic SEO
