Oscommerce issues

I am using Oscommerce shopping cart and can not figure out two issues. One being ...making my site google friendly. I have heard that google does not like Oscommerce. Anyone know? Also, can not locate a gift certificate program compatable with Oscommerce. HELP!! Thanks!

My suggestion is to go over to Oscommerce's forum for this. Only because this is very specific to a shopping cart software and a lot of the experts for Oscommerce are over there.

i use Oscommerce cart, i love it no problems and google has indexed the hell out of it,

If you take a look at your admin panel, there is a way to remove the SIDs for spiders, which is what you need to do to get indexed. Go to Sessions in the Configuration panel and you'll see Prevent Spider Sessions. Set this to true.

Google loves oscommerce, as long as you turn off sessions as stephanie has stated.

I think there's a few gift certificate modules available. This one looks decent

I think the main problem with OSCommerce is that every single page on the site uses the same title tag

Is anyone aware of how to change the code so that it allows you to specify whatever title and meta tags you want for each page of your OScommerce site?

I haven't had much luck getting help on this one from the osCommerce forums.

I did get suggestions from one member that allows you to take one of your products descriptions from the catalog and have it appear in the title tag but that is horrible for SEO purposes if your item title is say 10 words long like some of mine are.

Any ideas?

Thanks
Eric B

I also forgot to mention that there is a lot of javascript before the body tag in osCommerce pages.... as we know for seo purposes it would be better to place that javascript code in a .js file and just link to it from the web page. That is simple to do with regular html pages but with osCommerce the code is very difficult for many to understand, especially if you are like me with a basic php skill level.

I was wondering if anyone has ever changed the osCommerce code so that the javascript involved is placed in a .js file instead of in the web pages osCommerce generates?

Thanks
Eric B

If you search the contributions, you'll find a Header Tags module which will allow you to seo the title tags
I'm not sure about the js file as I haven't tried it with oscommerce

Hello,

I have taken a look at the Header Tag contribution but have not tried it out yet because I don't like the idea of it using the product description from the database (the product title).

Most of my products are about 10 to 12 long in their titles. I think that is too many words for the title meta tag when you are trying to optimize for certain keyphrases.

I am wonder in anyone is working on a contribution that will let specifically enter what you want to be in the title tag. Or if anyone has changed the code of osCommerce somewhere to allow this?

If so I would really like some advice or examples of how this was done. The code is a little overwhelming as there is so much but so far I have managed to make it through it.

Thanks for any help and tips.

I did do a search on SEO in the osCommerce forums and found some interesting threads but nothing to help with what I am trying to achieve in regards to a .js file and specific title tags.

Thanks everyone this is a great forum I have lurked for a while and just joined.

Eric B

The solution to your problem will be determined by individual factors...one of them being how many products you have in your inventory.

If there are a small number (<100) it would advisable to use one of the meta tag controllers where you would have to input the information on a product-by-product basis.

However, if you have a large number of products it would be best to use a custom coded solution. For a few of my clients with large inventories I have used the breadcrumb trail for the title and the product short description for meta tag description. Others, I used the product name only. It depends on your specific requirements.

Thanks for the response.

I actually have installed the latest OSCommerce Header Tag Controller, updated in October 24 2004.

Works like a charm! I am able to make a custom title for each product page.

Since then I have noticed there has been updates made to it involving robots.txt file

If anyone is interested you can read the contribution here

http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,207

Thanks
Eric B

Yep, that's the one I was talking about.

Glad you got it working