Hoping to pick the brains of some old pros!

Glad I looked here first, as I was prepared to pull prommart.com now, without waiting for bed time.

I'll give it awhile longer, to see what google/SE's, and you, do.

So if I might ask you: does google consider gibberish backlinks to our sites as among the "bad" links? When we find gibberish, spun articles we usually try to have them removed. So our test description text alarms me from the get-go.

Are we on the right track in having such gibberish backlinks removed? Yes, maybe a little generosity request. Thanks.

My goodness..

If all you chaps spent as much time doing good old marketing as you've spent on this pointless exercise, your websites may just earn you a bit more cash. :D

By marketing you mean apart from google/SE's? Yes, including traditional marketing would always seem wisest.

But why is the exercise pointless with regard to urls and google? If anything, this test is showing that re-writing isn't as detrimental as some think...and possibly may give an edge.

SPH:

But why is the exercise pointless with regard to urls and google? If anything, this test is showing that re-writing isn't as detrimental as some think...and possibly may give an edge.

As I am not participating in the "test" I don't know how the "results" are going, but I would venture to say that most research tries to justify the parameter it is examining. Furthermore, this test is completely unscientific, so there can be no definitive conclusion.

In my experience (been building sites since 1994 and won awards for a couple of them), there is no "SEO" advantage to URL re-writing. And I have also found that if I do a search on Google on my desktop machine, using CHROME, I get different results (different SERPS) when I do an identical search on my laptop in the next room a few minutes later, using Firefox. If I do the same search at home later on the family computer (kids like to use MSIE), I can often get another range of results.

So... ALL of you need IDENTICAL sites, on IDENTCALLY configured servers, all running the same processor and all within the same Geo-location, and ALL of you have to conduct the IDENTICAL search ALL at the SAME INSTANT IN TIME, on IDENTICAL BROWSERS...

(I could go on for a few hours here, but "YAWN" ... time to write some GOOD MEANINGFUL CONTENT for my client's new website!) :laugh:

Well, if it's that close there is no obvious disadvantage, either. Agree on content and the test protocols.

I just made a new no picture gif announcing the test on the product, for any customers AND any manual SE look-see. Don't expect it will affect things for us:

http://www.prommart.com/wurldbitzer-debibulator-p-2210.html

EDIT: maybe should have used some Red, making it prettier. LOL

fairestcape:

My goodness..

If all you chaps spent as much time doing good old marketing as you've spent on this pointless exercise, your websites may just earn you a bit more cash. :D

That pretty much sums it up!

My stupid pride is what started this whole thing. I should have just said "the customer made me do it" and called it a day.

Rod, is there something we are missing here? The SE's clearly have no problem with 'optimized' urls. Mine got indexed, no problem. Even if you say other factors contributed, you still have to admit that the SE's indexed them. Beyond that, it's up to other optimizations that aren't being questioned here. And beyond the beyond is the most important thing (what should be all of our top priorities): content.

Sadly no products for native URLs got indexed, but several garbage links got indexed. And for the garbage, no clear preference seems to exist. Steve's rewrite garbage has a higher rank than your garbage and the bike store garbage. I don't think that means the rewrite garbage is better, just that it came in first. Which appears to prove my point (SE's don't play favorites on the basis of re-write vs native).

Conclusions so far: SE's index ZC modded redirected links get indexed just fine, no clear difference.

I am expressly not saying rewrites are better. Just that SEs have evolved and there is no longer some big magical reason not to use them. Rewrites are a tool, no different than meta tags. If you have the time, then great... do it. If you don't feel like doing it... well, super. Now you have more time to wrestle kangaroos or something. :D

I think my job here is done.

Rod, please release me brother. All you have to do is say, "I have to admit, I am a bit impressed with the speed Ceon urls got indexed. And maybe even a bit disappointed in the performance of the native urls. I still think native stuff is probably better, but I now realize that use of redirects (in the hands of a responsible pro) does not warrant the term 'Snake Oil'."

If you are holding anything else back (like your faith in the 301 backfire that was pending), please just come out with it. Fairescape's yawn is contagious. He's right, this thing is so outside the scientific realm that it's laughable.

hi,
i have the paid version im not using at the minute so here goes, ill probably be interested comparing my onyourbike.co.uk as products cats content etc are all the same

Date/Time Begin: 5th jan 06:37 uk time

Your name/handle: bn17311

Test product URL: http://lessthan.co.uk/bikes/balance-bikes/wurldbitzer-debibulator
SEO redirection tool/method: ceon

Sitemap in use? no

Age of store (if known): domain age 10yrs + hasnt been used last 2 years fresh install 1.51 fantastico ceon mapping 4.41 and manager 1.41

i have turned off all sideboxes featured etc i can see

bn

Thanks, BN for another test of CEON.

In any event, Feznizzle's sites may be worth further study to see how a well-optimized site looks. :)

I also notice Feznizzle's listing is back on yahoo. It has been missing for me all day. It always was on bing (for me).

bn17311:

ok quickly installed 1.51 and have used easy populate to install the same products as onyourbike.co.uk so can someone let me know the best scenario as im a novice and only joining in for the fun and the fact i used ceon before and just gave it up on my new site

have all products using zen native url and just the test product using ceon or

all products using ceon ?

thanks
Bn

Please tell me that you didn't make this change on one of the testsites. If so, it needs to be disqualified.

NO TEST SITES ARE TO BE MODIFIED UNTIL ALL SITES CAN BE FOUND IN GOOGLE!

lhungil:

Also an interesting note in regards to sitemaps and sites in this test - some sites have their sitemaps at sitemap.xml - some have a link to their sitemap in robots.txt - some have it set up in webmaster tools - some may have automatic generation of the sitemap. And some of the XML sitemaps for sites in the test have included the test product in the sitemaps.

The sitemap.xml file has a specific file definition. It was invented and defined by Google. Google treats all sitemap.xml files the same, regardless whether it is linked or not.

Folks.

Please Don't make changes to the test sites.

Please stop jumping to conclusions.

Please STOP SPEAKING ######## !!!!!

Those of you saying things like 'the experiment is now pointless' (or word to that effect) are NOT SEEING THE PICTURE.

I stated yesterday (while under heat stress) that I couldn't explain some of the results that were being observed. I've now looked at the results for myself, and it makes perfect sense, it is all fully explainable.

I'm going to be yelling at some of you in some of my other follow up posts.

Rod

fairestcape:

My goodness..

If all you chaps spent as much time doing good old marketing as you've spent on this pointless exercise, your websites may just earn you a bit more cash. :D

Not pointless at all.. There ARE lessons to be learned... It's going to hurt some peoples feelings.

Stay tuned.

SPH:

I thought that the inactivity here last night was because we were all with RodG, downloading and taking a look at CEON. :wink:

No way. It is still unproven technology.

SPH:

I suppose that now we are all seeing the same google results, as of this post still seven entries. It appears that all of the current testers participating have at least one entry showing at google.

We need all test sites to be in the index, not the the same number of entries. Shop.vcsweb has three entries, but its only one site.

SPH:

Observations:

1. From what I can tell, the only entries that actually have the test product indexed are Feznizzle's two CEON entries. Everyone else is indexed what I'll call indirectly (RodG's "disappointment" links) via some other page.

There is no such thing as a "disappointment links". There are no 'bad link', there are no 'good links'. These are just names that some people choose to describe what they were expecting.

Example: I've just heard about a new product called a 'Wurldbitzer Debibulator'. I've seen this product in a couple of stores, but now I want to find an independent review. I type "Wurldbitzer Debibulator" into Google, and the 1st few links I see are to the product. For my purposes these are 'bad links'.
The 'good links' I'm looking for are those that don't point to the product itself, but rather, those that point elsewhere.

At time of writing this, I see TWELVE google listings for "Wurldbitzer Debibulator"
ONE stratesysgroup.
TWO for justusedm*edicalequipmen
TWO .promdressesforless.us
SIX of those entries are to shop.vcsweb.com.
ONE cscycles.co.uk

Again. These links are neither good nor bad.They are just links. If the aim is to just get our sites into google so people can find them when searching for "Wurldbitzer Debibulator" , the initial conclusion here is that Native ZenCart has the clear lead over the sites using SEO methods.

SPH:

2. Bn17331's entry is his second entry, native w/out an xml sitemap. His first native entry with an UPDATED xml sitemap still is not showing. What does this mean? Hmmm.

It means our initial assumptions that it was the sitemap.xml that enabled Fez's site to me indexed within 8hrs was wrong. It has nothing to do with the sitemap at all, otherwise the other sites also with sitemaps should have expected the same rapid entry. This hasn't happened.
Conclusion#1) This means there is/was another reason for Fez's fast indexing.
Conclusion#2) Site(s) without a sitemap.xml have been indexed just as rapid/slow as the sites with a sitemap.xml, ergo, sitemaps have no positive effect on initial indexing. (hmmm, we origanaly agreed this wasn't the case).

SPH:

3. Everyone except for RodG have multiple entries. Wonder if RodG has another site to participate?

I do, but based on what I'm seeing so far, I sure ain't going to be using any SEO tools on it. :)

SPH:

4. Oh, what happened to lankeeyankee? Thought he was going to enter...and get up there fast. :wink:

I was just about to ask about his site too.
Perhaps he set it up but doesn't want the comparision made public?

Cheers
Rod

SPH:

I'd say yes, to see if Feznizzle's rapidly indexed two CEON results were possibly a fluke.

Computers don't 'fluke' things. This is an unacceptable comment.

SPH:

And as we all note, other factors can be in play, so it could be CEON plus something else that got Feznizzle up so quickly.

Or, has since been discovered, he has Google analytics on his product page, so the instant he set it up and viewed the product it sent a notification directly to the google servers. It had nothing to do with CEON. It had nothing to do with sitemaps.

This is how/why Google has managed to only index the actual product on his site, and not the other pages(s) on the site where the same search terms will automatically appear, such as ZenCarts inbuilt sitemap.

I suspect that these two initial sites of his have been inextricably linked together by his google webmaster tools.

Cheers
Rod

SPH:

So what, then, is left of the test?

Just because we don't have a site that will allow me to demonstrate the problem with redirects, doesn't mean we can't learn a LOT of other things from this experiment.

So far we have learned (unrelated to the planned tests)

1. There is no advantage to using any 'SEO tools' to get a site quickly indexed.
2. There is no advantage to using sitemaps to get quickly indexed.

The next things we may (or may not) learn, is whether the SEO tools have any benefits in regards to rankings... IOW: I haven't been able to show that scenario A) is worse than scenarios' B or C, but, we can still monitor the results to see what we can learn when comparing scenario's B & C.

As a re-fresher so we don't have to go back so far to reference (put here mainly because I have no memory and I'm lazy):
A) http://mysite.com/user_freindly_URL (With Apache redirect/rewrite to http://mysite.com/complex_URL)
B) http://mysite.com/user_freindly_URL (Application generated)
C) http://mysite.com/complex_URL_with_keywords (Application generated)

Take careful note: I'm about to 'shift gear'.. As usual, don't get yourselves tied down with the 'names' of things. Concentrate on the 'function'.

OK: looking at the above 3 scenarios, can we all see that:

The shop.vcsweb.com test site is essentially scenario C (without using the allowed keywords though). It's 100% zencart native (it even uses the original classic green template. The only changes were made to the CSS).
and

if we assume that scenario A) is functionally equivalent to scenario B (via virtue of the end result), then any/all test sites using the redirect/rewrite tools slot nicely into scenario B) (if you do get tied up with 'names', feel free to amend the description to "http://mysite.com/user_freindly_URL_with_keywords".

It is also no longer important to distinguish between server or application generated URL's. From here on in (and keeping in mind we are all using ZenCart as our test sites) we can now clarify things a little by calling them either "Native URL's" (something generated by the store's default) and "Modified URL's". These are those that get modified by the SEO tools.

Does anyone have any problems or issues with this?

Please speak & explain.

Cheers
Rod

bn17311:

ok quickly installed 1.51 and have used easy populate to install the same products as onyourbike.co.uk so can someone let me know the best scenario as im a novice and only joining in for the fun and the fact i used ceon before and just gave it up on my new site

have all products using zen native url and just the test product using ceon or

all products using ceon ?

thanks
Bn

My best response to this is take a look at the current test scenerios being used, and use something a little different.

It is the diiferences that will produce the patterns we seek. :)
Cheers
Rod

SPH:

Feznizzle, I want to thank you and RodG and others who've contributed to this test, thread and offered insights.

And your "generosity" is especially eye-opening. I just did a spot check of some of our main competitors, highest ranking ones, and so far none of them are using anything like ZC's "What's New", etc., sidecolums. Only one, newyorkdress com, had a bottom column banner rotating some dresses like a slider. I always thought that ZC's auto-generated columns showing additional product choices made ZC superior to these other carts.

newyorkdress com and promgirl com both do, however, show "related" dresses on their dress product page. Similar perhaps to what my sister's ex-SEO guy suggested with ZC's crosssell plugin: having additional products but on main column as product. Theory there was specifically to make the content always look new or fresh.

I may rethink things and turn these sidecolumn boxes off.

Stop: You are jumping to (wrong) conclusions.

Before you make any decisions about what to do to help your ZenCart site(s) you should take a look at what our current test results have shown.

Which site currently has the most *prevalent" exposure on google when you do a search for our test product? At time of writing this, I see 12 listings in total. Six of them being the shop.vcsweb.com site. OK, sure not all (perhaps none) of the link point to the actual product, but that's not important. THe persons doing the search may not even be looking for the product but rather, other things relating to it.

So, for maximum google exposure, it is best to leave the side columns ON. If you turn them off you are lessening your exposure. This is not what you want to do.

Comparing your site with a competitors site isn't really going to tell you much at all. It's comparing apples with oranges again.

In contrast, our test sites & product is a bit like comparing two different types of apples.. Those that have just been picked off the tree (native URL's) and those that you find in the supermarket (Same apples, clean and sorted to make it more appealing for those that don't like fresh). 'SEO optimised' :)

Cheers
Rod

Just noticed that Feznizzle's entry at yahoo disappeared. Can anyone else confirm it's gone?

Hope it's not our gibberish description I'm leery of. That's on my main site.

Guys, Don't worry about 'sites disappearing' or being 'penalised' or anything along those lines. You are again, reading far more into this than you need to.

Did anyone learn anything on Day#2? This was when Fez's 1st two sites 1st appeared in Google.

What was the 1st thing we observed? One of the two sites was 'omitted from the search results'.
What was the 2nd thing we learned? By clicking on the supplied link, we could repeat the search without the omissions.

So, what can we deduce from this?
Firstly, Google was obviously (by various means, but unimportant) able to identify these pages (not the site) as being identical (or near to).
Secondly, it didn't ignore/trash or do anything 'nasty' to the secondary URL, it simply didn't show it for that particular search. This is generally a good thing.. who wants lots of links all pointing to the same content, regardless where it is hosted..
Thirdly, it didn't ignore/trash or do anything 'nasty' to the secondary URL, it simply didn't show it for that particular search.

This is about the worse it will get with a single 'duplicate' page.

We may have something to worry about if we have duplicate sites, but that isn't where we are.

Cheers
Rod

Feznizzle:

I think I'm going to bail out here, gentleman. I'll make the decision tomorrow morning. Sorry!

Velly interesting...... The one thinking of bailing out is the one that is promoting a technology that I claim causes more problems than it solves.

Fez, We have all entered the same test item into our Zencart Stores... I'm not seeing it have any detrimental effect in my NATIVE ZEN CART STORE.

If you, and the other SEO supporters are starting to get panicky that this test is detrimental to your site(s) then doesn't that prove my point that these tools are BAD!

Yeah, sure you can argue that this may have nothing to do with SEO (and you'll probably be right), BUT, that doesn't change the fact that we've all done exactly the same thing, we've just entered a product with a fixed name and a fixed description into our store(s).. For testing purposes we made it all 'unique' so results will be easily to spot in Google.. In a REAL WORLD scenario we could easily each source a given product from a particular supplier, under the proviso that we not alter the description of the product in our stores. In other words, although our test product is fictional, the real world entries would cause the exact same duplication/omission behavour as the test product.

The fact that you feel that this fictional product has a negative effect on your site, but not a native zencart site should be fair warning to all Zenners that ZenCart Native is the safe way to go. Why would anyone risk trying to use tools to help google exposure when the person most promoting it is about to back out?

Cheers
Rod