SEO...what does this mean for my business

I hope this does not sound stupid but I need to justify every hour I spend making changes to my ZC store. My current thought is that I may need some form of SEO.

My store sells pretty unique stuff. If you know the product, any google search will bring you to my store in the top 10 hits. To be fully honest, I do not fully understand SEO and I really do not have time to look in depth. However, it is time to move my online store from a niche market to something larger. Do I really need SEO and why?

No link is provided so we'll have to discuss without a look. If you don't want SEs to find this thread, give it to us like mydomainDOTcom or mydomain dot com.

You'll find that many of us on the forum think that SEO stands for Someone Else prOfits.

If your product is too unique (if no one is searching for it), nothing you can do will help. If you're the only one making frabbingdingers and no one knows what one does, no one is going to look.

If, as you say, the knowledgeable Google searches are coming back in the top ten, you're best option is to beef up content. That's what Google rewards the most. In fact, doing most of the things an SEO "expert" would suggest just might hurt the top ten more than help.

You might want to throw some comparisons into your descriptions bringing similar products into play. If the dobbingdinger is similar to the frabbingdinger but does not provide features 1, 2, or 3 that the frabbingdinger does, put it in the description. Then, if someone searches for the dobbingdinger, your site might be listed as well.

Last thing you need to do is mess with Zen Cart's URLs. Google and other SEs have no problem reading the info and changing now would mean you would have to wait months while the SEs try to sort out what you've done. It's no coincidence that the URL rewrite forum threads have thousands of horror stories posted. Don't mess with what works.

Also, don't think that stuffing keywords or fattening descriptions will help. Saying that "Our frabbingdinger is the best frabbingdinger you will find of all the frabbingdingers on the frabbingdinger market today." will drop your rank like a rock.

dbltoe:

You'll find that many of us on the forum think that SEO stands for Someone Else prOfits.

LOL. I love it.

..... For the OP.... dbltoe summed up my thoughts and opinions about this perfectly, and it all comes back to the age old advice that the best form of 'SEO' is content, content, and more content (and don't try to 'trick' the Search engines into giving a higher ranking than the site deserves).

Cheers
RodG

dbltoe:

No link is provided so we'll have to discuss without a look. If you don't want SEs to find this thread, give it to us like mydomainDOTcom or mydomain dot com.

You'll find that many of us on the forum think that SEO stands for Someone Else prOfits.

If your product is too unique (if no one is searching for it), nothing you can do will help. If you're the only one making frabbingdingers and no one knows what one does, no one is going to look.

If, as you say, the knowledgeable Google searches are coming back in the top ten, you're best option is to beef up content. That's what Google rewards the most. In fact, doing most of the things an SEO "expert" would suggest just might hurt the top ten more than help.

You might want to throw some comparisons into your descriptions bringing similar products into play. If the dobbingdinger is similar to the frabbingdinger but does not provide features 1, 2, or 3 that the frabbingdinger does, put it in the description. Then, if someone searches for the dobbingdinger, your site might be listed as well.

Last thing you need to do is mess with Zen Cart's URLs. Google and other SEs have no problem reading the info and changing now would mean you would have to wait months while the SEs try to sort out what you've done. It's no coincidence that the URL rewrite forum threads have thousands of horror stories posted. Don't mess with what works.

Also, don't think that stuffing keywords or fattening descriptions will help. Saying that "Our frabbingdinger is the best frabbingdinger you will find of all the frabbingdingers on the frabbingdinger market today." will drop your rank like a rock.

Thank you so much! This is exactly what I thought and messing with URLs could cause issues. There are some things I sell that I may not get top ten results for. Those I mentioned are related to some specialized eletronic kits I sell. The place where I could rank higher is for my lamp cord and plugs.

I did get some feedback from an SEO "expert" and they wanted all kinds of money to "help me". Hence that is why I have not done anything with it to date.

https://www.radiant-holidays.com

Some of the things that do need some work....
Total Validitor finds:

Page checked:	http://www.radiant-holidays.com/
Total errors found:	12 Parsing, 55 HTML, 10 Section 508, 1 Link, 14 Spell Check
Total warnings found:	36 Parsing, 45 Section 508, 32 Link
(X)HTML used for this page:	XHTML 1.0 Transitional

Some of the spell check errors are due to a brand name but there are some others that are not.

Less errors = easier read by the SE.

does that give any reports on where the errors might be?

Many of your errors result from using the ampersand (&) instead of 'and' without escaping it by using this format: &

stevesh:

Many of your errors result from using the ampersand (&) instead of 'and' without escaping it by using this format: &

That is easy enough to fix! Thanks!

Many define main page errors. Best to watch the html while you edit. H tags cannot go in p tags.

dbltoe:

Last thing you need to do is mess with Zen Cart's URLs. Google and other SEs have no problem reading the info and changing now would mean you would have to wait months while the SEs try to sort out what you've done. It's no coincidence that the URL rewrite forum threads have thousands of horror stories posted. Don't mess with what works.
Horror stories?? Really?? So by "horror stories" do you mean folks who post installation questions?? Usually MISTAKES made in the installation (like the usual RTFM kinds of mistakes posted all the time on this forum..) How is that any diferent than the "horror" stories people post on any other module support thread??? For the record Ultimate SEO and Ceon URI support threads are not filled with "thousands of horror stories".. IJS...

DivaVocals:

Horror stories?? Really?? So by "horror stories" do you mean folks who post installation questions?? Usually MISTAKES made in the installation (like the usual RTFM kinds of mistakes posted all the time on this forum..) How is that any diferent than the "horror" stories people post on any other module support thread??? For the record Ultimate SEO and Ceon URI support threads are not filled with "thousands of horror stories".. IJS...One of my greatest regrets is that the world of Zen Cart lost Conor (ceon). Even riddled with cancer, his brain could comprehend and solve some of the most complicated of problems. I had the pleasure of e-mail conversations with him on occasion. Brilliant.
Yet, even Conor would tell you that not everything he created needed to be used. He specifically took a niche that no one was attacking and killed it like the dragon-slayer he was. His Credit Card module allowed many to process credit without having to get an extra merchant account. However, he was the first to tell the folks that it did not meet many security requirements.
He also realized that not everyone would even need Advanced Shipper. Yet he built it not only as a challenge to himself but to help those in the community who were shipping items that needed extra special shipping. One of our sites simply could not function without it.
He agreed with me that, although the URI rewrites would work, the SEs did not need them to do their job. I envied his abilities and applauded him on the quality of the programming that went into his re-writer. I'm happy to say that I see some out there who appear to be filling the void his untimely death left behind.
SO.... Horror Stories? ABSOLUTELY.
Let's look at what we are talking about from this angle.
First of all, the term SEO does not have anything to do with people. It is Search Engine Optimization, period. Re-writers have no other purpose than to make a URL/I look pretty to a human. A human does NOT rank initiate a site's ranking and a Search Engine (SE) does NOT use the URL/I in presenting a site as a result of a browser search. I won't go into all the links or tests that have been done as they are elsewhere in the Business section of the forum but, Google actually likes the link that ZC creates for it. Don't know of a single SE that doesn't. So, while a person may like the result of a re-writer, it's just not necessary for the SE to do its job. How can we say we are doing SEO when we are not providing something that is needed by or pleases the SEs? A re-writer certainly does not enhance or create content. And, in the SE world, content is king.
Which leads us to the horror stories.
You may not look upon the "RTFM" mistakes as a horror story but, for the user with the broken site, it is often utter horror or despair. And, since most do not follow the advice to back up or install the mod on a test site first, the horror includes the possibility of not recovering from a botched load. Not only that, the modified site is being immediately looked at by the SEs daily. When the SE finds a change, the "real" fun (or horror) begins. If the SE finds the site errors have increased, rank will go down. Rank will continue to drop until the re-write is working correctly or it's complete removal is accomplished. Although generating a sitemap can be helpful, most will not even consider such during the WTH panic. You wind up with drops in rank because of the botched install and during the recovery. Worse, it may take months for the SEs to catch up when all the errors are corrected. A site could be looking at a loss of rank for a year or more. That IS a horror story.
A large portion of those who look at a post on this forum know nothing of SEs, PHP, Apache, MySql, etc. Unfortunately, many do not come here until the panic has set in. What you or I may classify as a mistake can have a shop owner breathing in a paper bag.
Ceon's URI Mapping v4.x has 1,632 posts but nearly 118,000 views.
Image Handler 2 had 7,094 replies with over 1.5 MILLION views. Many of those were also a horror story from the poster's point of view. Just because they were confused with the instructions (or didn't read them at all) doesn't mean they weren't in a panic about their site.
There is, however, a VERY BIG difference in the two. (you mentioned how is this different from any other mod support)
While there is really nothing to gain in re-writing a link (and a lot to lose), controlling the size of images on a website WILL result in MANY helpful SEO improvements. Page load speed alone is a tremendous part of rank determination.
Therefore, we always recommend the installation of IH to our customers while never suggesting a re-write. IH IS a "risk worth taking" for any shop owner regardless of their ability to "get it right" the first time.
The only panic a shop owner should ever have is how to get all the orders out on time.

dbltoe:

One of my greatest regrets is that the world of Zen Cart lost Conor (ceon). Even riddled with cancer, his brain could comprehend and solve some of the most complicated of problems. I had the pleasure of e-mail conversations with him on occasion. Brilliant.
Yet, even Conor would tell you that not everything he created needed to be used. He specifically took a niche that no one was attacking and killed it like the dragon-slayer he was. His Credit Card module allowed many to process credit without having to get an extra merchant account. However, he was the first to tell the folks that it did not meet many security requirements.
He also realized that not everyone would even need Advanced Shipper. Yet he built it not only as a challenge to himself but to help those in the community who were shipping items that needed extra special shipping. One of our sites simply could not function without it.
He agreed with me that, although the URI rewrites would work, the SEs did not need them to do their job. I envied his abilities and applauded him on the quality of the programming that went into his re-writer. I'm happy to say that I see some out there who appear to be filling the void his untimely death left behind.
SO.... Horror Stories? ABSOLUTELY.
Let's look at what we are talking about from this angle.
First of all, the term SEO does not have anything to do with people. It is Search Engine Optimization, period. Re-writers have no other purpose than to make a URL/I look pretty to a human. A human does NOT rank initiate a site's ranking and a Search Engine (SE) does NOT use the URL/I in presenting a site as a result of a browser search. I won't go into all the links or tests that have been done as they are elsewhere in the Business section of the forum but, Google actually likes the link that ZC creates for it. Don't know of a single SE that doesn't. So, while a person may like the result of a re-writer, it's just not necessary for the SE to do its job. How can we say we are doing SEO when we are not providing something that is needed by or pleases the SEs? A re-writer certainly does not enhance or create content. And, in the SE world, content is king.
Which leads us to the horror stories.
You may not look upon the "RTFM" mistakes as a horror story but, for the user with the broken site, it is often utter horror or despair. And, since most do not follow the advice to back up or install the mod on a test site first, the horror includes the possibility of not recovering from a botched load. Not only that, the modified site is being immediately looked at by the SEs daily. When the SE finds a change, the "real" fun (or horror) begins. If the SE finds the site errors have increased, rank will go down. Rank will continue to drop until the re-write is working correctly or it's complete removal is accomplished. Although generating a sitemap can be helpful, most will not even consider such during the WTH panic. You wind up with drops in rank because of the botched install and during the recovery. Worse, it may take months for the SEs to catch up when all the errors are corrected. A site could be looking at a loss of rank for a year or more. That IS a horror story.
A large portion of those who look at a post on this forum know nothing of SEs, PHP, Apache, MySql, etc. Unfortunately, many do not come here until the panic has set in. What you or I may classify as a mistake can have a shop owner breathing in a paper bag.
Ceon's URI Mapping v4.x has 1,632 posts but nearly 118,000 views.
Image Handler 2 had 7,094 replies with over 1.5 MILLION views. Many of those were also a horror story from the poster's point of view. Just because they were confused with the instructions (or didn't read them at all) doesn't mean they weren't in a panic about their site.
There is, however, a VERY BIG difference in the two. (you mentioned how is this different from any other mod support)
While there is really nothing to gain in re-writing a link (and a lot to lose), controlling the size of images on a website WILL result in MANY helpful SEO improvements. Page load speed alone is a tremendous part of rank determination.
Therefore, we always recommend the installation of IH to our customers while never suggesting a re-write. IH IS a "risk worth taking" for any shop owner regardless of their ability to "get it right" the first time.
The only panic a shop owner should ever have is how to get all the orders out on time.

It's true that early versions of Zen Cart URL re-writers were poorly written and even more poorly supported by their original authors.. You appear to assume that the current author of Ultimate SEO (lhungil) and Ceon URI (Conor Kerr) are claiming some "magic" SEO benefit of these modules.. First let's be clear.. the author's of both Ultimate SEO (lhungil) and Ceon URI (Conor Kerr) have made NO SEO CLAIMS in regards to these modules. If you look at the Ultimate SEO description in the readme -- no such SEO claims are made.. (Ultimate URLs adds the ability for ​Zen Cart to generate alternative more "human friendly" URLs.) Conor and lhungil have BOTH been CRYSTAL CLEAR that they don't consider these modules an SEO strategy or solution. Now ANECDOTALLY the USERS of these modules have made the SEO claims.. Now while both authors acknowledged these claims, they never made these claims themselves..

There are plenty of BUSINESS REASONS to use a URL re-writer module.. None of which have ANYTHING to do with an SEO strategy.

The most common reason that folks end up at ANY MODULE's support thread is because they didn't RTFM.. The so-called horror stories you attribute to the re-writer modules are no WORSE than any other module whose support thread is over 10 pages or so.. Post stats don't support your viewpoint.. I participate in the Ceon URI support thread, and NO ONE is reporting having DAYS of lost time because they configured Ceon URI incorrectly.. Same is true in the Ultimate SEO thread.. And all the broken site horror stories you site can occur from ANY botched module install for all the reasons you state.. (take for example the CC/JS Loader)

All that said while you are of the OPINION that URL re-writers somehow break sites more often than other modules, your opinion just isn't supported by measurable facts..

<nuffsaid> Not assuming anything at all. AND... I'd like to point out that NOTHING I've said was to denigrate Conor or ihungil (whom I consider one of those filling Conor's shoes). Don't even go there.> All that said while you are of the OPINION that URL re-writers somehow break sites more often than other modules, your opinion just isn't supported by measurable facts.I never pointed a finger at the mods. I said they were not needed in SEO and that misguided folks were injecting problems into their sites by improperly trying to install/use them.> **DivaVocals:** > > There are plenty of BUSINESS REASONS to use a URL re-writer module.. None of which have ANYTHING to do with an SEO strategy. And... Since the OP was was asking about SEO, you make my point that (while there *might* be a business reason) they should not be part of an SEO strategy.

Hopefully, this won't get us off on a discussion of whether or not there's a business reason.:P
</nuffsaid>

dbltoe:

Not assuming anything at all.
AND... I'd like to point out that NOTHING I've said was to denigrate Conor or ihungil (whom I consider one of those filling Conor's shoes). Don't even go there.I never pointed a finger at the mods.Uh huh.. I didn't imply that you said ANYTHING to denigrate ANYONE (didn't even imply/hint at this). I brought up these two authors in particular to simply point out that the QUALITY of the author's work is a factor in installation success and/or failure of a module.. lhungil and Conor were/are QUALITY module writers.. In the case of URL re-writers, the quality of the code has come a long way from the URL re-writers that were initially offered up as solutions round here. Ultimate SEO is a COMPLETE re-write of the original release of this module which was poorly written/supported. Simple SEO was also a PITA module whose author eventually abandoned the support and further dev of this module.

dbltoe:

I said they were not needed in SEO and that misguided folks were injecting problems into their sites by improperly trying to install/use them.
And... Since the OP was was asking about SEO, you make my point that (while there might be a business reason) they should not be part of an SEO strategy.Saying that URL re-writers are NOT a part of an SEO strategy is one thing.. You get no disagreement with me on this point.. You'd get no disagreement on the part of the current authors/maintainers of these class of modules on this point.. If installed/configured properly, they also don't HURT a site as is often implied by those who do not care for these modules..

However, misguided folks inject problems into their sites all the time 'round here with more than just URL re-writer modules.. Making the assertion that breaking ones site happens MORE OFTEN with URL re-writer modules than other modules/modifications is simply just not supported by anything other than conjecture and opinion.. THAT was my point..

Time to lighten up with a bit of Geek Humor

How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
None. It's a hardware problem.

In order to understand recursion you must first understand recursion.

Why did the geek add body { padding-top: 1000px; } to his Facebook profile?
He wanted to keep a low profile.

There are only two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors.

An SEO expert walks into a bar, bars, pub, tavern, public house, Irish pub, drinks, beer, alcohol

---

Lawyer, physician, and a computer scientist are on a road trip. As they are coming down a mountain, the brakes fail. Frantically, mile after mile, they descend unchecked. Finally they get to the bottom and roll to a stop.

The physician jumps out and says, "Let's get this to a mechanic so he can diagnose it and fix the problem."

The lawyer says, "Let's get this to a mechanic so he can figure out what's wrong and we can decide whom to sue."

The computer scientist says, "Let's take it back up to the top and see if it does it again."

Cheers
RodG

<ref: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-geekiest-tech-jokes-on-the-internet/ >

RodG:

Time to lighten up with a bit of Geek Humor

How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
None. It's a hardware problem.

In order to understand recursion you must first understand recursion.

Why did the geek add body { padding-top: 1000px; } to his Facebook profile?
He wanted to keep a low profile.

There are only two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors.

An SEO expert walks into a bar, bars, pub, tavern, public house, Irish pub, drinks, beer, alcohol

---

Lawyer, physician, and a computer scientist are on a road trip. As they are coming down a mountain, the brakes fail. Frantically, mile after mile, they descend unchecked. Finally they get to the bottom and roll to a stop.

The physician jumps out and says, "Let's get this to a mechanic so he can diagnose it and fix the problem."

The lawyer says, "Let's get this to a mechanic so he can figure out what's wrong and we can decide whom to sue."

The computer scientist says, "Let's take it back up to the top and see if it does it again."

Cheers
RodG

<ref: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-geekiest-tech-jokes-on-the-internet/ >

:laugh: Nice!!!!

dbltoe:

Many define main page errors. Best to watch the html while you edit. H tags cannot go in p tags.

See? That is what happens you get folks like me trying to write in HTML! :shocking: I have corrected these errors on Main Page as well as a few lonely </p> that were there as well.

RodG:

Time to lighten up with a bit of Geek Humor

How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
None. It's a hardware problem.

In order to understand recursion you must first understand recursion.

Why did the geek add body { padding-top: 1000px; } to his Facebook profile?
He wanted to keep a low profile.

There are only two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors.

An SEO expert walks into a bar, bars, pub, tavern, public house, Irish pub, drinks, beer, alcohol

---

Lawyer, physician, and a computer scientist are on a road trip. As they are coming down a mountain, the brakes fail. Frantically, mile after mile, they descend unchecked. Finally they get to the bottom and roll to a stop.

The physician jumps out and says, "Let's get this to a mechanic so he can diagnose it and fix the problem."

The lawyer says, "Let's get this to a mechanic so he can figure out what's wrong and we can decide whom to sue."

The computer scientist says, "Let's take it back up to the top and see if it does it again."

Cheers
RodG

<ref: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-geekiest-tech-jokes-on-the-internet/ >

I love it! :)

:D
The better: An SEO expert walks into a bar, bars, pub, tavern, public house, Irish pub, drinks, beer, alcohol

edwardgledson:

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SEO is a possibly once-viable marketing outlet that can (and usually does) result in spam from desperate 'SEO' practitioners clogging up forum threads where SEO is mentioned. Ignore it.