More Info Page Names

[Jay Guliano]

I am negotiating with Gagglebyte to write a program that will create
uploads for several comparison shopping sites like Froogle. They are asking
me why the More Info pages have names like
http://www.ontimemall.com/product53.html . Apparently it is a problem with
what they propose to do. Since Shop Site creates these detail pages it also
creates the names for them even though we have titles for those same pages
that match the product description. Is there a way to set the back office so
detail pages use the description or page name as the html page name?

--
Jay Guliano
jay@ontimemall.com
www.ontimemall.com

[jim]

You can set the file name for the moreinfo pages when the product is
created on the Add a Product screen or later on the Edit Product Info
screen. The field is in the section "More Info Pages" and labeled "More
Info Page File Name: optional" If no filename is specified then
ShopSite uses the product record number as in your case product53 with a
..html extension.

Note that if your store has been active for a while these pages will
probably have been indexed so changing the name could affect your search
engine standings. If the store is fairly new it probably won't make
much difference. Also changing the name after the page has been created
with the productxx.html name will result in that page remaining on the
server and the new page with the name you specified being created. So
you would have 2 similar pages but the productxx.html would be orphened
and you would need to remove it manually through ftp or telnet to the
server. If the original page remains it may contain out of date
information when you update your product information.

Jim

Jay Guliano wrote:

I am negotiating with Gagglebyte to write a program that will create
uploads for several comparison shopping sites like Froogle. They are asking
me why the More Info pages have names like
http://www.ontimemall.com/product53.html . Apparently it is a problem with
what they propose to do. Since Shop Site creates these detail pages it also
creates the names for them even though we have titles for those same pages
that match the product description. Is there a way to set the back office so
detail pages use the description or page name as the html page name?

[Jay Guliano]

The site has been active for years and we do not want to lower our indexing
on the search engines. Do you know if the larger search engines look at file
names when indexing them. If so perhaps a file name that matches the page
TITLE would produce better rankings. I also took a look in the back office
of Shop Site and see no global way to make the file name the same as the
page title name. Am I missing something? We use Product Manager to edit and
manage our product and page data and love it. Unfortunately we so no bin for
file name in that system as well.


--
Jay Guliano
jay@ontimemall.com
www.ontimemall.com


"jim" <jstavast@xmission.com> wrote in message
news:dljird$b6o$1@eval.shopsite.com...

You can set the file name for the moreinfo pages when the product is
created on the Add a Product screen or later on the Edit Product Info
screen. The field is in the section "More Info Pages" and labeled "More
Info Page File Name: optional" If no filename is specified then ShopSite
uses the product record number as in your case product53 with a .html
extension.

Note that if your store has been active for a while these pages will
probably have been indexed so changing the name could affect your search
engine standings. If the store is fairly new it probably won't make much
difference. Also changing the name after the page has been created with
the productxx.html name will result in that page remaining on the server
and the new page with the name you specified being created. So you would
have 2 similar pages but the productxx.html would be orphened and you
would need to remove it manually through ftp or telnet to the server. If
the original page remains it may contain out of date information when you
update your product information.

Jim

Jay Guliano wrote:
I am negotiating with Gagglebyte to write a program that will create
uploads for several comparison shopping sites like Froogle. They are
asking me why the More Info pages have names like
http://www.ontimemall.com/product53.html . Apparently it is a problem
with what they propose to do. Since Shop Site creates these detail pages
it also creates the names for them even though we have titles for those
same pages that match the product description. Is there a way to set the
back office so detail pages use the description or page name as the html
page name?

[jim]

Jay,
I don't know how search engines rank things but I really doubt that
having a page file name that matches the title would produce better
rankings. After all, a title might be a number of words in length and I
wouldn't expect that a filename that long would be manageable or
practical. If you want to change to using filenames that match the
title you could do that in ShopSite through a upload file that put the
text you are using for the title into the filename slot also. If you
have access to the output directory of your server you could create
symlinks for the productxx.html to the new filename.html. It would
probably be a lot of work but would maintain the page rankings that are
already indexed by search engines.

As you move forward with new products you may want to consider using the
moreinfo filename field instead of just letting ShopSite generate the name.

Jim

Jay Guliano wrote:

The site has been active for years and we do not want to lower our indexing
on the search engines. Do you know if the larger search engines look at file
names when indexing them. If so perhaps a file name that matches the page
TITLE would produce better rankings. I also took a look in the back office
of Shop Site and see no global way to make the file name the same as the
page title name. Am I missing something? We use Product Manager to edit and
manage our product and page data and love it. Unfortunately we so no bin for
file name in that system as well.

[Brandon Eley]

Search engines do look at page names, including the domain name, when
determining rank. No one knows exactly how much weight a search engine
gives to the page name, but it's minimal.

However, it's also good for usability and accessibility to have a
descriptive page name. One thing you could do is use mod_rewrite or a
redirect to change over all the pages. It would be a little time
consuming at first, but would be worth it in the long run.


Brandon Eley
*********************
EleyTech Web Development
207 N. Lewis Street, Suite E
LaGrange, Georgia 30240
*********************
brandon@eleytech.com
www.eleytech.com
Phone: (706) 883-7078
Mobile: (706) 668-0174
Toll-Free: 1-800-682-2550

jim wrote:

Jay,
I don't know how search engines rank things but I really doubt that
having a page file name that matches the title would produce better
rankings. After all, a title might be a number of words in length and I
wouldn't expect that a filename that long would be manageable or
practical. If you want to change to using filenames that match the
title you could do that in ShopSite through a upload file that put the
text you are using for the title into the filename slot also. If you
have access to the output directory of your server you could create
symlinks for the productxx.html to the new filename.html. It would
probably be a lot of work but would maintain the page rankings that are
already indexed by search engines.

As you move forward with new products you may want to consider using the
moreinfo filename field instead of just letting ShopSite generate the name.

Jim

Jay Guliano wrote:

The site has been active for years and we do not want to lower our
indexing
on the search engines. Do you know if the larger search engines look
at file
names when indexing them. If so perhaps a file name that matches the page
TITLE would produce better rankings. I also took a look in the back
office of Shop Site and see no global way to make the file name the
same as the page title name. Am I missing something? We use Product
Manager to edit and manage our product and page data and love it.
Unfortunately we so no bin for file name in that system as well.