Hi there,

We will develop an ecommerce webiste and are searching for shopping cart solutions. Everyone seems to recommend either MIVA 5 or osCommerce. Are they SEO-friendly? Does anyone have another suggestion for a SEO friendly shopping cart?

Many thanks!

I have used osCommerce a few times before and I love the community. It's not all that SEO friendly "out of the box", but there are quite a few contributions out there that will make it much better.

I have links to a few of the good SEO contribs for osCommerce here,
http://oscommerce-ssl.com/en/Search...timization.html

But it's been a while since I worked with it so there are probably better ones out there now.

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Thanks. I heard good reviews on X-Cart as far as SEO goes. Do you know anything about this product?

I've heard of X-Cart, but don't really know anything about it.

I think the benefit of osCommerce is that it has the largest community, so there is probably a contribution already built that will do just about anything you want your site to do. That's why I always recommend it.

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Any cart is generally going to require fairly extensive modifications to work optimally. OSC is going to be a far better bet for you (MIVA sucks in every way possible) but plan on putting a lot of work into it. You'll find most of the answers you need @ their forum. If you ask around, you'll probably find some answers here too.

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I have used both and when it comes to SEO and being able to optimize, Miva is defintely better than OS Commerce.

The version I used of Miva was Miva 5, I have heard that the older interface was much more difficult to deal with. With Miva, you can create your own template (just like you would design any site) and then you break it down into a header, footer template, etc. (this is very very easy to do). This way you can control H1 tags, CSS calls, tables, etc. However, for anything other than out of the box, you will need to pay for third party modules (prices range from (20-100+), but those companies usually offer support for them in case you run into any troubles.

With OS Commerce, you are at the cores mercy. Sure you can get contributions that will write a SEF url, but you will most likely find that you will have to hack OS Commerce to death to get any decent SEO efforts going and to clean the code up. Plus, it will take a lo of patience and sweat if you want to get away from that OS Commerce "3 column wireframe" look. If you need to go opensource b/c of $$, then at least go with ZenCart (a version of OsCommerce) it is a lot easier to deal with in the SEO battle.

Hope this helps.
Morty

PS. Have you considered looking for a web host that offers both, so that you can tinker around with both of them?

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That is incorrect. I have installed no special mods for SEO and it works just fine.


If you have an IQ above 70, you can do it with no problem.

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I think I need to clarify my post, my post was based on the amount of time and effort each one takes,


Are you really saying that out of the box OsCommerce is properly optimized and that the code output is clean? And that no other effort needs to be made? If so, I believe that this misleadis the OP in regards to expectations for SEO and OsCommerce. Out of the box it can easily be made "SEF" friendly but not what I would consider optimized. My comments were geared towards the effort to get clean, optimized code.

You need to add several contributions and make customizations in order to get the code optimized. This takes a lot of time. Why would you want to take all that time when there are other solutions available? (None of them are perfect but there are better solutions).


I didn't say it couldn't be done or that you needed to be a genius to do it, I simply stated that it will take patience and sweat, i.e. a lot of work. Just like you said in your previous post.


It is clear that you don't like Miva (not sure if you are referring to older versions or Miva5) and I am sure you have good reason. Miva5 is definitely not perfect, but what it really comes down to is one's personal preference.

From my experience Miva5 is MUCH easier to optimize and implement than OSCommerce. You can easily take any source ordered & optimized template and place it into Miva5's template system and copy and paste the variables in. It will take at least twice as much effort (if not more) to do the same with OSCommerce if you want an optimized and unique looking site. This is important from an SEO point of view and the sites "look and feel" (which is an important conversion rate factor).

Plus, SEO aside, when creating an ecommerce site, you will want a solution that allows you to easily move (for example, the buy button) and add elements so that you can constantly test and refine what works best to increase your conversion rate. From my experience, it was much easier to make these changes in Miva5, with OSCommerce making these types of changes took considerably more effort.

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Hey guys, thanks for the input. I guess I'll try both solutions. Do you know if there is a free trial of Miva Merchant 5?

I don't know if there is a free trial for Miva5 ( I doubt it).
What you can do is find a host that offers both and that offers a 30 day free trial. This way you can play around with both of them, and test out the hosting service as well. I am not sure if I am allowed to mention hosts, so just PM me and I will give you a couple. I also have an address for online Miva5 tutorial videos that make things very easy to follow.

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