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I'll explain what and why our site devs did in detail in a minute. but, I want to get to the question rapidly:
see our site: Welcome to Atlas International -
or specifically a product showcasing my issue:
Lightweight Cork
We have our 3DCart site set up so that our end products (something you can add to a cart) actually exist at a category template (the link above, for example)...NOT at the product template.
The actual products or individual SKUs do exist. But, they are not navigable. In fact, clicking on a product link anywhere on the site should simply re-direct back to this "final category" (if you find an example of it not, it is in error)
It works exactly as desired/designed from a user standpoint. However, it is throwing google for a loop (literally).
So, my question is how best to prevent google from entering the loop, which has the potential to cause harm to SERPs/ranking.
I have a few thoughts in mind, i'm just not a dedicated SEO type, and not sure if this is the best/optimal resolution:
1. For the self-redirecting links on the final category pages, i'm thinking i'd just add rel="nofollow". This should prevent google from entering the loop as it crawls down the nested category hierarchy.
2. because the individual SKUs are directly accessible, i should modify our robots.txt to exclude every SKU in the store.
3. manually create/upload/submit to google a custom sitemap.xml file that excludes the final product links.
Question 1: Will the above work to achieve proper search engine crawling and results?
Question 2: Is there a better (more effective or quicker) alternative?
Now, if you've gotten this far and are asking why did we break 3DCart? Here's the brief explanation:
Our site has the requirement of supporting sales at two pricing structures. That is: wholesale distributors and retail sales. As we began populating the site with product as designed off the shelf, parent products began filling the product level (example: White Athletic Shoe). Children of these products began populating the options of the product (example: Size 6, Size 7, Size 8, etc.).
Almost immediately the issue arose that the site software did NOT support dual pricing at the child/option level. That is, we could have a wholesale and retail price for the product (the shoe, in the example), but the pricing for the options did NOT support the dual pricing. So, perhaps we could set a retail price of $19.99 and a $12.48 price for the wholesale user. But, adding a surcharge to sizes > 12 were fixed. We could not add a wholesale markup different from a retail markup.
That's just one example of a break. There are several reasons the built-in parent/child scheme breaks down. After consulting with 3DCart support, we were advised that our current setup is as good as can be achieved. That is to use a category as the parent (with no pricing associated), and assign a total price for the children of the parent---each of which honors the customer pricing schedule AND honors both wholesale and retail markups, since each 'child' is really a standalone product.
see our site: Welcome to Atlas International -
or specifically a product showcasing my issue:
Lightweight Cork
We have our 3DCart site set up so that our end products (something you can add to a cart) actually exist at a category template (the link above, for example)...NOT at the product template.
The actual products or individual SKUs do exist. But, they are not navigable. In fact, clicking on a product link anywhere on the site should simply re-direct back to this "final category" (if you find an example of it not, it is in error)
It works exactly as desired/designed from a user standpoint. However, it is throwing google for a loop (literally).
So, my question is how best to prevent google from entering the loop, which has the potential to cause harm to SERPs/ranking.
I have a few thoughts in mind, i'm just not a dedicated SEO type, and not sure if this is the best/optimal resolution:
1. For the self-redirecting links on the final category pages, i'm thinking i'd just add rel="nofollow". This should prevent google from entering the loop as it crawls down the nested category hierarchy.
2. because the individual SKUs are directly accessible, i should modify our robots.txt to exclude every SKU in the store.
3. manually create/upload/submit to google a custom sitemap.xml file that excludes the final product links.
Question 1: Will the above work to achieve proper search engine crawling and results?
Question 2: Is there a better (more effective or quicker) alternative?
Now, if you've gotten this far and are asking why did we break 3DCart? Here's the brief explanation:
Our site has the requirement of supporting sales at two pricing structures. That is: wholesale distributors and retail sales. As we began populating the site with product as designed off the shelf, parent products began filling the product level (example: White Athletic Shoe). Children of these products began populating the options of the product (example: Size 6, Size 7, Size 8, etc.).
Almost immediately the issue arose that the site software did NOT support dual pricing at the child/option level. That is, we could have a wholesale and retail price for the product (the shoe, in the example), but the pricing for the options did NOT support the dual pricing. So, perhaps we could set a retail price of $19.99 and a $12.48 price for the wholesale user. But, adding a surcharge to sizes > 12 were fixed. We could not add a wholesale markup different from a retail markup.
That's just one example of a break. There are several reasons the built-in parent/child scheme breaks down. After consulting with 3DCart support, we were advised that our current setup is as good as can be achieved. That is to use a category as the parent (with no pricing associated), and assign a total price for the children of the parent---each of which honors the customer pricing schedule AND honors both wholesale and retail markups, since each 'child' is really a standalone product.
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