websbymegan Posted February 8, 2007 Posted February 8, 2007 Hello - I am totally new to osCommerce. I took over a website and osCommerce was installed. I snagged what files I could before the hosting terminated (her webmaster disappeared). So I had to start over. In looking at the old code for this website, the products page was NOT an osCommerce page. It was a regular HTML page. If you wanted to order something, you click an "Order Now" link, which has a hyperlink like this: <a href="/store/product_info.php?products_id=37">Order now!</a> This tied in to the osCommerce cart. Can anyone tell me if they link to a cart this way?? Is this legal, etc? I have installed a fresh copy of osCommerce on new hosting. No where can I find out if I can do this same type of link on the new website. I have the site designed as a normal html site and would like to keep it as is; not use osCommerce for the web page itself, but just for the "order now" and checkout process. She's selling less than a dozen items. Hates PayPal, wants osCommerce back. I'm pretty frustrated. Actually trying to hire someone to help me with this osCommerce setup but can't seem to find anyone. (?) Here's the site I did (currently using PayPal for the cart). It's just this one page that I would like to link to an osCommerce cart for checkout: Help with this page? Thank you for any help. I'm surprised how hard this cart is to figure out! (I posted this question on Installation/Config, too - wasn't sure where I should put it). Megan http://www.websbymegan.com
Velveeta Posted February 8, 2007 Posted February 8, 2007 Hello - I am totally new to osCommerce. I took over a website and osCommerce was installed. I snagged what files I could before the hosting terminated (her webmaster disappeared). So I had to start over. In looking at the old code for this website, the products page was NOT an osCommerce page. It was a regular HTML page. If you wanted to order something, you click an "Order Now" link, which has a hyperlink like this: <a href="/store/product_info.php?products_id=37">Order now!</a> This tied in to the osCommerce cart. Can anyone tell me if they link to a cart this way?? Is this legal, etc? I have installed a fresh copy of osCommerce on new hosting. No where can I find out if I can do this same type of link on the new website. I have the site designed as a normal html site and would like to keep it as is; not use osCommerce for the web page itself, but just for the "order now" and checkout process. She's selling less than a dozen items. Hates PayPal, wants osCommerce back. I'm pretty frustrated. Actually trying to hire someone to help me with this osCommerce setup but can't seem to find anyone. (?) Here's the site I did (currently using PayPal for the cart). It's just this one page that I would like to link to an osCommerce cart for checkout: Help with this page? Thank you for any help. I'm surprised how hard this cart is to figure out! (I posted this question on Installation/Config, too - wasn't sure where I should put it). Megan http://www.websbymegan.com Yes, it should be possible to do that, and no, it's not illegal to do that, but you are going to run into a problem, which is that while oscommerce is a shopping cart package, it is not a payment processor... If you use oscommerce to replace some kind of paypal cart package or something, you're still going to need to use paypal to checkout and pay through, unless you've got some other payment processor, like authorize.net, or google checkout, or something like that... All oscommerce will do is to keep the items in the customer's cart and present them with a checkout process, but when it comes time to confirm and pay, the default paypal module installed in oscommerce will ship them off to paypal's site to complete payment... Richard. Richard Lindsey
Guest Posted February 8, 2007 Posted February 8, 2007 Hello - I am totally new to osCommerce. I took over a website and osCommerce was installed. I snagged what files I could before the hosting terminated (her webmaster disappeared). So I had to start over. In looking at the old code for this website, the products page was NOT an osCommerce page. It was a regular HTML page. If you wanted to order something, you click an "Order Now" link, which has a hyperlink like this: <a href="/store/product_info.php?products_id=37">Order now!</a> Absolutely - just link like you have. I have a prodcut page in static url and a corresponding oscommerce page for every product. I link to the add to basket link wihin osc like this : /shop/product_info.php?cPath=34&products_id=302 hth - if you get stuck with anything, just post here - it's a good group. Corrie
websbymegan Posted February 8, 2007 Author Posted February 8, 2007 Yes, it should be possible to do that, and no, it's not illegal to do that, but you are going to run into a problem, which is that while oscommerce is a shopping cart package, it is not a payment processor... If you use oscommerce to replace some kind of paypal cart package or something, you're still going to need to use paypal to checkout and pay through, unless you've got some other payment processor, like authorize.net, or google checkout, or something like that... All oscommerce will do is to keep the items in the customer's cart and present them with a checkout process, but when it comes time to confirm and pay, the default paypal module installed in oscommerce will ship them off to paypal's site to complete payment... Richard. I'm so happy someone is out there! I've been struggling for weeks trying to figure this out. Thanks, Richard, for replying. OK, so it is possible. Good. My client has authorize.net so that would handle the payment processing - I assume somewhere in the cart setup I would tie in. So my next question is, HOW do I find out how to do what I asked. Meaning, if I add my products via the Admin area on the cart, how do I then find out what the href link would be to the product to manually link to it?? Is there documentation somewhere on this technique? Somehow I have to know what the product number is, etc. Can you advise? I'm happy to compensate you for your time - I *really* need some help here. You can email me direct from my website's contact page if you could help. I'm a quick learner, just need a head start here. Oh, I noticed my link to the web page didn't work. Here's the page for reference: Chocolate website THANK YOU!! Megan http://www.websbymegan.com
websbymegan Posted February 8, 2007 Author Posted February 8, 2007 Absolutely - just link like you have. I have a prodcut page in static url and a corresponding oscommerce page for every product. I link to the add to basket link wihin osc like this : /shop/product_info.php?cPath=34&products_id=302 hth - if you get stuck with anything, just post here - it's a good group. Corrie Thanks, Corrie! You'll see above I just replied to Richard. So you both say I can do this. Problem is I don't know exactly how to figure out what that link should be?? If I add a new product to the cart, where do I find out how to code the direct link to it, like you described above? say this part, how did you know this code? "Path=34&products_id=302" And what did you mean by a corresponding oscommerce page for EVERY product? Thanks so much.
Guest Posted February 8, 2007 Posted February 8, 2007 Thanks, Corrie! You'll see above I just replied to Richard. So you both say I can do this. Problem is I don't know exactly how to figure out what that link should be?? If I add a new product to the cart, where do I find out how to code the direct link to it, like you described above? say this part, how did you know this code? "Path=34&products_id=302" Create the product in thr admin panel in OSCommerce. Then visit the web site and click on the product - there is the URL that you need to link to. It will never change since the product_id is stored in the database. And what did you mean by a corresponding oscommerce page for EVERY product? Becuase I run a static site with all my prodcuts, and then I link from the static site into the shopping cart to make purchases - so becuiase of this I'm actually maintaining "two unique" pages for every single product. More work - but the SEO benefits are huge. Corrie
Velveeta Posted February 8, 2007 Posted February 8, 2007 Create the product in thr admin panel in OSCommerce. Then visit the web site and click on the product - there is the URL that you need to link to. It will never change since the product_id is stored in the database. Becuase I run a static site with all my prodcuts, and then I link from the static site into the shopping cart to make purchases - so becuiase of this I'm actually maintaining "two unique" pages for every single product. More work - but the SEO benefits are huge. Corrie Just out of curiosity, I'm wondering what your SEO benefits are for having a setup like this...? Richard. Richard Lindsey
Guest Posted February 8, 2007 Posted February 8, 2007 Just out of curiosity, I'm wondering what your SEO benefits are for having a setup like this...? Richard. Well - for one thing the static site was up one year before the SOC site - and we were getting top five rankings ofr our search terms very very consistently. I did not feel comfortable ...................... messing around with this! You know how fickle google can be. :-) Also - the static site pages are MUCH more manipulative in terms of where to place content - and how the search engine spider sees you page when they come by for a visit. If you run your site through a Lynx viewer, you can get an idea of a spider views your page. As such - spiders will generally put more emphasis on your keywords and phrases when they are nearer the top of the page, etc. So with a static site - I have full control over what is seen first, and in what order. By creating a site using div's and id's - I'll be sure to have the content as close to the top as opssible. You can see this in action here : http://www.yellowpipe.com/yis/tools/lynx/lynx_viewer.php I also have full control over naming my top level and sub-level directoies into something meaningful. i.e. - If I am selling Belly Button Rings - I can have a direcotry called : /shop/belly-button-rings/gold-rings.shtml or even better - if you have a regional sales store : /shop/boston-belly-button-rings/gold-rings-in-boston.shtml There are likley hundreds of variables that are input into the gogole search engine algorithm that determines how to rank a page based on its content. You need to be able to leverage and exploit as many as those variables as possible. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/b...c.py?topic=8458 This is just the tip of the iceburg re: seo of course. Corrina
Velveeta Posted February 8, 2007 Posted February 8, 2007 Well - for one thing the static site was up one year before the SOC site - and we were getting top five rankings ofr our search terms very very consistently. I did not feel comfortable ...................... messing around with this!You know how fickle google can be. :-) Also - the static site pages are MUCH more manipulative in terms of where to place content - and how the search engine spider sees you page when they come by for a visit. If you run your site through a Lynx viewer, you can get an idea of a spider views your page. As such - spiders will generally put more emphasis on your keywords and phrases when they are nearer the top of the page, etc. So with a static site - I have full control over what is seen first, and in what order. By creating a site using div's and id's - I'll be sure to have the content as close to the top as opssible. You can see this in action here : http://www.yellowpipe.com/yis/tools/lynx/lynx_viewer.php I also have full control over naming my top level and sub-level directoies into something meaningful. i.e. - If I am selling Belly Button Rings - I can have a direcotry called : /shop/belly-button-rings/gold-rings.shtml or even better - if you have a regional sales store : /shop/boston-belly-button-rings/gold-rings-in-boston.shtml There are likley hundreds of variables that are input into the gogole search engine algorithm that determines how to rank a page based on its content. You need to be able to leverage and exploit as many as those variables as possible. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/b...c.py?topic=8458 This is just the tip of the iceburg re: seo of course. Corrina Ok, you made a couple of good points there, particularly with the div layout, you can style a page such that it looks a certain way, but place the divs in any order you want so that the content is closer to the top of the file, whether or not it's output at the top of the page for your customers... And I am familiar w/ lynx viewers :) I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to list some of the outdated reasons such as google favoring a page if it ends in a .html versus a .php, or anything like that :D You may be interested in some of the features of the new MS3 release that's upcoming... It has a tableless template that can be used in lieu of the original MS2 style, and they've already got the central content area's div listed as the first one in the body section, so they were doing some thinking when it came to layout :D I haven't had time to get fully versed in that codebase yet, but but I am seeing some nice little features that allow you to insert different page sections from anywhere along the processing chain, so you can insert javascript into the head section at nearly any point, because the page is all processed almost at once for output :) Richard. Richard Lindsey
Guest Posted February 8, 2007 Posted February 8, 2007 Ok, you made a couple of good points there, particularly with the div layout, you can style a page such that it looks a certain way, but place the divs in any order you want so that the content is closer to the top of the file, whether or not it's output at the top of the page for your customers... And I am familiar w/ lynx viewers :) I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to list some of the outdated reasons such as google favoring a page if it ends in a .html versus a .php, or anything like that :D You may be interested in some of the features of the new MS3 release that's upcoming... It has a tableless template that can be used in lieu of the original MS2 style, and they've already got the central content area's div listed as the first one in the body section, so they were doing some thinking when it came to layout :D I haven't had time to get fully versed in that codebase yet, but but I am seeing some nice little features that allow you to insert different page sections from anywhere along the processing chain, so you can insert javascript into the head section at nearly any point, because the page is all processed almost at once for output :) Richard. Hi Richard - no, I'm welll experienced at this as well. :-) Even with MS3 - we'll likely to continue using the static site - or perhaps I'll put in a 301 redirect in one particular category and keep an eye on it to make sure that google really does recognise the re-dreoicty, ADN retain the indexed content from the original page properly. When you're ranked number 1, or 2 or 3 for your keywoprds/phrases - you definitley do not want to rcok the boat! Besides - it's not such a buig deal - we only have about 200 unqiue products - swapping about ten each month between deletions and additions. I wrote a perl script to automate the new product pages on the static side - fill in a form, and it creates the page in shtml. The just a matter of creating in OSC and linking to it. Corrie. :-)
Velveeta Posted February 8, 2007 Posted February 8, 2007 Hi Richard - no, I'm welll experienced at this as well. :-) Even with MS3 - we'll likely to continue using the static site - or perhaps I'll put in a 301 redirect in one particular category and keep an eye on it to make sure that google really does recognise the re-dreoicty, ADN retain the indexed content from the original page properly. When you're ranked number 1, or 2 or 3 for your keywoprds/phrases - you definitley do not want to rcok the boat! Besides - it's not such a buig deal - we only have about 200 unqiue products - swapping about ten each month between deletions and additions. I wrote a perl script to automate the new product pages on the static side - fill in a form, and it creates the page in shtml. The just a matter of creating in OSC and linking to it. Corrie. :-) I agree, no need to rock the boat if you're already ranking at the top of your keywords :D Richard. Richard Lindsey
Guest Posted February 8, 2007 Posted February 8, 2007 I'm curious how do you link to the static page. Do you run a seperate main top page and just link from that instead of the category link in OSC?? We are converting over from the shopping cart we currently use to OSC and all of our product pages are in HTML with links to add it to our current cart. If I can change those links to reference OSC that will save alot of figuring on my part... Rick How do we link back to the *static* page ?? there's a text input box when you enter in a new product from the admin paenl that asks for a product web page URL. We put it in there - we already know what the URL is 'cause the static page is crweated first. I have to run - but I could look up the database table and field name of where that url is being stored. My guess is directly within the products table - but I can't be sure off the top of my head. ttfn, Corrina
Velveeta Posted February 8, 2007 Posted February 8, 2007 How do we link back to the *static* page ?? there's a text input box when you enter in a new product from the admin paenl that asks for a product web page URL. We put it in there - we already know what the URL is 'cause the static page is crweated first. I have to run - but I could look up the database table and field name of where that url is being stored. My guess is directly within the products table - but I can't be sure off the top of my head. ttfn, Corrina I believe that's right, if you're talking about the field that's there in a default install of osc, I think that field name is products_url and it's in the products table... Richard. Richard Lindsey
Guest Posted February 9, 2007 Posted February 9, 2007 What I ment was if you are sending them to OSC for the cart contents and then they click continue shopping wont that take them back to the main OSC page?? What is your web site link?? I would like to look at it to see how you are doing things if that is alright.. Hi Rick - I replied to you thru personal message - but realized I didn't answer your question! Yes - currently, the continue shopping button goes to the main OSC, but you can certainly customize that to take the client where you want them to go. :-) Also - for others, here is my paraphrased email to Rick : The client surfs around looking at the products. When they find one they like, they can hit "Purchase this product" or in the Christmas section, we had "Add to Basket". The link takes the to them OSC site. From there, they can hit Top and go back to the main site to surf around, and continue to Adding to Basket, or checkout, or contirnue shopping and stay with OSC. Either way - the shopping cart contents are not lost. Corrie
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