multiple shops - subdomain vs folder

[Petre]

Hi,

We need to have separate shops for each market (each shop with its own set of prices, special offers, shipping rates etc.) on our site.

 

Where is the best place to install them, please? On separate subdomains (www.us.mysite.com, www.eu.mysite.com, www.uk.mysite.com) or on separate folders (www.mysite.com/us, www.mysite.com/eu, www.mysite.com/uk)? :blink:

 

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

[Jack_mcs]

Your question is a little unclear. Unless you want to have the other domains on different servers, they can all be installed onto your current one in sub-directories, providing your hosting account will allow it. Then the other domain names can be pointed to those sub-directories and from the web, they will all appear as separate sites. Accessing them directly, www.mysite.com/us, can be done but is not a good way to do it.

 

Jack

[Petre]

Your question is a little unclear. Unless you want to have the other domains on different servers, they can all be installed onto your current one in sub-directories, providing your hosting account will allow it. Then the other domain names can be pointed to those sub-directories and from the web, they will all appear as separate sites. Accessing them directly, www.mysite.com/us, can be done but is not a good way to do it.

 

Jack

Thanks for your prompt reply, Jack.

Sorry for the confusion. I'll try to make it clearer. Here's the scenario:

When a visitor lands on our homepage, s/he sees a country/region drop-down menu with links to various country/region shops.

 

If I understand correctly, you suggest that we use a different domain name (something like www.mysite.co.uk) that points to www.mysite.com/uk. However, we do not own www.mysite.co.uk. Is it then possible to have all shops on the same server and with the same domain name (i.e. www.mysite.com)? If not, why is that?

 

If it's ok for all shops to reside on the same server, what's the best setup? Sub-domains (www.uk.mysite.com and www.eu.mysite.com) or sub-directories (www.mysite.com/us and www.mysite.com/eu)?

 

Thanks a lot. Petre

[Jack_mcs]

There is a multi-store contribution that may allow you to have all of the shops in one account but I think, personally, I would go with separate shops. It is more work but the code in each will be easier to mange for other changes. Since the different sites are so closely related, I think I would go with the sub-directories. If they were unrelated, then separate domains would be a better approach.

 

Jack

[Petre]

There is a multi-store contribution that may allow you to have all of the shops in one account but I think, personally, I would go with separate shops. It is more work but the code in each will be easier to mange for other changes. Since the different sites are so closely related, I think I would go with the sub-directories. If they were unrelated, then separate domains would be a better approach.

 

Jack

Thank you so much, Jack.

We'll probably need 3 shops added to our informational site, each of them targeting a specific market.

If we install each shop in a separate sub-directory but using the same domain and server:

1. Will there be any technical issues? Are there any root files or folders that shops need to access? Our hosting provider is not sure whether the shops will work properly if all shops are installed on the same domain and server.

Would it be better to setup a sub-domain like "www.shop.mysite.com" and install each shop in a separate sub-directory on that sub-domain (i.e. "www.shop.mysite.com/uk", etc.)?

2. Most products will appear in all 3 shops. Will there be any issues with google re duplication I wonder?

[Jack_mcs]

Since each shop will have it's own setup of products, settings and the like, each will be a separate shop. They can run fine like that on the same server as long as they each have their own database and the configure files are setup properly. Using sub-directories won't hurt anything. It can take longer to get them listed well in the search engines but it can be done. If the pages are identical in the shops, then google will blacklist those, probably. But if they are going to be different products, that shouldn't be a problem.

 

Jack

[Petre]

Since each shop will have it's own setup of products, settings and the like, each will be a separate shop. They can run fine like that on the same server as long as they each have their own database and the configure files are setup properly. Using sub-directories won't hurt anything. It can take longer to get them listed well in the search engines but it can be done. If the pages are identical in the shops, then google will blacklist those, probably. But if they are going to be different products, that shouldn't be a problem.

 

Jack

Thanks, Jack.

There aren't going to be different products. Most products will be available in each of the 3 shops, although a few products might only be available in a particular shop (market).

How can we avoid getting blacklisted, please?

Would it be enough to set the value of the Prevent Spider Sessions option to True for 2 shops and to False for one shop?

 

If not, will we be better off using only one shop with the fixed prices for different currencies contribution?

 

Many thanks. Petre

[Jack_mcs]

The Prevent Spiders option should be set to true in all of them and wouldn't affect this. The problem is that you want to have different "prices, special offers, shipping rates." That could possibly be done with the multi-store contribution. I am not overly familiar with it so you would need to ask in its support thread to be sure. If it used, you don't have a choice but to go with separate shops due to your requirements. In that case, the only decision to be made is whether to use different domain names as the url's or sub-directories. In either case, if you end up with a page on two of the sites that google considers duplicate, they may not list one or both. Duplicate content isn't defined but if all that is different is the price, you may have a problem.

 

Jack

[MrPhil]

You have three choices:

1) separate directories: www.mysite.com/us, www.mysite.com/uk, etc.

2) separate subdomains: us.mysite.com, uk.mysite.com, etc. Note that "www." is unnecessary here.

3) separate domains: www.myussite.com, www.myuksite.com, etc.

 

All hosting services should be able to handle the first two. Most can handle all three. In all three cases, you will end up with directories (folders) for each shop: /us, /uk, etc. Option 1 should be free, option 2 should be free or very low cost. Option 3 will cost more, as you have to register more than one domain (not just mysite.com). I have seen all three options used by major companies, so it's as much a matter of personal taste as anything else.

 

You should be able to install multiple copies of osC (one per folder), so long as their databases have different names, such as osc1, osc2, etc., and the files are kept separate. You'll need to discuss with your host what kind of limitations they have on storage size (all those duplicate files add up fast*), bandwidth, number of subdomains or separate domains (add-on domains), and number/size of databases. If you go the route of option 3, you can always use multiple accounts or even multiple hosting services (say, located in or near the country being served, for faster response time). Having your stores split up among multiple servers reduces the chance of everything going down at once. You may even be able to use multiple accounts/servers with option 2, but that takes some fancy manipulation of DNS records by your host(s).

 

* On a Linux-based server, you could potentially use just one copy of all your files, and use "symbolic (soft) links" to all the other stores to greatly reduce storage needs. The same can be done with merchandise photos, etc. However, this could be a nightmare to manage over the long term, especially as you start customizing files for different stores...

[Petre]

The Prevent Spiders option should be set to true in all of them and wouldn't affect this. The problem is that you want to have different "prices, special offers, shipping rates." That could possibly be done with the multi-store contribution. I am not overly familiar with it so you would need to ask in its support thread to be sure. If it used, you don't have a choice but to go with separate shops due to your requirements. In that case, the only decision to be made is whether to use different domain names as the url's or sub-directories. In either case, if you end up with a page on two of the sites that google considers duplicate, they may not list one or both. Duplicate content isn't defined but if all that is different is the price, you may have a problem.

 

Jack

Thanks, Jack.

Hmm, I thought the purpose of the Prevent Spiders False / True function was to allow the spiders to index / to prevent google's spiders from accessing the shop (something like noindex, nofollow). :blink:

Indeed, we want to have separate prices, special offers and shipping rates for each market.

 

I'll enquire about the multi-store contribution functionality in its support thread.

You said: "If it used, you don't have a choice but to go with separate shops due to your requirements. In that case, the only decision to be made is whether to use different domain names as the url's or sub-directories. In either case, if you end up with a page on two of the sites that google considers duplicate, they may not list one or both."

If I understand correctly, we can have multiple shops on the same domain and server (each shop in its own sub-directory) so long as each shop displays the same product using different content (although not sure how different the content should be). And that the multi-store (1730) contribution would be more suitable than the fixed prices with different currencies (4445) one.

Could you please confirm?

 

Many thanks. Petre

[Jack_mcs]

The prevent spiders option prevents the spiders from being assigned a session ID. They can't get to some pages, like checkout shipping, because they can't click the checkout button to submit the form details.

 

It's not just pricing you need to be concerned about since you said different shipping options would be used. The fixed prices with different currencies contribution won't help with that. MultiStore might though.

 

Jack

[rescuestat]

Something else to keep in mind...Just learned this while attempting to set up another store under our current hosting account. Most hosting providers will tell you that they allow multiple domains under your account. What they don't tell you is that you are only allowed one SSL certificate/dedicated IP address for that account, this is because SSL certificates are assigned to a static IP address. Ours wanted us to purchase another hosting account if we wanted another secured website, checked with a number of other providers and found the same to be true.

 

You will want to check with your host provider if that is the case. If you can only have one SSL/IP address, you might want to consider going with subdomains of your primary account and purchasing a SSL certficate that will also cover subdomains, a little more expensive but it is the only way if you want to have multiple domains/sites operating under a single hosting account in theses circumstances

 

Food for thought..

Frank

[Jack_mcs]

We allow multiple IP's within one account so it is certainly possilble. I'm surprised that more than one host told you otherwise. I believe you - just surprised some hosts don't allow that, or don't know how to set it up.

 

Jack

[Petre]

The Prevent Spiders option should be set to true in all of them and wouldn't affect this. The problem is that you want to have different "prices, special offers, shipping rates." That could possibly be done with the multi-store contribution. I am not overly familiar with it so you would need to ask in its support thread to be sure. If it used, you don't have a choice but to go with separate shops due to your requirements. In that case, the only decision to be made is whether to use different domain names as the url's or sub-directories. In either case, if you end up with a page on two of the sites that google considers duplicate, they may not list one or both. Duplicate content isn't defined but if all that is different is the price, you may have a problem.

 

Jack

Thanks, Jack.

 

I'm coming back to your reply re duplicate product pages.

I've seen major companies using sub-directories for each of their regional shops, and all shops residing on the same domain or sub-domain (i.e. store.mysite.com/uk, store.mysite.com/us, store.mysite.com/eu etc.). And the same product comes up in each shop with a different price and a similar description.

 

But those shops don't seem to be banned by google - it's actually the opposite - they have high Page Ranks. I'm puzzled. Why is that I wonder? How do those companies manage to do this?

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Jack_mcs]

Google never defined duplicate content. I read where some SEO watchers were estimating that if 80% of two pages were the same, the pages would be considered duplicate, though I don't know that I agree with that. I think it is more tied to what is on the page. A "similar description" is not the same as an "exact copy of the description." Sometimes it doesn't take much to make a difference. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Create a sitemap account and upload sitemaps for all of the shops. If google bans a page, it will be listed there and you can deal with it then.

 

Jack

[Petre]

Google never defined duplicate content. I read where some SEO watchers were estimating that if 80% of two pages were the same, the pages would be considered duplicate, though I don't know that I agree with that. I think it is more tied to what is on the page. A "similar description" is not the same as an "exact copy of the description." Sometimes it doesn't take much to make a difference. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Create a sitemap account and upload sitemaps for all of the shops. If google bans a page, it will be listed there and you can deal with it then.

 

Jack

Thank you, Jack.

 

If I understand correctly, two pages describing the same product shouldn't be considered duplicate so long as each of them uses the same content in a slightly different way (similar but not identical text for the content). In this case, is it ok to use the same page title, meta tags and keywords for both pages?

 

As for sitemaps, where can I find more information re creating a sitemap account and uploading sitemaps, please?

 

Also, as per my previous posts, we think of installing each shop in a separate folder on the same server (i.e. www.mysite/uk, www.mysite.com/us, www.mysite.com/eu etc.).

At present, however, if a visitor clicks on www.mysite.com/uk, s/he lands on the sales letter for the UK market which is already indexed by google. The same for www.mysite.com/us (sales letter for the US market) and www.mysite.com/eu (sales letter for the EU market).

Is it possible to move the sales letters somewhere else on the same site and install the shops in those folders without affecting any of the sales letters’ page rank? If so, what’s the best setup?

 

Many thanks. Petre

[Jack_mcs]

The title and meta tags of a page don't count towards its contents. If the contents of the pages are not the same (whatever that means), then they will be OK.

 

See My Addons for a google sitemap contribution.

 

For existing pages, you will need to issue a 301 redirect if you want to keep the index position. After installing the shop in those locations, edit the .htaccess file in the root of each to issue that code. There are many examples of how to do that on the web.

 

Jack

[Petre]

Hi Jack, Hi Phil,

Thank you both for your prompt replies.

 

I’m still trying to find out how major online

businesses manage to set up multiple shops on the same domain. Although the

same item is available in all shops (the main difference in most cases among

shops being the price and the currency), their sites don't get banned because of duplicate content.

What techniques do those sites use I wonder?

If I understand correctly, sitemaps are useful when google bans a page (it's more like a "cure" approach than a "prevention" one).

But how can we make sure that similar/identical pages are not considered duplicate content before they get banned? An what if you have not only one or two but tens of similar/identical products available in more than one shop? Does it mean that for each and every single product page that was banned you have to work out how to get it out of the sandbox?

 

As for my query re preserving the PageRank of existing pages, I need to give you more details as I don't know for sure if 301 redirect is the answer (should have explained it in the first place, sorry about that <_< ).

If the URL of a page that is already indexed by Google and has a decent PageRank (PR=3) needs to be used with a newly designed page that has a different layout and content, how will Google react to these changes?

Here's an example of what I'm trying to achieve: At present, each market

has its own sales letter. When a visitor clicks on www.mysite.com/uk, s/he

is redirected to a dynamically generated sales letter page

(www.mysite.com/letter.php?l=UK&c=GBP). The current PR of www.mysite.com/uk is 3.

We're thinking of installing multiple shops where each shop will target its

own market (each shop in a separate sub-directory, and all shops on the same domain). We want to keep the UK sales letter and

install the UK shop in the /uk sub-directory. Therefore, when google goes to

www.mysite.com/uk, it will see the UK shop instead. The same for the US and

EU shops: www.mysite.com/us will display the US shop, www.mysite.com/eu -

the EU shop.

Will www.mysite.com/uk, www.mysite.com/us and www.mysite.com/eu

loose their PageRanks then?

 

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

Many thanks. Petre

[MrPhil]

Well, not being privy to Google's internal ranking algorithms, I can't tell you what will be dinged for "duplicate content" and what won't. I suspect that if you make a conscious effort to make the page texts a little bit different in content, that should be OK. Differentiating among very similar languages (English in US, UK, CA, ZA, IN, AU, NZ,...) could be as simple as local spelling (colour vs. color) and references ("You'll be stepping pretty on High Street" vs. "You'll be stepping pretty on Main Street"). It wouldn't hurt to tweak titles and <meta> keyword and description tags, although they don't count for much. I would think that item prices, being different amounts, would help make pages different (and currency symbols are different, too). No promises, but you could try it and see if rankings decline or Google specifically tells you that pages are too similar. If so, you tweak the pages some more with some text changes and rearrangements.

 

The big downside to this is that you end up having different descriptive text to maintain for the same merchandise in different stores. For a frequently changing set of products that could become a headache, but if you don't change a lot at any given time, it should be manageable.

[Jack_mcs]

But how can we make sure that similar/identical pages are not considered duplicate content before they get banned? An what if you have not only one or two but tens of similar/identical products available in more than one shop? Does it mean that for each and every single product page that was banned you have to work out how to get it out of the sandbox?

 

I think you are over-thinking this. Google doesn't ban sites anymore for duplicate content unless they know it is an obvious attempt to fool them, and probably then it would have to be a lot more than a few pages. What they will do is not list one of the pages so you don't get an unfair advantage over other sites. If you show to them the pages both deserve to be shown, they will. How will you know? Create a sitemap account as mentioned and let them figure it out. How will you make them different? Just add a few lines on the page saying something like, "Welcome to our UK store...here in the UK..." and then change it for US. Enough little changes like that is all it takes, again, unless you are deliberately trying to fool them (which you are not).

Will www.mysite.com/uk, www.mysite.com/us and www.mysite.com/eu

loose their PageRanks then?

PR is completly determined by the number and quality of links linking to a page. If you don't have links to those pages, the PR will be 0 or some derivative of the PR of the home page.

 

Jack

[Petre]

Hi Jack, Hi Phil,

 

Thank you for your replies.

 

Is there a way of saving the shopping cart content if the customer switches to another frontend/shop?

I've seen a store (not an open source though) that has 3 flags, and each flag brings the customer to a different frontend (Each frontend has its own layout, language and currency). When a customer switches from one frontend to another, the shopping cart content is automatically displayed in the currently selected frontend. Is it possible to achieve the same thing with osCommerce?

 

Thanks. Petre

[MrPhil]

I can't think of any way to do this with "out of the box" osC. I suspect that the ability to switch "on the fly" among different settings for related stores would require substantial coding and database changes to osC. If that can be done, I think the shopping cart bit would come along for free (assuming prices are looked up in the current currency).

[Petre]

You have three choices:

1) separate directories: www.mysite.com/us, www.mysite.com/uk, etc.

2) separate subdomains: us.mysite.com, uk.mysite.com, etc. Note that "www." is unnecessary here.

3) separate domains: www.myussite.com, www.myuksite.com, etc.

 

All hosting services should be able to handle the first two. Most can handle all three. In all three cases, you will end up with directories (folders) for each shop: /us, /uk, etc. Option 1 should be free, option 2 should be free or very low cost. Option 3 will cost more, as you have to register more than one domain (not just mysite.com). I have seen all three options used by major companies, so it's as much a matter of personal taste as anything else.

 

You should be able to install multiple copies of osC (one per folder), so long as their databases have different names, such as osc1, osc2, etc., and the files are kept separate. You'll need to discuss with your host what kind of limitations they have on storage size (all those duplicate files add up fast*), bandwidth, number of subdomains or separate domains (add-on domains), and number/size of databases. If you go the route of option 3, you can always use multiple accounts or even multiple hosting services (say, located in or near the country being served, for faster response time). Having your stores split up among multiple servers reduces the chance of everything going down at once. You may even be able to use multiple accounts/servers with option 2, but that takes some fancy manipulation of DNS records by your host(s).

 

* On a Linux-based server, you could potentially use just one copy of all your files, and use "symbolic (soft) links" to all the other stores to greatly reduce storage needs. The same can be done with merchandise photos, etc. However, this could be a nightmare to manage over the long term, especially as you start customizing files for different stores...

Thanks for your reply, Phil.

Re multiple shops: Our host says it's better to install each of them on a separate subdomain. I've been thinking again about the 3 choices (separate directories, separate sub-domains and separate domains) and was wondering whether the third one would be the best choice? As we own both the mysite.ie and mysite.com domains, is it a good idea to have the Irish shop on the .ie domain and all other shops on the .com domain? Are there other advantages of having shops installed on separate domains apart from the fact that it reduces the chance of everything going down at once?

 

Also, there is a product section on our .com site that was added before we decided to use OsCommerce, and most pages of that section are html pages which have already been indexed by google. As we think of having multiple shops and the shops will have similar products (i.e. product A available in both the Irish shop, the UK shop and the US shop), what should we do with the product section? Should we do redirects from it to the new shops? If so, to which one? Or should we remove the product section altogether?

Thanks.

[♥ecartz]

If you use the same domain (either 1 or 2) for all the stores, you can share cookies. If you use different domains, you can't. If you share cookies, then sharing the shopping cart is easy.

 

You can still share sessions, even if you do not share cookies. If you share sessions, then the shopping cart is still easy. However, sharing sessions without sharing cookies has its own challenges.

 

Having a shared shopping cart would be very difficult if you were on multiple hosts. Not impossible, just much more challenging.

 

You could also implement switching layouts by language (country) on a single domain, in the same folder, using the Basic Template Structure (BTS) contribution and modifying the layout switcher to be controlled by language (note that switching currency by language is part of the stock osC). You might be able to do the same thing with the Simple Template System (STS) contribution. Using either contribution can make it more difficult to install other contributions (as both affect the display of all pages). With the BTS, it can be hard to find the code you need to change. With STS, it can be hard to get your new code to display. More contributions have STS integrations than BTS integrations.

 

The challenge with doing things that way would be getting different behaviors in some places. With shipping, you could probably do it using zones to restrict shipping methods. You need to create a complete list of what behaviors you need to be the same on all stores, what behaviors you need to be different on each store, and what behaviors don't really matter (can be either the same or different). Then you can start working down how various implementations would affect each. You are either going to have to modify the osCommerce code to bypass limitations or accept some limitations to save on coding. For example, is it all right if all order emails go to the same address for all versions of the stores? Or do you need different addresses?

 

Some things will be easy regardless. For example, regular, stock osCommerce supports different prices in different currencies. More challenging would be if you needed to support different prices in euros in Ireland versus France.

 

If you install in different folders (or subdomains or domains), then you can use different settings in database_tables.php to make some tables shared and some different. If you install on separate hosts, then sharing database tables becomes more difficult (and more subject to failure).

 

It's unclear to me what advantages the host sees in having separate domains. You should ask them. You may find out that things that they consider disadvantages (possibly sharing cookies) are things that you would consider to be an advantage.

[MrPhil]

Thanks for your reply, Phil.

Re multiple shops: Our host says it's better to install each of them on a separate subdomain. I've been thinking again about the 3 choices (separate directories, separate sub-domains and separate domains) and was wondering whether the third one would be the best choice? As we own both the mysite.ie and mysite.com domains, is it a good idea to have the Irish shop on the .ie domain and all other shops on the .com domain? Are there other advantages of having shops installed on separate domains apart from the fact that it reduces the chance of everything going down at once?

Separate domains would typically require separate copies of the code and possibly (if on different servers) different databases for each store. That could have its advantages if you find you need to tweak the stores to be a bit different for each country. Separate directories or separate subdomains would be easiest to handle with separate code installations, but they could share the database (how to handle different prices, I don't know). It looks like any way you cut it, you'll be trying to get 3 separate code installations to turn in formation... I wouldn't be surprised if a host was to push for three domains so they get three times the income, or that they fear you'll overload their server with three shops on one account, but I can't see any great advantage of three subdomains over the other choices. I think you're asking for user confusion by putting one country's shop (the smallest) on its own domain, and two larger shops on one domain. If you don't want to spring for a third domain, I'd go with the subdirectories or the subdomains.

 

Also, there is a product section on our .com site that was added before we decided to use OsCommerce, and most pages of that section are html pages which have already been indexed by google. As we think of having multiple shops and the shops will have similar products (i.e. product A available in both the Irish shop, the UK shop and the US shop), what should we do with the product section? Should we do redirects from it to the new shops? If so, to which one? Or should we remove the product section altogether?

Thanks.

I don't see why you couldn't redirect individual product pages to the corresponding osC product page. If you have good Google ranking on those pages, you might want to preserve that asset by keeping the pages. I take it that you have just one .com shop shared by all three countries? Perhaps you could keep your present product pages, and just add a set of links on each page to the appropriate osC product page for the desired country: "To purchase this product in..." That might be better than trying to figure which one store to redirect to.