IMPACTS on Moving Online Store to New Platform

[BigBlaze205]

I,

I have this online store, http://www.filtrationmontreal.com/ built on osCommerce.

This platform is NOT SEO friendly and I expecting to move it to a new platform, probably, http://www.americommerce.com/

Can I limit the SEO impact when moving this store?

The domaine will be the same, but every other url on the site will change.

I only know the basics of SEO, and only copy html code when I need to. So my knowledge are limited.

Using Google Analytics, I have the most popular page url visit on the current store.

To limit impact, I thought I should copy the most popular page URL of the curent store and do a 301 redirect on the store platform.

Do you think this my limit the impact? Would there be a other way to limit SEO impact on Google search results?

I don't want to be penalize if the search and up on a 401 page.

Can anybody help me?

Thank you,

BigBlaze

[EGOL]

Moving an ecommerce site to a new platform can be a TON of work.  It can also change how your site performs in the search engines.

You have decided that you can improve your SEO by moving to a new platform.

You want to maximize this by picking a platform that will perform well, optimizing it expertly and moving your pages in a way that retains all of their links and rankings.

Instead of fearing loss you should be aggressively looking for gain.

If I was in your situation I would hire an experienced SEO who knows a lot about ecommerce platforms and have him/her advise on a platform, plan the move, determine how to best optimize, and do parts of the execution that you don't feel qualified doing yourself.

This is an opportunity for you to make huge gains. A website gets very few of these opportunities.  Maximize them.

[MoosaHemani]

I have this kind of experience in the past and as per the best of my knowledge you have to be very planed before executing stuff or else you will see some not easily irrecoverable damages that will create a problem.

Here are few things that you should plan

• Plan the redirection

As you said your complete URL structure will be changed this means you have to create and excel sheet to note all your current URLs and set the new URLs in the next column and set 301s accordingly.

• Picking the right eCommerce Platform

This is critical, I have worked with Joomla (I hate it), Wordpress, osCommerce, Zencart and Magneto and I have a good time playing with Magneto and Zencart.

There are actually several things to plan before switching from one platform to other keeping SEO on the safe side!

The best advice is to heir a person with good SEO (eCommerce) experience and he can do the good job for you!

[EGOL]

I agree. On my sites I use "buy buttons" on html pages instead of using the product pages that the cart can generate.  This gives me total control over the look of the pages, the URLs and the SEO.

[MoosaHemani]

This is a good idea to get a control over the pages...

Although i am no smart but in the beginning years i played a lot with osCommerce and i can simply say that is platform is not SEO fitted. Zen cart is even a better option but yes if you give me a open choice i will go for your option!