How to transition a traditional site to app format with least amount of impact on SEO

[marketing_zoovy.com]

My company is an e-commerce platform and within the last year have started working on app based websites. These are not apps that have to be downloaded but rather the site runs in the browser and is essentially one page of content. We have created an SEO layer that allows us to provide Google information as if there are individual pages.  I'm looking for SEO advice on transitioning from what we call our vstores to an app store because the code specified by Google to use has shown to have negative impact on SEO rankings. While we have worked out many bugs and it has gotten better, just want to be doing everything I can to help any of our merchants that will be transitioning.

Here are some of the specific issues I'm running into

1. Duplicate Content merchants can have up to 3 stores running simultaneously with the same content just displayed slightly different
   ex. sportsworldchicago.com, app.sportsworldchicagocom, m.sportsworldchicago.com

a) What is the best way to control having the content be associated with the main domain
b) Should they be submitting all the sites to google for indexing, I only wanted sitemap submitted for the main domain
c) our end goal will be for the app. to just be the main site

2. Loading issues, our apps essentially have a loading message.  I think sometimes this is picked up as an ISE or timeout error for Google and other SERPS. I think it is also contributing to a higher site abandonment.  We have changed an used different loading page messages, but have yet to find one I feel is a KEEPER.

ex. site TheGrillLife.com - this one does not show the site in the background while loading. On other sites we have the site shown in the background while it loads.

This is what is showing as indexed for the homepage, currently working with my tech team on it:

1. The Grill Life <cite style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">www.thegrilllife.com/</cite>‎

   issue: API request failure (likely an ISE). uri: http://www.thegrilllife.com/. _cmd: appReviewsList. domain: www.thegrilllife.com. release: 201314|20130619133400.

3. For e-commerce sites do you think the product content on category and sub-category pages is enough for Google or other search engines to determine relevancy for indexing.  In some of the transitions content is being removed due to an effort to transition to a cleaner and faster design and layout.

Thanks for any advice or suggestions in advance.

Christy

[jesse-landry]

Okay I'm kind of rushing through this due to time constraints but wanted to lend some advice so forgive me if I'm misunderstanding or not complete in my thoughts.. Onwards:

1.a) Best way to control your dupe content is with canonical tags on each of the duplicated pages. Pick which site you want to come up in Google's SERPs and add a canonical tag pointing to said page from each of the three duplicated pages. In this example you seem to want the app.domain page (which I'm confused by the reasoning of..?) but whatever it may be just be sure your canonical tag points to one from all 3.

1.b) Don't worry so much about the sitemaps for any but your main domain. Especially if the other two domains are entirely canonicalled.

side note: I understand the mobile site, but what's with the other two? Why aren't they just redirecting? I think I just don't get "app sites" which leads me to

2.) Loading times. THIS IS A PROBLEM. Figure for every 1 second of loading time you are losing a large chunk of your potential users. I'm not sure how/why/what you guys are up to but I can tell you if this is a website that has a loading screen then you're in trouble. Fix this. It is DEFINITELY without a doubt leading to a higher bounce/abandonment rate. Guaranteed.

Hope this helps even a tiny bit. Good luck!