Retaining SEO value when changing the shopping cart software

[Ywsw]

I am looking into purchasing an existing ecommerce site with high SEO rankings. However, the site is old and beyond outdated. The shopping cart would need to be updated (say, to Magento). However, an updated shopping cart will force a change in the URLs (from example.com/category.asp to example.com/category). Will the SEO value be lost? Does anyone have any experience with this issue? There is a significant amount of money for me at stake so I would really appreciate to hear your experiences in this matter.

[KevinBudzynski]

If you do a proper migration, should not hurt your rankings much. Make sure you properly redirect your links (301's) and review the various checklists (planning is the key). After implementation, carefully watch analytics and fix any issues.

[Ywsw]

sounds good - have you ever had any direct experience with this?

I have noticed with SEO moves that some times even though things are executed properly, they can still not work out as promised.

[GregB123]

Your safest route would be to either 1)patch up the current cart to not appear outdated to your customers or 2) find a different shopping cart system that uses the same  example.com/category.asp  format for it's URL's.

Patching up what is already working will be the least expensive route...

[KevinBudzynski]

After implementation, I saw ranks improve, decrease and being the same.

The amount of PageRank that dissipates through a 301 is currently identical to the amount of PageRank that dissipates through a link.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Filv4pP-1nw. So a small decay may occur resulting in a different rank.

On a second note, what happens many times is that the 301 redirect goes to a page that has more/less content, different template and so on as the original landing page. Since the content is different, the position in the serps may go up/down in organics (this happens even if the page is the same as a competitor's page may become more relevant for a query based on algo changes, content changes and so on).

The most successful migrations are the ones that have the majority of the pages 301 to a landing page that is roughly the same (all other things being implemented properly). Key is planning.

It's stressful, but feels great when implemented properly. Good luck!