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Thanks, Bruce.

I'll begin work on my large redirect file.

Hi all, wondering if i could gather some views on the best approach for this please...

We currently have a magento site up with about 150,000 pages (although only 9k indexed in Google as product pages are set to no index by default until the default manufacturer description has been rewritten). The indexed pages are mainly category pages, filtering options and a few search results.

While none of the internal pages have massive DA - seem to average about 18-24 which isn't too bad for internal pages, I guess - I would like to transfer as much of this over to the new domain.

My question is, is it really feasible to have an htaccess with about 10,000 301 redirects on the current domain? The server is pretty powerful so could probably serve the file without issue but would Google be happy with that?

Would it be better to use the change url option in WMT instead. Ive never used that so not sure how that would work in this cause. Would it redirect users too?

As a footnote, the site is changing because of branding reasons and not because of a penalty of the site.

Thanks,

Carl

Tom,

Thanks for the links I will check those out. I agree, in an ideal world there would be product descriptions before things start. The trouble being trying to convince the client to spend a lot of money having a large number of descriptions written before they make any returns from the site. They are at the point where they want to see money coming in before more money goes out.

The lack of product descriptions isn't to say that the site doesn't have any content, it has a good number of very detailed guides on rug shopping, different styles of rugs, rug care etc. There are a few dozen guides type pieces, all of which were written for the site.

The category pages have category descriptions, a couple of paragraphs about the type of rug but it's just the individual products letting the side down at the moment.

Interestingly I have noticed that there are a few affiliate stores in the niche and they tend to rank the search results page so all one gets is a page relevant to the search query which has the product images and product names and no information over that that. They seem to be doing well will have to monitor things

To be honest from a UX point of view there is very little one could add to a product description which isn't covered by the 'meta' information. A Round, Pink, Wool Rug would have these tags assigned in the information tab so not much extra to say about that product.

I guess will have to go down the split testing route and try a sample range of products with descriptions and some without to see if there is a conversion difference.

Hi all,

Wondering if I could get the opinions from other Moz user's on this issue please...

A client is building a new online store, it is in the flooring niche, using the drop shipping model. The plan is to launch the site with about 1,000 products and then add more as we go. All good so far (the site is magento based)

However, the issue we are facing is down to product descriptions. The client needs to get the site up and running asap to start generating sales but the wholesaler has not provided any product description information for the products - save the size, shape and colour.

Can anyone foresee a major issue in launching the website with no product descriptions, from a seo point of view, and then adding the descriptions as we go. Have been trying to establish what Google defines as being a thin site and all the information on the topic is suggesting it is more due to duplicate content where, for example, retailers are all still using the default manufacturer description or have spun the content. I cannot find much which would suggest that product pages missing a description would classify as thing. I am happy to be corrected though. I accept that it would be easier to rank with a good product description but the client is a two person business and it is pretty hard to find things to say about 1,000 different kinds of rugs!

Any thoughts would be most welcome please.

Thanks.