I've been pouring over the forums and have a few questions...
I’m trying to decide whether or not to buy my own domain, (DON'T WORRY, I WON'T MASK!), and whether to develop that as its own site or simply fwd to cafepress.
1) What I’m worried about is if I create my own site (not just forwarding), search engines may see my domain as duplicate content. One person described the reason like this: “Because your domain may be indexed as if your shop is the domain's content. That very same content will be indexed as part of cafepress.com, it's actual location. Search engines do not want to index and display duplicate content and may choose to block the display of that content instead.” So how do I avoid this trap? With what I read on this issue, it seems forwarding would be better. 2) On the other hand, some people say not to do a forward, but to build an offsite website and advertise your cafepress products because it will generate more traffic. How would you go about doing this? Would you hire someone to make the site for you? (cuz I sure don’t have a lot of html experience!) Is there a script I can buy? 3) I’ve also read that "it's a good idea to create a real web site using ur domain and to populate it with actual content related to your shop" -- what is content RELATED to your shop? does that mean just putting up links to your own product/advertising like mentioned above? 4) I also saw another option… to link the picture on your website to the information in cafe press. IS THIS THE SAME THING AS ADVERTISING MENTIONED ABOVE? Does that avoid the “search engine duplication” issue? (see above) 5) If I just forward, and then am trying to get publicity from other people’s blogs, writing articles, etc. will JUST forwarding affect traffic, etc or help my google rankings at all?
*** Please be advised - posts may be brutally honest - so if you do not want the truth - do not ask - and quit whining if you don't like what you hear ***
Originally posted by ShopaholicChick: i have both - the forward is just easier for business purposes to say "check out my green shop www.liveoffgrisgear.com" rather than "check out my online shop www.cafepress.com/liveoffgrid"
Develop an external web site that links to your shop. Duplicate content means just that, duplicate content. Well, OK sometimes very similar content will be taken as duplicate. But really the fact that you are presenting the same products isn't an issue.
Just make sure your page text on your external site is different from your cafe press site. Even if you are sucking in your shop's content via something like CafeShop you have a lot of flexibility to offer a different presentation, and page arrangement and certainly page text outside of those sucked in items. Some of the script providers will charge you a modest fee to get you going, but you'll have to do the actual writing yourself. Scratch that ... you really should do the writing yourself. Writing it yourself is how you can be absolutely sure that you own the copyright to the text and that it reflects what you want it to reflect.
Content related to your shop would be something like ... if your designs are about politics you would write something on your observations about politics. I have designs about dogs and I have articles I've written about tips and tricks on dog issues. Sometimes you can invite other people to write articles or share their views. Anything that is of interest to the same audience that would be interested in your designs is "content." Informational articles can get return visits but for search engine ranking it could be just interesting and well done presentation of what you have for sale.
There are all kinds of html templates out there and basic html is really easy to learn. Honest. You don't need any fancy software either. You can learn enough to start a decent page, then grow your learning as you feel you want to accomplish something in particular.
Personally I liked learning HTML best from a book, and I really liked the Peachpit Press series. It says ... do this .... now this is what you did and why you did it... it doesn't throw the technobabble at you until AFTER you have dutifully followed the recipe and found tah tah it works! THEN it explains why it worked so you can generalize. http://safari.peachpit.com/0321430840
Diane Blackman
Experiment! Try things! Then if you can't figure it out - ask. Play with Your Dog
Never redirect. I know a lot of people do it, but remember what you are actually doing. It thinks it's going one place but it lands somewhere else. Do you really think they like that. Build your site before you purchase the domain and install it immediately. Domain purchases are reported and search engines do an initial check. If your site is ready it can get crawled immediately, if not you could have a long wait.
Originally posted by rjh: Never redirect. I know a lot of people do it, but remember what you are actually doing. It thinks it's going one place but it lands somewhere else. Do you really think they like that. Build your site before you purchase the domain and install it immediately. Domain purchases are reported and search engines do an initial check. If your site is ready it can get crawled immediately, if not you could have a long wait.
I was under the impression that redirecting was only bad if it was to fool the customer into going elsewhere. Such as, having a domain for a popular game system and then it redirects to an adult site or having a domain that is a mispelling of a popular website and it redirects to your domain and products instead? If your domain redirect is just to make it easier to put on business cards and is related to what is at the place it is redirecting to, it should be fine? Just throwing those questions out because I myself do not actually know that for a fact. I just always thought that. I usually redirect a new domain until I get the time to build content on that domain separately. I do it to make it easier to advertise or tell someone my site when they ask.
Originally posted by rjh: Never redirect. I know a lot of people do it, but remember what you are actually doing. It thinks it's going one place but it lands somewhere else. Do you really think they like that. Build your site before you purchase the domain and install it immediately. Domain purchases are reported and search engines do an initial check. If your site is ready it can get crawled immediately, if not you could have a long wait.
I don't agree at all.
I use redirection, because like Ne' and Shopaholic said it's just easier to advertise with "visit ina-mar.com" than with the long cafepress address. Masking is not good, but redirecting? Why not!
If you can also build similar or separate content on your own site, just do it, it's the best way. There is someone in the forums offering this wonderful Perl programm, cpshop, that allows you to integrate your cafepress store into your site. Check this program out. It's really cool.
Don't be afraid to buy a domain and to start building it. Search engines do a first check, but they also recheck your content every week, every day... Depending on how often you change content and on how often other sites mention you. Nothing is created in an instant and you have to start with a little something.
If you don't have any html experience, you don't need to hire a professional. The best thing you can do is create a blog and write every week articles or texts about your products and designs and the story behind them. Not just posting "here's my new product", rather create a story around the product, make it interesting, find links and books on the subject, write about the creative process. Put some links to your cafepress shop, add some cafewish tables to promote similar products, add pictures. In my opinion blogging is the easiest and most effective advertising. If in a couple of months you have absolutely great sales and want to expand, hire a professional to help you improve your site.
quick response cause i'm at work. i redirected burntees.com for a long time until i finally got CPShop, and i never saw any negative effects. i loved that it was so much easier to just say burntees.com rather than cafepress.com/burntees. go for it!
I think the best reason "why not" is because a redirected domain has no content to index.
Having two web sites doubles your chances that someone will find you in a search engine search, compared to having one domain redirecting to the other.
I think the best reason "why not" is because a redirected domain has no content to index.
Having two web sites doubles your chances that someone will find you in a search engine search, compared to having one domain redirecting to the other.
i agree...but when i did it, i wasn't able to provide the content on burntees.com (i should have signed up with cpshop much earlier lol) but i still liked being able to say "go to burntees.com". it really helped with branding.
I think the best reason "why not" is because a redirected domain has no content to index.
Having two web sites doubles your chances that someone will find you in a search engine search, compared to having one domain redirecting to the other.
i agree...but when i did it, i wasn't able to provide the content on burntees.com (i should have signed up with cpshop much earlier lol) but i still liked being able to say "go to burntees.com". it really helped with branding.
exactly why i have boltzdesignz.com redirect to cafepress.com/boltzdesignz. i didn't do it worrying about seo (yet).
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