SEO Solutions for Open Source eCommerce Platforms
I mentioned in a previous post that I am working on a new website for my mother’s craft website www.sweetdreamspatterns.com. In order to do this, I have been doing a lot of research this last week about possible open source solutions for this ecommerce website. The current site was built by myself in 2003 using osCommerce 2.2, which at the time was the only open source ecommerce solution out there.
I wanted to share some of the research I have done just in case any of you out there are in need of an eCommerce platform and you have the knowledge and resources to build it yourself. I have looked at a number of popular solutions, and I wanted to give you my opinions on each one as well as the SEO capabilities and ease of use.
The eCommerce solutions I tried were OScommerce 2.2, OScommerce 3.0 Alpha, Zen Cart, OpenCart, Magento, and CartStore.
OSCommerce 2.2
I used to be a big fan of OSCommerce until I had a project in 2006 that ended up being a nightmare. The file structure is really heavy, the template system isn’t that great (in that you must edit individual files to get the same look and feel throughout the site, and the plugin system (called contributions) require you to go through the code file by file and make changes. This became a huge problem when I wanted to use several SEO contributions and some of them clashed with each other. If you have enough PHP knowledge, you can get OSCommerce 2.2 to do anything you want it to, but it isn’t that simple or user friendly. The SEO contributions they do have will allow you to rewrite URLS, rewrite titles, load analytics, and anything else.
OSCommerce 3.0 Alpha
The team at OSCommerce has been working on a new version of the engine which seems a lot more streamlined and straightforward. I really like the feel of the site and the code is much smaller. I would have used this engine, however this 3.0 version is not compatible with 2.2 contributions. There are no SEO contributions yet for OSCommerce 3.0 which was a deal killer for me.
Zen Cart
I had problems getting Zen Cart installed on both my local server as well as my web server. From what I can tell though, it did seem to be a decent system which could do basic SEO functions (URL Rewrites, META rewrites), however the template system was complicated, and the look and feel of the admin didn’t seem quite right.
Magento
It took me a day to get Megento installed on my server. This file structure is so incredibly huge that it actually took me over an hour just to delete from my server. There are also a ton of bugs in this, that even after I got it running, it broke a day later. Magento does have a ton of features, however their template system seemed really difficult to use and their admin was a lot more complicated than it needed to be. I would stay away.
OpenCart
I really liked OpenCart. It was simple, fast, and looked great. Templates were easy to create. It also had the SEO functions that I required. I would have used OpenCart, except for the fact that they didn’t allow me to accept offline credit cards. My mom likes to get the credit card information herself and enter it into her gateway, and OpenCart has no plugin for storing credit cards. If that feature doesn’t matter to you, and you have an online gateway, then definitly check out OpenCart.
CartStore
I ended up using CartStore. CartStore is actually built off of the OSCommerce engine, however it seems like the creators built in every conceivable plugin that someone would want to use. The SEO functions are automatically built in, as well as a fancy CMS which no other shopping cart system I tried had. The template system is very simple (just a little CSS), and the look and feel is great. This store has the ability to not only track customer and orders, but also vendors and also tracks affiliates. It also has a place to add your Google Adsense and Analytics code.
I will be using CartStore as I go forward and build a new crafting website. I will give periodic updates on my progress, as well as my SEO ranking progress.
I would also like to mention that if you are interested in shopping cart solution that you don’t have to host yourself, and has a ton of great features and it is SEO friendly, check out Magellan Commerce.
September 25th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Might I add my 2 cents? You were too nice about OSCommerce. OSC gives me nightmares. I don’t know what kinds of changes they have in store for v3, but if they were to fix their biggest issue (maintainability), it would more-or-less destroy their best strength (“plugins” for everything).
I used Magento for a bit. It was okay. I think the biggest issue with it isn’t so much the code as it is the amount of time you have to invest to get it working right. For one, to get it running at decent speeds, you’ve got to have dedicated hosting or a vps–none of that “shared hosting” ishness. And you have to tweak your server configuration to optimize for it (Litespeed is the best). Second, it’s way complicated to learn the templating system. Aside from that, I think it’s the best open source solution if you plan to be big. It’s pretty sweet to be able to run several different stores with several different designs all from the same product base and install. Other than that, I was really happy with the SEO features it had. It’s a good choice if you’ve got the resources to invest. Regarding deleting it from the server: “rm -rf .” should only take a couple seconds.
I’d like to suggest my current favorite ecommerce package: prestashop.com . It has a nice design, very easy-to-use plugin ability, and some SEO functionality. It’s really easy to install, configure, and write templates for. And it’s pretty fast (I didn’t have to do any server tweaking or customizing to get it running at decent speeds). It looks like development on the core is going at a pretty consistent rate, so I’d expect even better functionality soon too.
September 25th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
I did look briefly at PrestaShop, although it was later on and I heard it didn’t have capabilities to store credit card information. I am not sure if that is true, but I did hear good things about it on other fronts.
OSCommerce 3 does look promising, however it has been in development for about 2 years now, so who knows if it will ever get released?
I also didn’t mention WP-Commerce for Wordpress. I would love to use Wordpress, however I thought WP-Commerce lacked a lot of features. I also didn’t want to pay an extra $40 to try out the expanded features. I just wish there was some combination of a great ecommerce platform as a plugin for Wordpress. That would be perfect.
September 25th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
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September 26th, 2009 at 12:19 am
I’d like to hear more about about options you’ve found that store credit card information. Which packages have that? I didn’t think that they did that. There’s a TON of liability that’s associated with storing credit card info that I thought only companies with security specialists had the resources to do. Especially if you want to comply with PCI standards…
September 26th, 2009 at 12:32 am
I have read up a little on PCI standards. You are allowed to store credit card information, just as long as there is enough encryption as well as SSL. From the shopping carts I have tried, I know osCommerce, Magento, Zen Cart, and CartStore all have the ability to store credit cards. I haven’t messed around with CartStore’s encryption too much yet, however they do have it and certain codes need to be inputted to access the card information.
You are right, there is a huge liability with storing cards. This is why it is important to delete the information as soon as the charge goes through. That is my plan at least. I know these carts also have abilities to actually email the information to you instead of storing on the server, however for me that seems a lot less secure. I definitely need to look into it more.
September 26th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Magento FTW. I have a developer friend in Cali who has done some incredible things with Magento and other CMS’s. The site he did ( and was mentioned on Smashing Magazine ) is : http://www.mankinddog.com
Also Satchmo Project is incredible extendable.
September 28th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
I’ll take a look at those. The Satchmo Project looks like it is developed with Python, which I have heard good and bad things about (generally good). I thought Magento was powerful, however the file structure was way too massive and had too many bugs.
December 19th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
fantastic blog post. Have a good day!
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