Archive for April, 2009

Miva Merchant Announces Strategic Partnership with ControlScan

Monday, April 27th, 2009

Offerings Available through ControlScan Provide Miva Merchant Customers with Comprehensive PCI Compliance and E-Commerce Security Solutions

San Diego, CA, 2008/07/28 — Miva Merchant (www.mivamerchant.com), a leading supplier of e-commerce software and services to small and medium-sized businesses, has joined with ControlScan (www.controlscan.com), a leading provider of Payment Card Industry(PCI) compliance and e-commerce security solutions, to help its merchants meet mandatory requirements set forth by the PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC).

“PCI compliance is no longer perceived as an optional service for online merchants,” said Rick Wilson, executive vice president, Miva Merchant. “After exhaustive research, we found that ControlScan offers the perfect combination of services and support that our unique client base needs.”

Miva Merchant customers will have access to ControlScan’s leading PCI compliance solution, which includes on-demand security scanning and the PCI Self Assessment Questionnaire. These merchants can also take advantage of ControlScan’s array of security certification seals. Websites displaying ControlScan’s security certification seals typically realize a significant increase in online sales and a decrease in shopping cart abandonment.

“We are excited about our partnership with Miva Merchant,” said Joan Herbig, chief executive officer, ControlScan. “With Miva Merchant’s commitment to providing merchants with an all inclusive online shopping service, ControlScan’s PCI compliance and security solutions are a perfect fit, especially for smaller merchants who will benefit from our exclusive focus on their needs.”

Posted in E-Commerce | No Comments »

Retailers Buckle Under E-Commerce’s Growing Popularity

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

Retailers Buckle Under E-Commerce’s Growing Popularity

By Terrence Russell November 26, 2007 | 2:56:01 PMCategories: E-Commerce 

The economy might be on the ropes, but e-commerce appears to be alive and well. According to a report from comScore, retailers netted $531 million in online sales on the day after Thanksgiving (aka Black Friday). The total not only represents an increase of 22 percent versus last year, but also shows signs of the increasing popularity of online shopping during the holidays. However, just because there was an increase, doesn’t mean everything went smoothly.
For retailers like Sears and Circuit City, who were hit hard with web traffic, a lot of the issue is dealing with the transition of shoppers’ habits. Gian Fulgoni, a comScore Chairman, hit the nail straight on the head in a company statement. “The Friday after Thanksgiving is known for heavy spending in retail stores, but it’s clear that consumers are increasingly turning to the Internet to make their holiday purchases.”

Fulgoni and the folks at comScore realize this, but one has to wonder if big box retailers are truly prepared for the growing influx. Circuit City and Fry’s were some of the retailers who experienced minor glitches, but the Sears site experienced a veritable meltdown for large portions of Friday. Macy’s and Wal-Mart faced similar fates just last year — so it seems like trail by fire may be necessary for big box retailers to understand the highly traversed online shopping space.

With today being projected as the biggest online shopping day of the year (aka Cyber Monday), it’ll be interesting to see how many large retailers are able to weather the storm. Of course, the biggest shopping day in terms of sales doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be the biggest day in terms of traffic. Ironically, all the problem sites that EPICENTER visited on Friday have been running smoothly as of this posting.

Posted in E-Commerce | No Comments »

Google Addresses Duplicate Content

Saturday, April 11th, 2009

Google Addresses Duplicate Content

February 17, 2009

Countless hours have been spent by developers, consultants, webmasters and many others trying to figure out how to make sure search engines (Google) only see one copy of your website. If you are not quite sure what dictates duplicate content then you may want to review a previous post by Google on duplicate content.

Google really picked up the slack and now supports a way for you to tell them the preferred URL. Every site owner should be excited about this because you no longer have to worry about a product being in multiple categories or affiliate links negatively impacting your SEO efforts.

I am not going to get too deep into the inevitable Q&A or debates about using the canonical URL attribute on a page but instead focus on how to implement in an existing Miva Merchant store.

First off, the most common instances of two URLs for the same page in Miva Merchant is the storefront page. The second most common is likely the addition of a Session ID appended to the URL.

Normally a 301 redirect in the .htaccess file is utilized to eliminate multiple URLs for the same page such as:

www.example.com
www.example.com/mm5/merchant.mvc
example.com
example.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?

Without the redirect all of the above URLs are considered different pages by the search engines. Another example is when a Session ID is appended resulting in a URL similar to:

www.example.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Session_ID=49d8db48b1283df25e43e99201ba974b

The Session ID issue cannot be addressed with a 301 redirect though. Both scenarios can now be covered by adding one line to the header of your storefront

Posted in E-Commerce, Miva Merchant, SEO and Marketing | No Comments »