Google and similar situations will use meta-data (if available) in the code, how instances and entries are linked throughout the internets, how the content is stored, and a whole host of associations with the company, their industry and so on.
In short, even if you don't create the method of organization from a SEO point of view, the search engines and other methods of discovery will, in a way, create them for and in spite of how your company chooses to implement the site. When it comes to meta-data, it becomes a matter of association and working knowledge of how to fit categories together - different terminology between different vendors can be bridged both explicitly in the site's code and through a consideration of how you conceptually linked and organized: if an item fits categories A through M, give that item or group of items the attributes "A-M", inclusive of each company's categorization and simply what the item is and why users would want to find (and hopefully purchase) that item from your site. Scott On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 9:03 PM, Dennis Serras <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm creating a very large e-commerce site that's expected to > eventually have tens of thousands, perhaps more, entries. It is for > an industry that is heavily categorized, but every supplier has > totally different categories, so they effectively become meaningless. > So we're going to put it all together without categories, or at least > without a category tree model. It's search engine only, baby. All > those former categories are now keywords, effectively allowing one > item to be in dozens of categories. > > I'm worried about how sites like Google will index ours. Even if > Google is a tree-free structure, they seem to depend on trees to find > their way around a site. Without any hard links, are the spiders going > to say "oops, there's only one page to this site" and move on? I'm > assuming they're not smart enough to do searches within the site's > engine. Do we create a few hundred likely searches and submit that to > Google as a map? Do we develop some kind of bridge like eBay does so a > Google search turns up keyword items? The client ain't rich and I > ain't an SEO expert... yet... So any help is appreciated. > > Thanks! > Den > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [email protected] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > -- "In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth." -Patti Smith ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
