ProStores Tips and Tutorials – One Take Media

***UPDATE***

Found a way around this, just put in the root domain, i.e. www.perrysjewelry.com without the /servlet/StoreFront on it. That pretty much makes it a non issue.

***UPDATE***

Very recently Google made a change to their Webmaster Tools that will adversely affect a ProStores store that wants to add their site and get it
verified. They have started to automatically append a trailing ‘/’ slash to the urls entered into their ‘Add a site’ function.

Google Webmaster Tools is a great website dashboard that you can add your site to, it allows you access to reports, error tracking, site speed tracking, sitemap upload, SiteLinks, as well as the infamous “Help I’ve been banned from Google!” reinclusion request form.

There are two ways to verify your site in Webmaster Tools;

1. Add a ‘meta’ tag to the Header template above the ‘/head’ tag.
2. You can upload an html file to the root folder of your store.

Problem here is that typically you don’t have access to your root folder ‘/servlet/StoreFront’ so you are left with option #1.

This issue with Webmaster Tools directly affects ProStores sites because it changes the URL of the Store that it looks at to verify your meta tag. A ProStores site thats on standard hosting ends its URLs without a trailing slash.

Example: http://www.perrysjewelry.com/servlet/the-Women%27s-Jewelry/Categories if you add a trailing slash you kill the URL and the ProStores software generates a 404 error.

Example: http://www.perrysjewelry.com/servlet/the-Women%27s-Jewelry/Categories/. For whatever reason, probably CPU cycles, there isn’t any redirection done when you visit a ProStores URL that has a trailing slash. So instead of the site sending you to the page without the slash it dies and gives a 404.

This 404 error causes verification to fail and denying access to the best parts of Webmaster Tools.

This issue also directly interferes with a ProStores store’s ability to upload a sitemap to them because you can’t have access to Webmaster Tools at all until you are verified.

If you have already verified your site before this change went through then you should be ok.

If you are on a custom hosting solution, or running on a version of ProStores 8.0 or so you may not have this issue as you probably have a different URL scheme or have the ability to do some URL re-writing.

I have forwarded my thoughts and research to ProStores already and I hope to get Google’s attention as well. If you have a ProStores store, I would log into Webmaster Tools, click help, and fill out a help request on their user forums. Draw some attention to the issue and hopefully we can get a solution.

- Matt

One Take Media will be closed Dec 22nd – Dec 27th. Emails will be replied to after that date.

Get two months of ProStores Hosting paid for by One Take Media! All you have to do is purchase $200 or more of our ProStores Plug-ins, and e-mail info@onetakemedia.net and tell us that you ‘want free ProStores hosting’!

Details
This promotion currently is only for merchants hosted directly on Prostores.com, it is good for any of their current hosting packages, even the $59/mo package. You are required to purchase a minimum of $200(not $199, not $197) worth of plug-ins in a 3 day period, let us know if you want to buy multiple ProStores plug-ins in a single purchase, we will set it up for you.

Proof of Hosting
You will need to provide proof that you are on the hosting package you say you are. Typically that will mean that you will need to grant us brief access to your store we can verify your store status, or you can forward a payment record, or tell us your store short name so we can call ProStores and verify ourselves.

Payment of Hosting
Upon confirmation that you have fulfilled the above requirements we will paypal you the equivalent of two months hosting. We will send the payment so that it covers any paypal fees you would incur, that means the payment amount plus the .039%+.30 cents fee.

One Take Media reserves the right to end this promotion at any time, for any reason. One Take Media will only provide payment once the merchant has completed all the above eligibility requirements. Any update to these requirements will only affect new entrants into the promotion. Any updates to this promotion will be dated.

Exclusively from One Take Media. Sort by Price plug in for ProStores Merchants! Only $75 for self install. Help your customers make smart choices.

Keep an eye out on our twitter page! www.twitter.com/zegron for a brand new plug in. Product Price Sorting! Let your customers sort your categories by price and boost your sales!

Hi all,

I’ve decided that I’d like to move to a new WordPress template for my blog. Any suggestions would be wonderful.

Just leave them in the comments!

Thanks!

Hi all,

This is on of my few and far between shameless product plug posts. I have some brand new ProStores Plug-Ins available and I just wanted let you all know.

My Products page is where they are at.

I have added plug-ins for:

• Google Adwords Conversion Tracking
• Woopra Web Analytics
• ClickTale Click Tracking and Analytics
• CrazyEgg Heat Mapping and Click Tracking
• Search By Price Drop Down Plug-In

I use all of these myself on various client sites, a couple use them all, and my satisfaction with them has been complete.

I hope that some of you find them helpful.

This brand new video tutorial will lay out the steps for installing Google Analytics in your ProStores site. Without exception if you own a ProStores store you MUST have Google Analytics installed, if you don’t you won’t be as effective with your site as you could be. Google Analytics provides the data that you can take and use to better understand where your visitors are coming from, what they are doing on your site, and why they are or aren’t turning into customers.

I hope this video tutorial will help you learn to install Google Analytics in your ProStores site.
Read more »

Customers? Phht, who needs them?? All they do its e-mail, call, pester you with questions and buy your stuff making you spend your valuable time boxing and shipping stuff you bought to them… Seriously who needs all that hassle!?

So without any further time wasting here are four ways to rid yourself of pesky customers in no particular order.
Read more »

Welcome to the first post in a series of four.

Today’s post will be about Google Analytics filters and how to use them as well as some aspects that are unique to the ProStores/StoreFront environment.

What are filters? Just like on your Brita, filters strain out the unwanted. In the case of Google Analytics, filters can be set up to strain out unwanted information, but can also help to add more information that you can’t see by default.
Read more »