E-commerce is a special category of SEO, in part because Google treats queries that involve selling or financial transactions with extra care, and also because these can be extremely competitive verticals.
E-commerce SEO also faces unique challenges due to product catalogs, out-of-stock items, site architecture, trust issues and more. You not only need a solid baseline SEO strategy, you typically need to excel in all of these other areas as well. Here, we've included some of our top resources on E-commerce SEO, as well as the latest blog posts on the subject below.
How to Craft the Best Damn E-commerce Page on the Web : E-commerce pages are a dime a dozen, but if you want to stand out, Rand Fishkin shows you how to win your category.
Pruning Your eCommerce Site: How & Why : In a very tactical post, learn why bloat in your e-commerce store is your biggest enemy to ranking higher, and learn how to clean the cruft.
Easy Marketing Investments to Improve Your E-Commerce Store : Even before working on organic traffic, it's important to put your best foot forward with your online storefront.
How to Do a Content Audit : For e-commerce stores, content audits are essential to SEO success.
How Screwed Am I? Some Other Business Has the Same Name As I Mine.
Trademark Problem: When Two Businesses Own the Same or Similar Mark
It is possible for two businesses to own the same or similar marks. Remember that the guiding principle is consumer confusion. If the two marks identify different products and oper...
⇒ What is trademark law? → Product marks versus service marks ⇒ Where does trademark law come from? ⇒ Isn’t trademark the same thing as copyright? ⇒ Do I have any trademarks? How do I get some? → Be First in Your Market → Be Distinctive ⇒Trademark Law's Guiding Principle: Don't Confuse the Consumer ⇒ Limitations on Trademark Rights → Trademark does not protect disparaging or lewd marks. → Trademark holders do not “own†the words, logos, or slogan’s themselves. → Parodies of trademarks are permissible. → Non-commercial uses are permissible. → News reporting and product comparisons are permissible. ⇒ Caution! The Very Famous Marks Exception! ⇒ Should I register my trademarks?
I invited Mr. Thomas B. Duffy, one of RipOff Report's attorneys to contact me with any corrections, feedback, documents, or missed cases that he thought might be helpful. I am very grateful to him for taking me up on my offer and contacting me last week. The phone call lasted for more than an hour. For today's Legal Monday, I want to summarize five of Mr. Duffy's responses.
May It Please the Mozzers, Last week, there were several excellent posts elucidating the many ways RipOff Report violates Google's Terms of Service, and yet manages to stay on top of the Google search results pages. Rand, ...
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One of the most common problems facing anyone who publishes content online is copyright infringement. It's happened to me. It's happened to you. And it'll probably happen to this post too. (Oh, the irony!) What can you do when your copyright is being infringed? Don't get sad. Get letter-writing mad! There are four ways to stop someone from stealing your content. Before we dive into each of those methods, I want to preemptively address some caveats, complicating factors, and limitations of the "four methods" approach.
Dell has stepped in where I-CANN and Verisign have feared to tread by filing suit against one of the largest domain tasting networks. Dell did everything right to put itself in a good position for this lawsuit. Unfortunately, documents filed with the court last Friday, January 5, 2008 indicate that Dell may lose the case despite its efforts. Part I of this post talks about Dell v BelgiumDomains, LLC. Part II of this post asks a few questions about domain tasting.
⇒ What is "fair use"? ⇒ Does the fair use defense only work in the United States? ⇒ How does fair use related to trademark, copyright and patent law? ⇒ What's the big deal about fair use? Why do we care? ⇒ There are four factors to consider when determining whether you are illegally infringing someone’s copyright or merely employing fair use of the material: → The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is nor nonprofit educational purposes; → The nature of the copyrighted work. → The amount and substantially of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and → The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. ⇒ But I thought I had a First Amendment Right to free speech. ⇒ Specific Applications. → Can I quote someone on my website? → Can I post someone else’s graphic on my website if I give credit to them? → Is my software vulnerable to fair use? → Is parody considered “fair use�
Did you know that the difference between registration and non-registration could be you owing your attorney 15k versus you getting $150,000 in statutory damages? That's right. If you don't register, you could end up in the hole, even if you win. Alternatively, you could register, get your attorneys fees paid for and maybe actually get some cash back in your pocket. I think this post is worth your time, don't you? So, let's all take a deep breath, grab our caffeinated beverages of choice, and jump back into the exciting and riveting world of copyright registration.
Fellow mozzers, I’d like to start off my first Q&A post by answering a question posed by Will Critchlow from Distilled. He was working through the complicated intersection of U.S. copyright law and international law. More specifically, how does one know where a copyright infringement case is heard and what law is applied for violations involving partie...