Multiple Shops (multishop/multistore) - Read This!

[Pursuant]

All of you that have questions about support for multiple shops, READ THIS

For all of you out there who need multiple shop support - PrestaShop does not currently offer it
Multi-Shop support is not even in a beta phase as of now, it will require serious effort and alot of time for the PrestaShop Dev Team to develop this feature.
There is also no Multi-Shop enabling module, nor do I expect one to be developed any time soon. PS's hooks render it almost impossible to create a module to enable multiple shops in a modular fashion.
Either way, the PrestaShop Dev Team is spending alot of time making PrestaShop 1.1 bug-free, I don't expect this feature to be available any time soon.

If you want this feature, voice your request in the Feature Request Tool located within the Bug Tracker, as the solution would be changes to CORE PrestaShop files, not a module. We do not need yet another thread asking for multi-shop support on this forum.


--Kevin Klika

[Matthieu Biart]

Hi Ox40!

Thank you for this point which I confirm ;-)

I just want to add that we are currently working on the multi-shop feature.
The conception stage is completed and we'll soon start the development.
So the only thing I can say about a date/release version is that it won't be included on the 1.2 final version nor on the 1.3
But the final release following the 1.3 final may implement it. If that's not the case, it will be implemented two (final) versions after the 1.3 final.

[Matthieu Biart]

Hi everyone!

Since this thread became a real mess and is quite old I decided to clean it up and to actualize it ;-)

First (as I said 6 months ago) I confirm that the multishop feature will NOT be released on the PrestaShop 1.3 version.

Second, here is a glimps of what we are thinking about:

- unlimited shops from a unique Back Office

- subdomain management

- a different template for each store

- different languages for each store

- different modules for each store

- different configuration for each store (so having a BtoB shop and a BtoC one would be possible)

Third, the multishop feature went back to the conceptual step because of some extra issues we got (you can have a look on the forum to understand the complexity of this feature. Even merchants do not share the same idea about it.) but rest assured the development will start very soon.

Last, thank you to NOT post any reply such as "Have a look on those shops I'd like to link to the same PrestaShop", "I'm gonna love this feature"...
This thread is a "Read this first!" reserved for making a point on our progression and avoid repetitive questions.

PS: Apologies for the few interesting replies I've deleted but I needed to emphasized the main information. Moreover their content is now kind of part of my second point ;-)
PS2: Concerning community contributions such as modules or hack in order to get an alternative multishop feature. They are still welcomed but not on this thread (as I said reserved to our progression). Please create new ones.

Edit: the official multishop feature will be part of the PrestaShop core and consequently "completely free".

[Fabrice]

Hi Matthieu !
Is there any "fresh" news about the dev of these features ?
tks for your feed back ;-)

[pasko]

Hi,

I don'"t now if it's the right place for me to do this comment but how ever it is important!

I have some experience on Magento and what is missing there is major:
Multishop allow customer to purchase in different stores and to checkout with one cart.

Make shore to have individual shipping cost per shop!

Thank you for your fantastic work!

Kind regards.

[Danman]

Best Matthieu Biart!

Are there any news or update on the work for the multishop feature in Prestashop?
It´s been quiet for a while now and it would nice to know if it´s still on track.

Thanks a lot for your good work!

[truecredit]

this answers the biggest question I had, thanks!

[Fabri]

Hi all!

Since the last time a Dev commented here was back in February, I don't think it's bad to ask again! (Also, my business depends on this feature...)

Is this still in track? Do you have an estimated date to launch this feature? That's OK if you remove this comment but please give us some light, at least some words about this issue!

Thanks to the great Devs as usual!

[Katmatcreations]

Why doesnt prestashop fix things that need to be fixed before they go adding minor features?

The interface is terrible for the customer (5 screen checkout wtf? hasnt changed since version 1.1! ) and Presta has no idea on how to engage and build the developer community!

[jimmyc]

Hi Matthieu,
I posted this in the feature requests but thought it might be suitable for discussion here.
---
I would like to see prestashop with the option to allow drop ship vendors to manage their own stores within my prestashop. This would be a mall style shop that automatically split payments on orders so I can receive a small admin defined percentage commission on each sale and shipping price through pay-pal or other gateway.

Store owners would have their own individual stores to sell from within my mall setup. The ACL allowing them to receive their own sales emails and access packing slips, input tracking numbers and so on.
Leaving me as admin to promote the mall and allowing vendors to manage the sales, shipping and customer questions through their own chat style contact page.
Is this type of store setup in planned future versions of Prestashop? I think this system would make the prestashop cms unbeatable.

[Katmatcreations]

Hi Matthieu,
I posted this in the feature requests but thought it might be suitable for discussion here.
---
I would like to see prestashop with the option to allow drop ship vendors to manage their own stores within my prestashop. This would be a mall style shop that automatically split payments on orders so I can receive a small admin defined percentage commission on each sale and shipping price through pay-pal or other gateway.

Store owners would have their own individual stores to sell from within my mall setup. The ACL allowing them to receive their own sales emails and access packing slips, input tracking numbers and so on.
Leaving me as admin to promote the mall and allowing vendors to manage the sales, shipping and customer questions through their own chat style contact page.
Is this type of store setup in planned future versions of Prestashop? I think this system would make the prestashop cms unbeatable.

On the payment side of things it is indeed possible to have a multi shop running with the core shop purely acting as a "Gateway" similar to eBay or reseller sites, my PayPal Total module in development now could easily process multiple payments within the one transaction with the core shop owner taking a % of each product sold and final payment being automatically passed on to the "Drop shipper" or product lister/Agent.

presta wont be able to handle it in its current state with some of the things they have done with the Schema. The product end of things really kills it although the way they do items in carts really screws it.

[jimmyc]

Hi Katmatcreations,

So are you saying the multi-store option is not viable, but for a single vendor dropshipper site it would work?
If so, does your PayPal module take a flat percentage of all sales including shipping (good), or will it also be capable of calculating single product cost price (wholesale) and then calculate the profit margin minus any coupon discounts that may have been applied by my store and pass the profit (if any) on to my paypal account? (great)

Either way this module is relevant to my interests! Do you have an estimated release date?

[Katmatcreations]

Hi Katmatcreations,

So are you saying the multi-store option is not viable, but for a single vendor dropshipper site it would work?
If so, does your PayPal module take a flat percentage of all sales including shipping (good), or will it also be capable of calculating single product cost price (wholesale) and then calculate the profit margin minus any coupon discounts that may have been applied by my store and pass the profit (if any) on to my paypal account? (great)

Either way this module is relevant to my interests! Do you have an estimated release date?

Transacting as a gateway is easy, the problem is presta doesnt natively support it. Ive actually been thinking of a way to force it to be able to store product level information cause for it to work properly its going to have to store some extra info at the product level that it will then use in the end calculation.

To answer your question it can do both, transact as a % or as a flat rate. i already have a site that ive built (not using presta) that allows me to operate as a gateway between buyer and seller (www.GoSqueesh.com).

ETA on the PayPal Total Module is about 3 weeks but depends on PayPals approval process, for the advanced stuff we are talking about here its going to need further development but entirely possible depending on what the presta guys do. Im sure the presta developers know the limitations with the presta schema ive been talking about.

Maybe one day soon they will listen to developers properly

[Katmatcreations]

I worked out how to get this to work this morning while i was walking (it hit me like a brick lol), actually its not too hard and will suit both models suggested here.

Problem is im not going to get time for a while to test and implement but ive built functionality into the PayPal Total module plan so it can be done at a later time.

[rmarques]

Look at http://www.lot.my

These guys created an awesome system of multi stores under one domain using OpenCart. The advantage of this system is to have one installation of opencart to run all the stores.

Development of a multi store system with an open source cart hasn't succeeded until this moment because people are talking about complicated things, super advanced features, chat, mall, bloated systems, etc. Please forget about all these things and concentrate in simple things.

The guys at www.lot.my simply developed a way to run multiple independent stores in subdomains with only one opencart installation. The store owner creates his account, gets a subdomain name for his store, chooses his payment methods, edit designs and pay a small monthly fee to use the store. (Lot.my is actually free...) Forget about commissions to the administrator, store owners hate that! Just a small monthly fee is more than enough to cover costs.

I believe a system like www.lot.my could be easily implemented using prestashop.

Other good examples to look at: http://www.bigcartel.com, http://hyenacart.com

[Fre-do]

Multistore with prestashop without changing prestashop source code : http://www.live133.ddlx.fr/index.php

[hellothere]

Fre-do,
is there any documentation for how you accomplished this?
Alternately, does anyone know of a timetable of when this functionality will be implemented? If not v. 1.4, can we expect it in 1.5?
Given the previous 18 months of development, could we expect a 1.5 in the third quarter of next year (ie before september 2011?).
Just in time for the holidays next year...

thank you Prestashop!

F

BTW Fre-do, how did you accomplish the page turning effect in the upper right corner?? That is SLICK!! very nice.

[Stefand]

Fredo, can you tell me how it works?

More information is not wrong!!!

[Floobynooby]

Would the multi shop feature work for managing stock on both shops where if there are 50 items and one shop sells 20 both will then only have 30 items to sell?

[mmarlboro2010]

The conception stage is completed and we’ll soon start the development.

[bobby valentino]

thanks for the post

[Solveigh]

Go on! Go on! Go on! ;-)

[hellothere]

The conception stage is completed and we’ll soon start the development.

odd... can you verify you are on the dev team? with no response from PS in about a year, I find it strange that the first reply would come from a noob account.

can an admin or someone who has posted here with authoritative knowledge please corroborate this information, together with ANY idea of when this functionality will make it to Alpha, at least?

thanks!

f

[rocky]

I think that person is a third-party developer who is working on a multi-shop solution. I don't think a multi-shop solution will be added in PrestaShop v1.4, though I have been surprised at how fast the PrestaShop team are adding features. I think it is likely you will have to wait until at least PrestaShop v1.5 for a multi-shop solution.

[TWDesign]

So just to confirm, for the sake of the bleeding obvious, if we have multi stores that would
mean that we could have a language specific domain for each language version?

For example www.mysite.com for English, www.mysite.fr for French, www.mysite.jp for Japanese all of which link back to a common backend (especially important for proper stock control).

That's what everyone means by "multi-store", is that right?

If so it would be encouraging to hear from somebody authorized to comment (i.e. a dev team member) that
multi stores is at least part of the road map.


PrestaShop beats Magento hands down in every respect EXCEPT this.
Which is rather a big stumbling block for merchants who want to maximize
search rankings in multiple languages - having a language specific TLD is
almost a "must have".

[antonio_eggberg]

Hello

we have developed a shopping mall solution .
feel free to contact us for a demo.

each seller (admin) will have a store and receive an admin panel .
the mall owner (super admin ) will have a global admin and will receive a commission on the sales in the stores

Thanks and regards ,

Karan Ahuja
http://www.kodeplay.com

I had a chat with the seller above and it turns out the solution is based on opencart and not prestashop. Multishop is not possible using presta and that the END.

[rocky]

It appears PrestaShop have started writing code that will support multiple shops though. The file classes/Shop.php is used to get the current shop, which is always the "Default shop" at the moment, and it references a ps_shops table that hasn't been added yet.

[antonio_eggberg]

Well if you are like me. i.e. just starting a project which involved multi-store then you have two choices use cs-cart if you got 900 USD or Opencart if the budget is zero for software. There are many other but those two are worth the look. I spent over a week now just testing and trying various PHP based solution.

Waiting for some code/tables to be created and to be bug free is a long shot. in my view.

Cheers

[dieseltofo]

Can I make a non E-commerce website with Prestashop?

[rocky]

Sure. You will just need to uninstall all the product and cart-related modules.

[10mall]

Multistore with prestashop without changing prestashop source code : http://www.live133.ddlx.fr/index.php

So did Fre-do just develop this on the back end by him/themselves? I'll research and see what's keeping them so $ilent on this post.

[indonesia store]

so we only can use single shop on pretashop?

[Simon-AV]

I REALLY want this to happen as I've another 2 stores I'd like to open and would like to keep the same paypal and google checkout accounts for them all as it will help massively with the fees.

I sure hope the team do it soon!

[Danman]

Multishop-feature will be included in version 1.5 confirms Christophe Cremer the CEO of Prestashop.

(in frence, use Google to translate)
http://www.journaldunet.com/solutions/intranet-extranet/christophe-cremer-e-commerce-open-source-prestashop-christophe-cremer.shtml

[Mister Denial]

Multishop will be such a huge plus for this software! Kudos to the team for putting up such excellent work!

[TWDesign]

Multishop-feature will be included in version 1.5 confirms Christophe Cremer the CEO of Prestashop.

(in frence, use Google to translate)
http://www.journaldunet.com/solutions/intranet-extranet/christophe-cremer-e-commerce-open-source-prestashop-christophe-cremer.shtml

Does it mean we can run multiple domains on the one product database
e.g. myshop.com AND myshop.jp AND myshop.kr


??

[ericeseeley09]

ahhhh.. see.. okay. thanks great!

[ChrisLNZ]

BTW Fre-do, how did you accomplish the page turning effect in the upper right corner?? That is SLICK!! very nice.

Don't know if you ever got this answered or not but have a look here.

[Asenar]

Yes, we confirm that, multiple shop feature will be in 1.5

[shacker]

this is a great notice

[yv_sg]

Multishop-feature will be included in version 1.5 confirms Christophe Cremer the CEO of Prestashop.

(in frence, use Google to translate)
http://www.journaldunet.com/solutions/intranet-extranet/christophe-cremer-e-commerce-open-source-prestashop-christophe-cremer.shtml

oh dangg can't wait!!

[mariabastet]

Multishop will be such a huge plus for this software! Kudos to the team for putting up such excellent work!

double kudos!

[coyners25]

Yes, we confirm that, multiple shop feature will be in 1.5

Hi,
Great news on this feature. Just wondering is there a target date for release.
I've no idea how long it may take. Even you could tell me late this year or early next year etc.

Thanks
Alan

[GottaBark]

Hi, Great. When. GB

[phunter121]

Hi guys, these modules appear to offer a multi store solution, has anyone any experience of them?

http://www.prestatoolbox.com/15-multi-store-prestashop

[guest*]

Hi guys, these modules appear to offer a multi store solution, has anyone any experience of them?

http://www.prestatoolbox.com/15-multi-store-prestashop

This is not a multi-store-module but a modul to rewrite your sitemap. For Euor 40,00 you will not get such a multistor-module! Such a module is too much work to develope and not a thing to go by pass.

[guest*]

Hi!
There is Store manager for prestashop which supports multiple store management. Using quick connection switch option you can easily switch between stores. Besides, Store Manager is useful for bulk product management and allows to make all updates in your store much faster.

Download a free demo version to check it out.

Great tool for managing more than one shop and mass management !!

[hellothere]

Can we get a rough idea of when 1.5 will debut? Specifically: will we see the beta before September? If so, that gives enough time to debug and see how it behaves, before the real test of the holiday rush. If not, I can't say I want to install such a big overhaul for Presta close to the holiday rush. Since Multi-store is a deal breaker for me, I'd need to make the decision whether to commit to Presta or keep looking.

I know it's tough as a developer to pitch a deadline with so many variables, and you don't want to create expectations you can't fulfill, etc, but if you could give us an idea - WHEN you think beta will surface of 1.5, with multi store enabled? August? Sep? Oct? Later?

THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR HARD WORK!!!

[guest*]

I don't think it will be released in 2 or 3 month. Before new release will come, I hope presta will again elect some core-user for besta-tests, like presta did with version 1.4.2.

What's your specification, because each person understand other things concerning the "tag" multishop. If you want to manage more than one shop on BO you can use the tool prestashopmanager, which I'm testing at this moment.

[hellothere]

What’s your specification, because each person understand other things concerning the “tag” multishop. If you want to manage more than one shop on BO you can use the tool prestashopmanager, which I’m testing at this moment.

Yes, I can appreciate that "Multishop" is a very complex bag of sometimes contradictory feature requests. My ideal is the following:

1) A shared user login across multiple distinct instances of PrestaShop. As the admin, I have full control over how much I want to "borrow" from one site to the next, in terms of templates, languages, currencies, catalog, payments, shipping, etc modules. Absolutely fully indipendent, all the way to a 90% similar catalog, where inventory counts are reflected across all sites (OR NOT, even if products are identical. Admin can choose how to configure). But this means that the cart is the same across all domains, coupons can be applied across more than one domain (discounts, etc), and a wishlist can be accessed from any of the browsed/sister domains. In short, an uninterrupted shopping experience across multiple domains for the user, and the user can select which domain to check out from, defaulting to a given domain (ie it makes no difference in the end, but give them the control).

2) One common admin interface to collect all sales and order data, clearly marked in terms of what sales came from which domains. Compared to 1) above, this is less important, and I gather that there are modules that attempt to accomplish this portion of the functionality.

I am aware this is extremely complex, so I don't want to come across at all as pushy or whatever, just want to get a sense of how progress is being made and when Presta team thinks may be a realistic public Beta.

[guest*]

For

1) you can realize it with PrestashopManager. One Software and you can change admin between the shops on the fly.
2) Also PM can do this. Try it by yourself. You have a fully working demosoftware for 30 days. A release will come in about 1-2 weeks, because I found there some missing features and 1 or 2 little bugs.

Only an advice for you: it's not really good to have 2 different domains with the same or similar content. You will kick you out from SERP's because of DC. 90% is too much. I don't recommend a such solution. Is better to have only one domain and make a good SEO-work instead of 2 shops and no one of them optimized for SERP's.

Multishop is really only a good thing as a customer service - more shops and ONE cart. The multishop version you have in mind is not really a good commitment.

[hellothere]

Looks like 1.5 has made it's debut in Alpha, according to today's PS announcement:

"v.1.5 Alpha 1 is currently available for tests but we do not recommend using it for production. A stable version 1.5 is planned for September 2011."


GREAT WORK DEVS!!!!!!! I'm excited to install this CMS and see how it works. Well done, I'd put this at a significant milestone for PS, in my opinion.

[josephandersson]

Cool! I'll try it ASAP, but not in commercial use until the stable version!

[JoshuaRiley]

I've been looking for this to answer the questions in my head. I have read all the posts and actually it will be a great help for me. Thanks for all your posts & answers guys

[mozexty]

Can't help wondering what MultiStore is and how it could help me. More specifically, what about performance issues about one prestashop installation for many (50+) stores versus many prestashop installations.

[ace2ice]

Awesome! looking forward to it!

[Hans Huber]

Hello,

me aswell I am very happy that multi vendor function is coming out soon!

I found this site providing already the features everybody here is waiting for: http://addons-modules.com/search?orderby=position&orderway=desc&search_query=Multiple+Seller&submit_search=Search

 

Does anybody have some experience on this?

Thanks

[OC2PS]

multi vendor function is coming out soon

Where did you get that info? I don't believe it's true.

[Hans Huber]

Where did you get that info? I don't believe it's true.

 

ok they call it "Multi-shop" and will be integrated in V 1.5.

Found it in this threat before.

 

I thought or was hoping that its the same like multi vendor or can be used to administrate multi vendors aswell.

(you can view products from different shop site on one site. So you give every vendor a new shop to administrate and show al their products on one centraliszed shop too? Thats whats it all about, no?)

Iistalld V 1.5 yesterday night, found the multishop function, but d'ont really understand how to make it work!

 

Do you have experience with this module: http://addons-module...t_search=Search or any reviews?

Thanks

[OC2PS]

It's not merely called "multishop" in PS. Multishop and multivendor are two quite different functions.

 

Multishop is included in 1.5

Pros and cons here: http://www.prestashop.com/forums/topic/120907-pros-and-cons-of-15-with-multistore/page__fromsearch__1

In 1.5 Alpha, you need to activate multishop and then you will see a tab.

 

There are no plans to include multivendor.

 

I do not have experience with Agile multiseller module, but based on my experience with other modules by shokinro (i.e. other Agile modules), I would expect it to be of high quality.

[Hans Huber]

ok, if I understood right, the purpose of the new multistore function is to have one "parent" shop front-end with products from different other prestashops? If you then install a new shop for each seller, he can handle his own shop individually, but all his products (....depending on settings are also shown in the parent shop?

 

Sorry if I got this wrong, but i couldnt find any Doc on how the multistore function works or is planned!

 

Then you have one shopfront with all rpoducts....

1. Share customers and stock between shops of a group

2. Share orders and carts between shops of a group

[OC2PS]

Prestashop have not done a good job of communicating what their multishop feature means/does, so you can hardly be blamed for misunderstanding. I don't believe there is any documentation explaining the features - I would be surprised if such documentation existed.

 

My understanding is that fundamentally, you can have multiple storefronts (even on different domains) with a single backend. So, instead of installing a new instance of PS for sunglasshut.com watchhut.com and shoehut.com, you can run all 3 shops from a single backend. Your shops share inventory, customer base, etc. You can assign products and categories to one or more of the storefronts.

[TWDesign]

That would be my guess as well.

Magento CE allows something like that.

 

It's potentially a powerful SEO improvement where a vendor

wants to have country specific TLD's

e.g. www.mysite.de, www.mysite.fr , www.mysite.jp

and so on.

[OC2PS]

It's potentially a powerful SEO improvement where a vendor

wants to have country specific TLD's

e.g. www.mysite.de, www.mysite.fr , www.mysite.jp

and so on.

I would passionately dispute that.

http://www.prestasho...post__p__650037

In fact, I would argue that multishop is detrimental to SEO and marketing efforts because it splits scarce resources.

 

The regional targeting you allude to can be achieved much better by setting the proper tags in multilingual installations: http://forge.prestas...browse/PSFV-118

I think it's a shame that PS are not already setting these tags this way.

[Hans Huber]

ahh ok! I got it.

thanks.

so indeed this has nothing to do with multivendor and cant be used to realize it.

[TWDesign]

I would passionately dispute that.

http://www.prestasho...post__p__650037

In fact, I would argue that multishop is detrimental to SEO and marketing efforts because it splits scarce resources.

 

The regional targeting you allude to can be achieved much better by setting the proper tags in multilingual installations: http://forge.prestas...browse/PSFV-118

I think it's a shame that PS are not already setting these tags this way.

 

Actually Meta Tags aren't worth doodly squat.

Google's Matt Cutts has confirmed that Google "it is not something that we look at very closely at all"

 

The only things that determine geographic relevance are

1. Server IP address

2. TLD

3. For generic domain names (.com, .net, etc) your explicit setting within Google Webmaster Tools.

 

Let's go to the tape sports fans .....

 

As for splitting resources, I don't really follow your point.

English language links to a French language site are not going to help much in terms of

PR or anchor tag weight, and vice versa so it makes more sense to have seperate domains.

Cutts says on another video somewhere that Google DOES NOT regard different language versions as being duplicate content.

[OC2PS]

Google is not the only game out there.

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/020870.html

 

But obviously there's no doubt that you would want to cater to it - you can do it much better by setting the targeting in webmaster tools, than with TLDs.

 

Also, remember that the video is from mid-2009. Google has made major changes and recaliberations to its algorithm twice since then.

 

Regarding splitting resources - backlinks are just one resource, there are many others. But even looking at backlinks, if you have 10 backlinks from PR7 sites, even ones in another language, that is much more beneficial than having 70 backlinks from PR1 sites, even in the same language.

[TWDesign]

Really? Has Google published anything in their Webmaster blog confirming that?

Could you share a link?

 

Again, if you watch the video:

Q. "How do meta geo tags influence the search results"

A. [Matt Cutts] "..."it is not something that we look at very closely at all. Not meta geo tags"

 

Seems like an open and shut case to me.

[TWDesign]

You seem to be confused.

 

On one hand you say that you are much better setting Geo-Targeting with Google Webmaster Tools.

Then in the next breath mention that Google is "not the only game in town", implying that we shouldn't rely

on GWT at all.

 

Bing may very well use Geo Meta Tags as ONE OF their signals but I would be astounded if they used

Meta Tags in preference to TLD signals. Again, you'll need to show me a link to something official on the Bing Blog.

 

Your statement about Page Rank is just speculation unless you have some empirical research or official statement from Google, its meaningless.

[OC2PS]

I don't know if you use Google webmaster tools, but there is an option where you can set geographic targeting. In the video you posted as well Matt says (skip to 00:30) "There's also something in Google Webmaster Tools where you can say my site is, you know, not just a .com that's about the entire world, it's a British .com or it's a .com that pertains to Australia or New Zealand....if you have content that's geo-located, even if it's a subdomain or a subdirectory, you can specify that within Google Webmaster Tools"

[OC2PS]

On one hand you say that you are much better setting Geo-Targeting with Google Webmaster Tools.

Then in the next breath mention that Google is "not the only game in town", implying that we shouldn't rely on GWT at all.

Not at all. Actually, my sequencing of those 2 points is exactly the opposite.

 

When I say that Google are not the only game in town, I mean that just because Google don't use it doesn't mean vendors should happily disregard them as well.

 

As I said above

But obviously there's no doubt that you would want to cater to it (Google)

 

It would be stupid to suggest you shouldn't look at what Google is doing. Instead, the point is that one need not drop everything that Google is not doing.

 

And then I went on to talk about how to use geo targeting with Google.

 

No confusion there.

 

 

Your statement about Page Rank is just speculation unless you have some empirical research or official statement from Google, its meaningless.

Yes, as is yours I don't see any evidence to support that backlinks from other languages are any less valuable than same PRed ranks in English.

 

(but I'll get back with some resources)

[TWDesign]

I don't know if you use Google webmaster tools, but there is an option where you can set geographic targeting. In the video you posted as well Matt says (skip to 00:30) "There's also something in Google Webmaster Tools where you can say my site is, you know, not just a .com that's about the entire world, it's a British .com or it's a .com that pertains to Australia or New Zealand....if you have content that's geo-located, even if it's a subdomain or a subdirectory, you can specify that within Google Webmaster Tools"

 

Yes, I know.

The point he is making is that GWT is one of three ways to tell Google what geo-zone you are targeting.

 

My point is that if you are targeting a country like say China where Google is a minority search engine,

relying on GWT is not going to get your very far. Search engines like Baidu or Naver couldnt give

a damn about what your GWT geo settings are of course.

 

Which means , what other RELIABLE ways are their to signal to search engines your geo-targeting.

I'd argue that having a country specific TLD is more reliable than using Meta Tags across a range

of search engines to signal that intent.

[OC2PS]

Well, you could

I'd argue that having a country specific TLD is more reliable than using Meta Tags across a range of search engines to signal that intent.

You are free to argue that, of course. I would say that a geo meta tag is adequate for that purpose.

[OC2PS]

http://www.bing.com/...2/t/648363.aspx

In this thread, Bing ignores .us TLD and suggests using meta tag

 

http://www.bing.com/...9/t/647043.aspx

Same story, different details

[TWDesign]

Well, you could

You are free to argue that, of course. I would say that a geo meta tag is adequate for that purpose.

 

So you are implying that we should all use Google Webmaster Tools to satisfy

Googles geo-targeting requirements (since we agree that geo meta tags are useless in their case)

PLUS we should just hope that every other search engine on the planet takes a contrary view and DOES recognize geo meta tags.

 

Is that a fair summation of your position?

 

Seems to me that country specific TLDs is still a more foolproof way to go but

whatever floats your boat I suppose.

[OC2PS]

So you are implying that we should all use Google Webmaster Tools to satisfy

Googles geo-targeting requirements (since we agree that geo meta tags are useless in their case)

PLUS we should just hope that every other search engine on the planet takes a contrary view and DOES recognize geo meta tags.

No. I'm not implying that. I am saying that. If you check the links posted above, you'll realize that Bing pays attention to IP address, and allows Meta tag to override that, and doesn't care much for TLD at all.

 

Of course, the more info you can provide the better it is. You can always have twd.de, twd.fr and twd.cn all point to the same site, or subdomains or subdirectories of the same site.

 

whatever floats your boat I suppose.

Right back at you buddy

[TWDesign]

To be fair, some interesting insights about Bing that I wasn't aware of.

 

Peace out

[Paul C]

Interesting discussion guys but as usual with SEO there are so many answers (some might say merely opinions) and not all of the information out there is directly applicable to all types of sites. I would go with the "there's no such thing as too much information" school of thought, so I'll happily include meta tags where I feel they MAY be of benefit - Google may not use them in their search algorithm but may use the geo location information for maps etc. There are lots of talented people out their doing cool stuff with these little snippets of information

 

I'm confused about the assertion that different languages used in backlinks have no effect - that's not true in my experience and Google are smart enough to pick up on people talking about a site, regardless of the language used. They developed their translation tools for a reason, along with a lot of work on synonyms... Their job is to deliver quality search results and they won't willingly ignore data if it could be used to improve the quality of their searches.

 

On the multi-language discussion I would also throw in there there could be benefits from using subdomains for your site translations and reserve the "www" subdomain as the overall parent. This is due to the fact that domains themselves have "quality" data associated with them and that different TLDs will not necessarily be related by the search engines, for example:

 

www.example.com and www.example.fr

 

These could be two completely different organisations, however:

 

www.example.com and fr.example.com

 

MIGHT be a better approach as you may get more credit from the shared domain across the sites (mozRank measures domain authority for example; whether Google or Bing do is an unknown but a credible assumption). It would bear some testing. Google will regardless strive to deliver the best possible search results, so depending on whether you're a brand or not may influence how you approach marketing your site this way. Usability (with respect to how easy it is to remember a site's url) is also worth considering even though it's not strictly concerned with the technical aspects of SEO - it is still a factor which shouldn't be ignored.

 

Matt Cutts has commented several times on multiple storefronts for a single inventory (akin to selling the same washing powder in different branded boxes ala "Lever") and has strongly suggested that he thinks it's a pretty bad idea since it dilutes your efforts, resulting in competing with yourself .... different language sites are, of course, a different matter.

 

Another good way of using this functionality would be to separate out different product lines into separate web stores (optimised for a specific product area) while managing the customers, orders, payments and inventory activities with a single administration view.

 

Paul

[OC2PS]

I think I agree with everything you have said, Paul

[El Patron]

All of you that have questions about support for multiple shops, READ THIS

 

For all of you out there who need multiple shop support - PrestaShop does not currently offer it

Multi-Shop support is not even in a beta phase as of now, it will require serious effort and alot of time for the PrestaShop Dev Team to develop this feature.

There is also no Multi-Shop enabling module, nor do I expect one to be developed any time soon. PS's hooks render it almost impossible to create a module to enable multiple shops in a modular fashion.

Either way, the PrestaShop Dev Team is spending alot of time making PrestaShop 1.1 bug-free, I don't expect this feature to be available any time soon.

 

If you want this feature, voice your request in the Feature Request Tool located within the Bug Tracker, as the solution would be changes to CORE PrestaShop files, not a module. We do not need yet another thread asking for multi-shop support on this forum.

 

 

--Kevin Klika

 

For 1.4 users (we are retrofitting for pre 1.4)

we solved this issue.

http://www.etiendas.co/en/etiendas-prestashop-modules/27-prestashop-multishop-mulltidomain.html

 

We hope you like our work.

 

Cheers, Fred

[El Patron]

Our module does pretty much everything you could want in a non-invasive no-core change module. Obviously the core changes to support MultiShop in 1.5 is going to be a real good thing...but for people that want this sort of functionality now...we feel that our solution will get you most of the way...and our modules, because they work and require little to no intervention by us, are priced the lowest on the planet.

MultiShop PrestaShop 1.4 Pro

Edited June 23, 2012 by elpatron (see edit history)

[wisknowtech]

hey

 

my First store url is: http://www.wisknowtech.com/prestashop ...This one is working fine...and we added the URL and shop in Prestashop multistore setting

... my multi store url is: http://www.wisknowte...p/onlinestore2/

but this url is not working ..got error...Server Error in Application "WISKNOWTECH.COM"

HTTP Error 404.0 - Not Found

The resource you are looking for has been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

 

i was change the setting of SEO & URL Friendly url is enable..but second store is not working.....please give me solution....

[El Patron]

For 1.4 users (we are retrofitting for pre 1.4)

we solved this issue.

http://www.etiendas.co/en/etiendas-prestashop-modules/27-prestashop-multishop-mulltidomain.html

 

We hope you like our work.

 

Cheers, Fred

 

This module was retired after 1.5 native PrestaShop MultiStore introduced,  i.e. I did not carry forward into 1.5 and higher.

 

Then by popular demand by previous clients who migrate to native MS and my own experiences, well we created magic, now add domains without native.  This is for shop managers that want to simply multiples same content across multiple countries, regions using 'best' SEO signal.

International SEO MultiShop PRO

and then we rode the curve to allow your content on any domain to 1) create pure content localization 2) and improve visitor experience 

International Language Detect & SEO Friendly URL

 

Happy localizing, el

Edited May 21, 2016 by El Patron (see edit history)

[El Patron]

Our module does pretty much everything you could want in a non-invasive no-core change module. Obviously the core changes to support MultiShop in 1.5 is going to be a real good thing...but for people that want this sort of functionality now...we feel that our solution will get you most of the way...and our modules, because they work and require little to no intervention by us, are priced the lowest on the planet.

MultiShop PrestaShop 1.4 Pro

 

 

This module was retired after 1.5 native PrestaShop MultiStore introduced,  i.e. I did not carry forward into 1.5 and higher.

 

Then by popular demand by previous clients who migrate to native MS and my own experiences, well we created magic, now add domains without native.  This is for shop managers that want to simply multiples same content across multiple countries, regions using 'best' SEO signal.

International SEO MultiShop PRO

and then we rode the curve to allow your content on any domain to 1) create pure content localization 2) and improve visitor experience 

International Language Detect & SEO Friendly URL

 

Happy localizing, el

 

 

Hey mom, look what we did!  MultiShop Pro Re-Written for PrestaShop v1.6.0.9 - and higher

 

 

Rewrote complete new interface, click image for details.

Happy day, el

[delphan]

Hi,

 

I'm starting from a single url Prestashop. (with one gTLD .com),

 

and would like to evolve to:

- .be (targetted in webmastertools for Belgium)

- .nl (targetted in webmastertools for Holland)

- .fr (targetted in webmastertools for France)

- .com (targetted in webmastertools for all English speaking countries)

 

How about my current SEO value built with the .com?

Will I loose all that for the .be, .nl, ...  ?

I mean will the .be, .nl, ... have to start from zero?

 

I also read that you can redirect all to the main URL (.com) In that case what does the customer see?

He sees www.domain.be/en/category/product or www.domain.com/en/category/product  ?

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[El Patron]

Hi,

 

I'm starting from a single url Prestashop. (with one gTLD .com),

 

and would like to evolve to:

- .be (targetted in webmastertools for Belgium)

- .nl (targetted in webmastertools for Holland)

- .fr (targetted in webmastertools for France)

- .com (targetted in webmastertools for all English speaking countries)

 

How about my current SEO value built with the .com?

Will I loose all that for the .be, .nl, ...  ?

I mean will the .be, .nl, ... have to start from zero?

 

I also read that you can redirect all to the main URL (.com) In that case what does the customer see?

He sees www.domain.be/en/category/product or www.domain.com/en/category/product  ?

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

You current .com would not lose any juice.

 

you will not start from scratch for .be/.nl/.ccTLD's because now you are targeting country so that is good for search organics

 

If you were to redirect the ccTLD's to .com, then you will be penalized for duplicate content...all will be lost.

[trevorgilligan]

Hey @ElPatron , Can your module help with this issue... I have MainShop.com/a & MainShop.com/b , i then have b.com and a.com - both redirecting to mainshop.com/a and mainshop.com/b . Works perfect for mainshop.com/a & mainshop.com/b , however, when i use a.com or b.com - customer cannot log in , add to cart.. does your module address this? Thank you for all your help to date!