One of our clients came to us with an issue they were facing on SuiteCommerce with a social media preview (open graph) on split domains sharing a website record.
Open graph tags are meta tags that allow the website to give the social media software instructions on the image, link, description, and title for the preview of the content.
Short Answer:
On SuiteCommerce, this can’t be split. On SuiteCommerce Advanced (SCA), it can be split in the source code.
Problem:
This customer has two domains that share the same website setup record. This means that both the Site Management Tools (SMT) and website setup records are shared. The SEO Page generator builds the SEO content based on the SMT. So, either to adjust the open graph, it has to be set in the source code or in SMT.
Technical Description of What is Happening:
SuiteCommerce allows us to override source code, leveraging extensions to use JavaScript to perform the overriding of source code. This allows us to skip the need for SuiteCommerce Advanced, which gives us the ability to modify the source code files directly. While I was doing some troubleshooting, I found that Google crawlers are unable to trigger any JavaScript, so it is only able to read the source code. Currently, the extension is creating the metadata, but it is overriding the source code via JavaScript, so the Google crawlers aren’t getting to it. They are only reading the initial page generated and not even proceeding to the JavaScript stage, which all users experience when going to a website. I got a false positive with one of the testing tools because it looks like some of the testing tools read JavaScript. But ultimately, it failed the tests due to the fact that the meta Open Graph tags are getting created with JavaScript to override the source code.
Open Graph testing tool:
The domain/ URL is dynamic, though. So this does swap.
Option 1. Convert to SuiteCommerce Advanced
Your first option would be to switch to SuiteCommerce Advanced; however, this does not make sense for every company. In fact, we often recommend SuiteCommerce over SuiteCommerce Advanced, with few exceptions for specific use cases, this being a potential one. Contact us to learn if switching to SuiteCommerce Advanced is the right option for you!
Option 2. Migrate the One Website to BigCommerce
Our team also implements BigCommerce!
Pros:
- You can isolate one entirely, meaning it would have an open graph
- Better marketing capabilities with a B2C website. BigCommerce plays well with B2C/B2B blends. Becoming my favorite for B2C/B2B site combos or B2C-only sites.
- Easy-to-maintain content with non-technical resources
Cons:
- The effort to integrate and set up
Option 3. Leverage the Same Open Graph for Both Domains
If you leave it as is, then I would recommend you insert the metadata via the Site management tools homepage edit of settings (which both domains share). Make the content more generic so that it would be OK if either domain shared the image, title, or description.
How to Choose an Option
Not sure if you need to switch from SuiteCommerce to SuiteCommerce Advanced, implement BigCommerce, or leverage the sale Open Graph for Both Domains? Contact us to talk to one of our consultants about your use case and learn which of the options presented in this article is right for you!
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