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Sparrow
Crystal Sky
Premium Member
join:2002-12-03
Sachakhand

Sparrow

Premium Member

ASP.net webstore not mobile friendly

Frankly, I'm not even sure what to ask. I've been using a Microsoft ASP.net / (SharePoint 2010) site since 2006 for a small business. I would assume due to the age of the site, it has held its own in search results for my product.

However, in a couple weeks, Google's organic search (what's left of it), will knock my site off the first and second page because it is not "mobile friendly".
Example:
»searchengineland.com/goo ··· e-217399
»www.business2community.c ··· 01193149

I need to correct this in SharePoint 2010 to enable "Mobile view", but am forced to sign in to Office365 online to manage the website because SharePoint Designer keeps giving me "Server cannot complete request" / "Object moved, etc..." error.

I have no idea where to start and have simply used Office365 to build the site. Have searched high and low for information, but coming up null.

If this sounds vague, it is... I am lost. The site DOES come up under "Recent sites", but covered for privacy reasons in the screenshot.

cowboyro
Premium Member
join:2000-10-11
CT

cowboyro

Premium Member

You're using Sharepoint - the wrong tool. Sharepoint is good for allowing people in a corporate environment to add a couple of pages and content without any design knowledge.
Consider building a real website.

Sparrow
Crystal Sky
Premium Member
join:2002-12-03
Sachakhand

Sparrow

Premium Member

said by cowboyro:

You're using Sharepoint - the wrong tool. Sharepoint is good for allowing people in a corporate environment to add a couple of pages and content without any design knowledge.
Consider building a real website.

I realize that and do have two other ecommerce websites, however, this is the oldest site and still brings in 75% of my sales.

There is an option in SharePoint to enable Mobile view and that is all I need to do for the moment. I need to be able to OPEN SharePoint and that is my main request now.

mansplainer
join:2001-11-01
Charleston, SC

1 recommendation

mansplainer to Sparrow

Member

to Sparrow
Have you tried asking in the O365 forums?
»community.office365.com/ ··· ult.aspx

Sparrow
Crystal Sky
Premium Member
join:2002-12-03
Sachakhand

Sparrow

Premium Member

said by mansplainer:

Have you tried asking in the O365 forums?
»community.office365.com/ ··· ult.aspx

Thank you for that. Yes, I did post there, but have not yet received a response. However, there are other links that may explain the difficulty I'm having:
»community.office365.com/ ··· 450.aspx - Since the account is 9 years old, we're grandfathered in for the next 2 years, but little explanation other than that. MS is wordy, but says very little.

Anytime MS makes changes to this platform, it's a nightmare. I would love to dump the site completely, but it's taken too long for it to climb its way up search engines and if we lose the current positioning, we'll be dead in the water.

darcilicious
Cyber Librarian
Premium Member
join:2001-01-02
Forest Grove, OR

darcilicious

Premium Member

Maybe I'm missing something but how would dumping SharePoint but using a better platform for your website cause you to lose your search ranking? No one is suggesting you dump the *website*.

Sparrow
Crystal Sky
Premium Member
join:2002-12-03
Sachakhand

Sparrow

Premium Member

We are going to have to dump it... Microsoft will be ending all SharePoint public websites in March 2009. We will have to migrate to another host before that time.
»support.microsoft.com/en ··· /3027254

It was never a good platform for a public facing website, but it's the one that caught on. The .net (MS SharePoint website) leaves our .com in the dust.

Edit to add: Fixing all the broken urls that will naturally occur during a migration and even if we manage to put up a 301 page, we will lose ranking.

darcilicious
Cyber Librarian
Premium Member
join:2001-01-02
Forest Grove, OR

1 recommendation

darcilicious

Premium Member

Ah, I didn't realize that it was a hosted solution

mansplainer
join:2001-11-01
Charleston, SC

mansplainer to Sparrow

Member

to Sparrow
Wouldn't you be keeping the same URL for the new site?

Sparrow
Crystal Sky
Premium Member
join:2002-12-03
Sachakhand

Sparrow

Premium Member

said by mansplainer:

Wouldn't you be keeping the same URL for the new site?

Yes, of course, but there will be problems:

For example, if we choose GoDaddy (we currently use MelbourneIT)

"The address for the homepage for a GoDaddy Website Builder website can be set to use your domain, just as with an Office 365 website homepage. But the URL format of other GoDaddy Website Builder pages is different from Office 365 website pages. People won’t be able to get to your GoDaddy Website Builder pages using the same URL that they did for your Office 365 website pages.

You also can’t add HTTP 301 (Moved Permanently) redirects from Office 365 website-formatted URLs to GoDaddy-formatted URLs."

"This might be important for your website’s search result rankings. That’s because Google and Bing use links between websites to help determine search result ranking. In addition, you might need to fix some broken links. For example, if Website A has “deep links” to Website B’s “About Us” (b.com/about-us) page, then after Website B migrates from Office 365 to GoDaddy, Website A’s hyperlink will be broken (it will return a 404 error) because the new “About Us” page on the GoDaddy website will have an .html file extension."

»support.office.com/en-za ··· ddyNotes

mansplainer
join:2001-11-01
Charleston, SC

mansplainer

Member

OK so you are not using your own .com domain name for the site.

Chubbzie
join:2014-02-11
Greenville, NC
Hitron CDA3
(Software) OpenBSD + pf

Chubbzie to Sparrow

Member

to Sparrow
said by Sparrow:

I need to correct this in SharePoint 2010 to enable "Mobile view", but am forced to sign in to Office365 online to manage the website because SharePoint Designer keeps giving me "Server cannot complete request" / "Object moved, etc..." error.

Have you ever successfully used SP Designer with your site?

Sparrow
Crystal Sky
Premium Member
join:2002-12-03
Sachakhand

Sparrow to mansplainer

Premium Member

to mansplainer
said by mansplainer:

OK so you are not using your own .com domain name for the site.

Yes we are. We've owned the domain name for 9 years, both the .net and the .com. SharePoint is an ASP.net application, which causes the problem when migrating: »msdn.microsoft.com/en-us ··· 71).aspx
Sparrow

Sparrow to Chubbzie

Premium Member

to Chubbzie
said by Chubbzie:

Have you ever successfully used SP Designer with your site?

Yes, a few times 2 years ago when Microsoft made updates to the platform. Had no need for it before running into the mobile view problem.

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling which cleared the problem for some people, but hasn't worked here.

Chubbzie
join:2014-02-11
Greenville, NC

Chubbzie

Member

Have you checked to make sure Designer is allowed through your firewall(s) or any security software in use on your system?

Sparrow
Crystal Sky
Premium Member
join:2002-12-03
Sachakhand

1 edit

Sparrow

Premium Member

said by Chubbzie:

Have you checked to make sure Designer is allowed through your firewall(s) or any security software in use on your system?

It's allowed, but found something else. Have Groove disabled everywhere and that may be creating the problem. Not sure if the two are still linked, but having a late lunch and will check in a bit.
Thanks.

Edit to add: Groove was not the problem...
Sparrow

Sparrow

Premium Member

Well, we found the solution - there is none. Although there is an option to enable mobile view through the 365 Portal: Sites > Site Settings > Site Actions > Manage Site Features > and ACTIVATE: Mobile Browser View (Provide document library and other lists in team site with mobile view for smartphone browsers.) the tools simply do not work:

Posted in the MS Community Forum:
Msft's mobile tools just don't work. You'll have to use a 3rd party theme such as bindtuning's bootstrap theme and even then some of the web parts etc will introduce fixed widths you'll have to adjust for.
Example here: »365new.webbrewers.com/te ··· ome.aspx

So, other than redirecting all the .net's traffic to the .com's through urls in the product pages, will give the Bootstrap theme a whirl since that appears to be only current option available. Will have to compromise design to satisfy Google's new mobile algorithm in order to save the ship from sinking on the 21st.

Will migrate slowly and hope for the best over the next 2 years.

Chubbzie
join:2014-02-11
Greenville, NC
Hitron CDA3
(Software) OpenBSD + pf

Chubbzie

Member

said by Sparrow:

Will migrate slowly and hope for the best over the next 2 years.

Good luck! In regards to your search rankings, have you contacted any SEO experts to see what they would advise moving forward?

Sparrow
Crystal Sky
Premium Member
join:2002-12-03
Sachakhand

Sparrow

Premium Member

said by Chubbzie:

Good luck! In regards to your search rankings, have you contacted any SEO experts to see what they would advise moving forward?

Thank you.
No. Have spent many hours researching SEO strategies and have managed to maintain 1st and top of 2nd page organic search results (depending on search query). Five years ago, we were the second listing on the first page. With the advent of PPC and a 5 week absence because of Superstorm Sandy in late 2012, we dropped to about the 10th page. It took us a solid year to regain the 1st page (toward the end) or top of page 2. We can't afford "experts".

What is going to kill us is not being able to use a 301 redirect because of the .aspx.

Chubbzie
join:2014-02-11
Greenville, NC
Hitron CDA3
(Software) OpenBSD + pf

Chubbzie

Member

said by Sparrow:

not being able to use a 301 redirect because of the .aspx.

My apologies, I'm not exactly following the inability of a server-side 301 via aspx?

Sparrow
Crystal Sky
Premium Member
join:2002-12-03
Sachakhand

Sparrow

Premium Member

said by Chubbzie:

My apologies, I'm not exactly following the inability of a server-side 301 via aspx?

Partially explained above:
»Re: ASP.net webstore not mobile friendly

As an example, if we switched to GoDaddy, the 301 will not work:
»support.office.com/en-us ··· ddyNotes

Chubbzie
join:2014-02-11
Greenville, NC

1 recommendation

Chubbzie

Member

How does Google's search engine interpret A records or CNAME records from DNS? Does O365 have the ability to insert your own code (such as vbscript, c#, etc.)?

Sparrow
Crystal Sky
Premium Member
join:2002-12-03
Sachakhand

Sparrow

Premium Member

said by Chubbzie:

How does Google's search engine interpret A records or CNAME records from DNS?

Honestly do not know, but will research.
said by Chubbzie:

Does O365 have the ability to insert your own code (such as vbscript, c#, etc.)?

Yes, but only through SharePoint Designer which I cannot currently access. Sent a message to MS Support with their response from 2 years ago, when we were still able to access SharePoint. Since we had this problem previously, but MS Support was able to correct it, hopefully their old response will give them the key to unlocking the current problem.

mansplainer
join:2001-11-01
Charleston, SC

mansplainer to Sparrow

Member

to Sparrow
said by Sparrow:

Yes we are. We've owned the domain name for 9 years, both the .net and the .com. SharePoint is an ASP.net application, which causes the problem when migrating: »msdn.microsoft.com/en-us ··· 71).aspx

Sorry, I am not understanding your response and I am intimately familiar with both ASP.NET and SharePoint.

If you build a new web site using the exact same domain name, am I thinking the same thing darcilicious said: "Maybe I'm missing something but how would dumping SharePoint but using a better platform for your website cause you to lose your search ranking? No one is suggesting you dump the *website*."

Based on your "yes we are" response, you should be able to host a brand new non-SharePoint web site somewhere else using the exact same FQDN, and not loose your search ranking.

Sparrow
Crystal Sky
Premium Member
join:2002-12-03
Sachakhand

Sparrow

Premium Member

said by mansplainer:

Sorry, I am not understanding your response and I am intimately familiar with both ASP.NET and SharePoint.

OK, that is the first good news I've read in a week.

From my understanding, which is in fact limited, there appears to be a problem when migrating an ASP.net site because of the difference in the way the urls are handled. I am not saying it is the best option, but I have a Weebly pro account that I have used for several years and would happily move the .net website to Weebly if there is certainty in not experiencing problems (that cannot be fixed) in how the urls are handled.

I also believe a 301 redirect cannot be used, but again, perhaps I am misinformed.

Again, maybe I have blown this out of proportion or perhaps focusing on the wrong end of the problem.

To simplify, I can literally "copy and paste" everything from the existing .net website to Weebly or any other host.

Our domains are registered with MelbourneIT since 2006.

The ASP.net website:
Name Server 1ns1.bdm.microsoftonline.com
Name Server 2ns2.bdm.microsoftonline.com

and the Weebly website:
Name Server 3ns3.easyclouddns.net
Name Server 1ns1.easyclouddns.net
Name Server 2ns2.easyclouddns.net

If I can in just about "copy and paste" everything from one host to another, change the name servers and redelegate the DNS, is this not going to affect how the .aspx urls are handled and how they are read by Google's bots and in turn affect the organic search ranking? I understand Google doesn't care if it is .aspx or .html, but what do I need to do to make the transition as smooth as possible?

mansplainer
join:2001-11-01
Charleston, SC

mansplainer

Member

So in ASP.NET web sites, the page URLs (generally speaking) all end in ".aspx".

If you were to migrate to a pure HTML site or use PHP, you're saying that now the pages will all end in .html or .php and this will now affect how Google ranks your site because it sees these as new pages? SEO is far from my area of expertise.

Note that your home page, regardless of platform used after migration, will always be accessible as »www.yoursite.com/, and I would think Google would still see this the same way.

Sparrow
Crystal Sky
Premium Member
join:2002-12-03
Sachakhand

Sparrow

Premium Member

said by mansplainer:

If you were to migrate to a pure HTML site or use PHP, you're saying that now the pages will all end in .html or .php and this will now affect how Google ranks your site because it sees these as new pages? SEO is far from my area of expertise.

Yes and that will be what we will have to rely on.

Just finished speaking with a tech from Weebly and no matter which way we slice it, we will lose "some" ranking with the migration, but hopefully it won't be too bad and we can count it as a minor loss in comparison with keeping the website on 365/SharePoint that cannot be made mobile friendly. Either we lose ranking when Google's mobile algorithm goes live or we lose temporary ranking through the migration. The migration seems the lesser of two evils.

If we copy all our SEO metadata (keywords, phrases, etc...) verbatim, keep the page names intact and make absolutely sure our backlinks stay connected and correct what breaks, hopefully our losses will be minimal. The backlinks are the backbone for SEO optimization.

Started a test site already and it will take about a week or so to get her up and running and if design was the key factor, looks better than the ASP.net site already, but design being the least of our concerns, getting that out of the way first so we can focus on the important stuff. Once the migration is complete, I'll follow up here to see if my initial concerns become moot.

I do want to thank everyone who added to the thread and sincerely appreciate your questions and comments. Every little bit helps.

mansplainer
join:2001-11-01
Charleston, SC

1 recommendation

mansplainer

Member

Sounds like you are on the right path, good luck with your project!
Jon2015
join:2015-05-04
united kingd

1 recommendation

Jon2015 to Sparrow

Member

to Sparrow
Hi Sparrow, maybe a late response but to edit your office 365 public website you will need to download share-point designer 2013 as Microsoft does not allow editing public website with SharePoint designer 2010 anymore. I do not know the reason but found out after many trials and posting on the internet. The SharePoint designer 2010 had more robust function which is not available in 2013.

Going to the issue of 301 redirection. I am on the same situation hole. I have searched low and high for a solution as I don't want to lose my search ranking. I have used office small business and I guess you know the issues during the first migration then. Yet another migration.. have you found any solution to the 301 redirect.. Microsoft said you can do redirects with wix but I don want to use wix and have myself tied down again or experience the same issue I had with Microsoft. I am a bit sceptical now with all this providers.

I will IM you on this if okay just to follow up
Jon2015

1 recommendation

Jon2015 to Sparrow

Member

to Sparrow
Thank you for coming back to me. What we and probably many other small business has suffered under Microsoft cannot be put exactly in words. I have had to redesign my site two times from scratch under MS. The migration tools on the last change was not good enough and you still had do a total tweaking of the website when you move it.

Now to the main issue my page rank has not gone down as well but I think its a gradual thing and it will most likely affect mobile search not desktop search. This is my own personal believe.

I have a little IT background which has helped me all through this period, but this time am completely lost as to which provider to use and be able to redirect my .net URLS. I was considering building an ASP.NET website and host it somewhere else but I cannot trust MS enough. one day they will wake up and say 'oh we don't support .net sites any more'.

As per losing rank on search engine that will surely happen without a 301 redirect. Their will be lots of 404 error pages and in my case its going to be loads of pages with this error if not successfully redirected.

I am still researching on this, to see if their is a server side code that will allow a 301 redirection of the .net URL to a different URL like .html on another host but maintaining the same domain name.

If this is not possible then cause Microsoft for not providing any support on this...

I will update you if I find something but I suggest you keeping looking for this solution also .....

I will try again the MS forums.. they have never being helpfully but I give it a go anyway..