How to Choose the Best Ecommerce Platform for SEO (2024)

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Itโ€™s no secret that search engine optimization is essential to find new customers, increase conversions, and build your ecommerce brand.

Over 37% of all traffic sent to ecommerce stores starts at a search engine, and more than two-thirds of all clicks go to the top five results on the page, so itโ€™s rather important to optimize your online store.

But what about the foundation of your store? Do ecommerce platforms like Shopify, Bigcommerce, and Squarespace play a role in your search engine results? Absolutely! Thatโ€™s why we want to show you how to choose the best ecommerce platform for SEO.ย 

How can your ecommerce platform impact SEO?

Most ecommerce and web design platforms offer a variety of features that help you optimize your ecommerce store for search engines like Google and Bing. But considering that SEO involves many factorsโ€” user experience, speed, meta tags, and moreโ€”you'll need to find a platform that excels with all of them.

Unfortunately, some ecommerce platforms only have the most basic, automated SEO tools, leaving you to compete with other brands that have access to more advanced tools. 

For example, you may find that your ecommerce platform autofills SEO metadata based on your product title. Unfortunately, most customers donโ€™t search for the creative name you gave your product, but rather something specific like โ€œyoga mats for tall people.โ€ So, you need an ecommerce platform that overrides the automated metadata and lets you customize independent SEO elements to target what people are searching for!

With some free ecommerce platforms, you have no way to override this or you're forced to pay extra to get the best SEO features.

Instead of realizing feature limitations after youโ€™ve already uploaded hundreds of products, itโ€™s prudent to choose the best ecommerce platform for SEO right from the beginning. 

Our Research Methodology to Find the Best Ecommerce Platform for SEO

To locate the best ecommerce platform for SEO, we completed rigorous research, starting with the most popular platforms in the US and Europe. Based on BuiltWithโ€™s data, we ended up with this list:

Wix
Magento
Shopify
WooCommerce
BigCommerce
osCommerce
Weebly
SquareSpace
Volusion
PrestaShop
3DCart
ZenCart
GoDaddy
MoonFruit
1&1
BigCartel

We then tested and compared all of them for 14 key factors we believe are most important for ecommerce SEO.

14 Key Factors for Optimal Ecommerce SEO

Based on over a decade of ecommerce platform research and reviews, along with feedback from seasoned online store owners, we found that these factors play the most important roles in how well ecommerce stores rank in the SERPs (search engine results pages):

  1. Custom Navigation Links
  2. Custom Page Titles
  3. Custom Page URLs
  4. Custom Meta Descriptions
  5. Custom Image ALT Tags
  6. Custom H1 Headings
  7. Canonical URLs
  8. Integrated Blogging Features
  9. Social Sharing buttons
  10. Auto XML Sitemaps
  11. Custom domain names
  12. Custom IP addresses
  13. 301 redirects
  14. Robots Noindex Capabilities

We then weighted each factor based on its correlation to increased Google rankings from the Moz Search Engine Ranking Factors study.

While researching ecommerce platforms for your online business, you can use these ranking factors to see if each ecommerce platform offers features to optimize each factor. 

How Did Each Ecommerce Platform Score for SEO? 

Based on our in-depth analysis, we ranked the ecommerce platforms, and hereโ€™s what we found:

Platform NameLogoSEO Score
Shopify98
WooCommerce97
3DCart95
Magento95
BigCommerce91
SquareSpace91
Volusion88
Weebly75
Wix75
GoDaddy60
MoonFruit51
PrestaShop40
BigCartel30
1&120
ZenCart15
osCommerce15

Reviewing our Results

With scores of 98 and 97, respectively, Shopify and WooCommerce are the best ecommerce platforms for SEO.

They offer optimization tools for almost all the 14 ranking factors, with Shopify showing advanced ecommerce features for independent navigation links, page titles, and URLs. You can also expect everything from 301 redirects to social sharing buttons, and blogging management to independent image alt tags.ย 

Try Shopify for only $1 for the first month!

Shopify has begun offering a special deal for sellers who sign up for a new Shopify plan. That deal? Start a 3-day free trial and enjoy your first month of Shopify for $1. Learn more about the free trial here.

This offer is is now available on all standard plans: Starter, Basic, Shopify, and Advanced.

WooCommerce also looks like a strong contender, but thatโ€™s to be expected considering it runs on the open-source WordPress content management system, which provides full control over your SEO settings and WordPress site files. Shopify, on the other hand, is a subscription SaaS (software as a service) so it was surprising to see such a strong performance for SEO. 

Here are some other thoughts/results to consider when trying to find the best ecommerce platform for SEO:

  • Magento (also now known as Adobe Ecommerce) is yet another open-source platform, so it lets you maintain control over SEO factors like independent links, URLs, and headings. Just remember that Magento has a steeper learning curve than most platforms on this list. 
  • Shift4Shop (formerly 3dcart) came out of our test with a strong score as well, mainly due to its site map builder, custom URLs, and 301 redirection tools. 
  • We recommend BigCommerce and Squarespace for those interested in the simplicity of a subscription ecommerce platform while still maintaining control over most key SEO factors. 
  • Weebly, Wix, and GoDaddy have many SEO features, but most of the optimization is automated, or you have to pay for an extra plugin to create an advanced SEO environment. 
  • We recommend staying away from any platform that scored lower than 60 in our test, as this means youโ€™re severely limited in how you manage search engine factors. 

The Key SEO Factors (Explained) 

Below, weโ€™ll give you a definition of each SEO ranking factor, a real-world example, and our findings on how the top platforms help with optimization for each SEO factor. 

SEO Weight: 10/10

custom navigation links in the best ecommerce platform for SEO

The navigation link is the text that appears for your products and product categories in the navigation menu of your site.

Some ecommerce platforms automatically generate the navigation links in your menus using the same names as the products and product categories in your online store. For SEO purposes, itโ€™s preferable to have independent control of the navigation links.

Example:

While you may wish to give a product the name โ€œSony Bravia KDL50W8 LED HD 1080p 3D Smart TV, 50โ€ณ with Freeview/Freesat HD & 2x 3D Glasses, Silverโ€ (for keyword optimization purposes), you donโ€™t want the name to appear this clunky in your navigation menu!

Notable Findings From Our Ecommerce Platform SEO Testing

  • Just about all the major ecommerce platforms offer independent navigation links. 
  • Some aren't as friendly as you might want, but you can typically rename the menu items to whatever you need.

2. Custom Page Titles

SEO Weight: 10/10

custom page titles

The Page Title is the text that appears in the tab section at the top of the browser. It is also shown when a user bookmarks the page or saves it as a shortcut to their desktop. 

bookmark

There are strong SEO benefits for Page Titles that include a key search term, particularly when the search term or keyword gets placed at the beginning of the Page Title.

Some ecommerce platforms automatically generate page titles using the same names as the products and product categories in your online store, which is not ideal.

Example:

You may have a dress listed under the product name of โ€œRubyโ€. It would be preferable for the page title to include a description of the product as close as possible to how your prospective customers search for it online, like: โ€œSleeveless Maxi Dress โ€“ Rubyโ€. 

Notable Findings From Our Ecommerce Platform SEO Testing

  • Two of the platforms included in the study do not offer full functionality for independent page titles. 
  • The Shift4Shop (formerly 3dcart) system has tools for adjusting the title for your homepage, but it gets more complicated when working with the individual page title.
  • About four other platforms, including Big Cartel, have the functionality but not the ease-of-use. For instance, you definitely have to know something about coding or go out and find a developer to complete this simple task for you.

3. Independent Page URLs

SEO Weight: 9/10

independent page urls

The Page URL is the location of the page as shown in the address bar of the browser. Page URLs with key search terms have an SEO advantage and look better in the search engine results โ€“ also giving them a CTR (click-through rate) advantage.

Some ecommerce platforms automatically generate page URLs using the same names as the products and product categories in your online store. For SEO purposes, itโ€™s preferable to have custom control of the page URLs. After all, you're going to hurt your page rankings if your URLs are too long or irrelevant. Furthermore, you might have an entirely different title than what needs to be shown in the URL.

Example:

Letโ€™s say you sell a jacket listed under the product name of โ€œDakotaโ€. Itโ€™s preferable for the page URL to include a description of the jacket similar to how potential customers might search for it online: โ€œhttp://www.YourShop.com/double-breasted-wool-coat-Dakotaโ€.

Notable Findings From Our Ecommerce Platform SEO Testing

  • It looks like all reputable ecommerce platforms let you change the page URL in some way. 
  • However, some of them, like Magento, are far too complicated for performing such a simple task.

4. Custom Meta Descriptions

SEO Weight: 9/10

custom meta descriptions

The Meta Description is the text that appears under your listing title in the Google results. While the description does not directly impact your position in the search results, it can have a considerable impact on whether search visitors click on your listing instead of one of your competitors.

So, in reality, the meta description does affect your search ranking, since more people are going to click through, showing Google that your site is popular and relevant.

Some ecommerce platforms automatically use the description or content shown on the page to create a default Meta description, without giving you the option to independently control the text that appears with your Google listing.

The most suitable information for a visitor comparing your site on Google will be quite different from the text you want to display on the page once they have arrived at your ecommerce website.

 Example:

An effective Meta Description should show the user that you are relevant to their search, convince them that your offer differs from others, and includes a strong call to action.

Notable Findings From Our Ecommerce Platform SEO Testing

  • ZenCart has the ability to include meta descriptions, but it lacks the full customization required for most stores.
  • BigCartel bases the meta descriptions on your product pages, once again removing the full customization aspect.
  • OsCommerce offers this feature, but only as an additional add-on, or you can change the meta description with some manual coding.

5. Custom Image ALT Tags

SEO Weight: 3/10

image alt tags

An ALT tag is text added to a product image to describe the image to search engines and bots that are unable to comprehend media in any other way.

While the ALT tag does not have a particularly strong correlation to your ranking in the Google search results, it may have a strong impact on the imageโ€™s appearance in Googleโ€™s Image Search results, which can bring in additional traffic.

Example:

Some shopping cart/checkout software will automatically assign the product name to the ALT tag. If your product names are not descriptive of the product type (e.g. โ€œDanielle Dressโ€) this could reduce your visibility for potential customers using Google Image Search to find suitable products. In this case, an ALT tag such as โ€œSleeveless Bodycon dress โ€“ Danielleโ€ might be preferable.

Notable Findings From Our Ecommerce Platform SEO Testing

  • GoDaddy doesn't have a way to include an alt image tag in its website builder.
  • PrestaShop allows for alt tags, but the best functionality comes from the app editor. 
  • ZenCart and OsCommerce offer this feature only with limited customization or as an add-on.

6. Custom H1 Headings

SEO Weight: 3/10

custom h1 headings in the best ecommerce platform for SEO

The H1 tag typically gets designated as the main heading that appears on your product and category pages. There is a strong SEO advantage when your H1 tags are relevant to what people are searching for.

Example:

If you stock a product that matches a search term used, like โ€œLace Cocktail Dress,โ€ itโ€™s beneficial that the H1 heading/tag of your corresponding product page includes the same keyword.

Notable Findings From Our Ecommerce Platform SEO Testing

  • You can customize H1 tags in just about every ecommerce platform or website builder on the internet. 
  • Usually, this H1 tag gets generated the second you type in the name of your product. 

7. Canonical URLs

SEO Weight: 7/10

multiple urls

A Canonical URL is the original address of a page that may be found in more than one location.

Example:

It is not uncommon for the same product in an ecommerce store to be listed under multiple URLs. For example, a Childrenโ€™s Garden Swing could be listed within a category of โ€œToysโ€ and โ€œHome & Gardenโ€. This could result in the same product page appearing under two separate URLs, such as:

  • www.OnlineStore.com/shop/Toys/childrens-garden-swing
  • www.OnlineStore.com/shop/HomeandGarden/childrens-garden-swing

Search engines such as Google will view these URLs as two separate pages, both with identical content. Google does not look favorably on duplicated content, and this could prevent either page from ranking prominently in the search results. A site that contains a large amount of duplicated content also runs the risk of being penalized by Google.

To avoid this problem, Google provides the โ€œREL CANONICALโ€ tag which allows you to specify which URL should be regarded as the preferred version of the page, thereby preventing any duplicate content issues.

Notable Findings From Our Ecommerce Platform SEO Testing

  • The majority of the ecommerce platforms have some sort of canonical URL adjustment procedure. 
  • The only issue is that typically you have to make changes in the site files. For example, Shopify has instructions for accessing the layout theme file and adding some code to the canonical URL area.

8. Integrated Blogging Platforms

blog post tools

SEO Weight: 10/10

Apart from having pages on your site that look relevant for the search terms, the single most important factor that affects how prominently your site appears in Googleโ€™s search results is the number โ€“ and quality of โ€“ links pointing to your site.

Things have definitely changed since websites got in trouble for link swapping. However, Google still puts lots of weight on the idea that if internet users like a website, they'll start sharing and linking to it. Therefore, you're more likely to find the most reputable search results when sites have numerous inbound links.

It's not a perfect system, but when you start publishing quality, relevant content, you're more likely to get people interested in your products. And ideally, improved search rankings will follow.

Few sites have products that are so unique and newsworthy that other sites will want to link directly to your commercial pages. You are far more likely to attract external links by having a high-quality blog that contains topical, engaging, and shareable content marketing.

Notable Findings From Our Ecommerce Platform SEO Testing

  • Some of the ecommerce platforms do not include a blog as a standard feature. You are forced to either pay an additional premium or use an external blogging platform which may not replicate the exact branding or navigation of your online shop.
  • The best blogging tools for Magento (Adobe Commerce) come as extensions.
  • Both OSCommerce and Big Cartel are in the same boat. The Big Cartel documentation even says to link to your actual blog (on a separate domain), which is terrible advice from an SEO standpoint.

9. Social Sharing Buttons

SEO Weight: 8/10

social sharing buttons

Social sharing buttons offer easily recognizable icons that allow your visitors to share your site, products, and blog posts on the most popular social networks. Some even have buttons to subscribe for email marketing along with the social options.

Example:

Providing your visitors with a simple means of sharing your online content is an essential feature to help your digital marketing strategy and expose your products to prospective customers who are not already familiar with your brand.

Notable Findings From Our Ecommerce Platform SEO Testing

  • Some ecommerce platforms only provide this feature at an additional premium.
  • The majority of reputable ecommerce platforms offer social sharing in some way. 
  • Squarespace is a pretty simple website builder, but it has a quick tool for adding social sharing to all product pages.
  • WooCommerce, on the other hand, doesn't have social sharing built right in. You'll have to use a plugin or template to make it happen.
  • Most Shopify and Bigcommerce themes offer social sharing buttons.

10. Auto XML Sitemaps

SEO Weight: 9/10

sitemaps in the best ecommerce platform for SEO

An XML sitemap is a file located on your web server to help search engines find and index your content. As an example, you can view the XML sitemap of this blog here.

Note that the XML sitemap differs from an HTML sitemap, which is designed to help human visitors find the content on your website.

Example:

Maintaining an XML site for an ecommerce site, which could contain thousands of unique product pages, is not a task that you would want to perform manually. A good ecommerce platform will automatically generate an XML sitemap whenever a new page is added to, or removed from, your website.

Notable Findings From Our Ecommerce Platform SEO Testing

  • While most platforms do offer automated XML sitemaps, others only provide this as a premium add-on with additional pricing. 
  • The good news is that anyone can submit their XML sitemap to Google through the Google Webmaster Tools module. It's a little extra work, but the whole automated sitemap thing isn't all that necessary anymore. It's nice for beginners, though.

11. Custom Domain Names

custom domains in the best ecommerce platform for SEO

SEO Weight: 10/10

A domain name is a unique name by which your website is found on the internet. Your domain name will typically be the same as your business name.

Having a custom domain name is โ€“ undoubtedly โ€“ the single most important factor to consider for your ecommerce SEO strategy. Anything with a subdomain from your ecommerce platform looks unappealing to search engines and users. 

Notable Findings From Our Ecommerce Platform SEO Testing

  • While most ecommerce platforms will allow you to use a custom domain name, some only offer this as a premium feature and others at an additional cost. This can result in some business owners making the error of accepting a free branded subdomain when launching their online store. e.g. www.yourbusinessname.myshopify.com.
  • Not only could this make your business appear less professional, it also means that any inbound links pointing to your website will primarily benefit the platform provider, and not you!
  • In addition, should you ever decide to move from your current provider in the future, you will not be able to transfer the domain name and will, therefore, lose any link authority that you may have earned. 
  • You will also be unable to redirect visitors from the old domain to the new location of your website. This is a huge disadvantage.

I would strongly urge you to never consider using a domain name that is not exclusive to your business and registered in your own name. I would even go one step further and suggest that you register your domain name with a third-party domain registrar and not with the same company that hosts your shopping cart. It is never a good idea to place all of your eggs in one shopping basket ๐Ÿ™‚

12. Custom IP Addresses

SEO Weight: 2/10

An IP address is a unique number that represents the location of your website on the Internet. You could, for example, access a website via the domain name or with its IP address. People generally prefer to use easier-to-remember domain names as opposed to IP addresses.

On some hosted ecommerce platforms the same IP address may be allocated to multiple websites.

The potential disadvantages of sharing an IP address with another business are as follows:

  • Another website sharing the same IP address could affect the performance and reliability of your website. This could potentially cause your site to become unavailable or to suffer ranking drops on Google for performance-related issues.
  • If another website sharing your IP address behaves unethically, this could result in your website being blocked by spam filters or being penalized by Google for manipulative practices.

Notable Findings From Our Ecommerce Platform SEO Testing

  • Most of the hosted ecommerce platform providers do not provide you with your own IP address. Although they hopefully take steps to prevent another clientโ€™s activities negatively impacting your website. 
  • For all but the smallest businesses, we recommend a self-hosted ecommerce solution that allows you to use your own unique IP address. Self-hosted solutions include WooCommerce and Magento.

13. 301 redirects

SEO Weight: 8/10

redirect in the best ecommerce platform for SEO

A 301 redirection is a command used to redirect a browser or search engine from one URL to another.

Example:

Itโ€™s common for a product or even an entire product category to get removed from an online stores when it's no longer available. While the business owner could simply remove the product, or product category, from the online store, this runs the risk that another website (or even another page on your own site) could now be linking to a URL that no longer exists.

Apart from the fact that such a situation will cause an unwelcome โ€œ404 page not foundโ€ error, it also means that any external links pointing to the missing page are no longer able to pass any link authority. This could result in your website losing its ranking for certain key search terms on Google. So it's always wise to redirect such pages/URLs and to have an ecommerce platform that offers redirection as a feature.

Notable Findings From Our Ecommerce Platform SEO Testing

  • While most of the ecommerce platforms provide you with a feature to redirect any obsolete URLs to a new URL, others include this as a premium feature at an additional cost. 
  • For some platforms, it's really easy to complete a redirect. For instance, Shopify has a tool for it right in the dashboard. 
  • A platform like WooCommerce requires a plugin for this.

14. Robots Noindex Capabilities

robots in the best ecommerce platform for SEO

SEO Weight: 10/10

A robotx.txt file is a file located on your web server that informs a search engine which pages or sections of your website it should, or should not, index.

The depth to which a search engine will index your website is largely based on the authority your site has earned as a result of the number and quality of external links pointing to your site. As a general rule, the higher your Domain Authority, the more of your pages the search engine will crawl.

An Example:

For an ecommerce store that could potentially be listing several thousand products, it is preferable that the search engine crawls your product and category pages rather than folders containing scripts, images or data. This increases the chance of your products getting indexed by Google and also reduces the bandwidth used by your server.

Notable Findings From Our Ecommerce Platform SEO Testing

  • Most of the ecommerce platforms automatically generate a robots.txt file based on a set of standard assumptions about which folders you would prefer not be crawled. 
  • But what if you want to hide a page that isn't already blocked by the no index function? In that case, it's still possible with all of these ecommerce platforms. The only problem is that you either have to tap into the site files or get a plugin or app.

Other Features to Help Find the Best Ecommerce Platform for SEO

While we didnโ€™t include the following features in this study, you may also wish to consider these factors when figuring out the best ecommerce platform for SEO.

Most of these features are incredibly important for boosting your search engine rankings, but they have more to do with proactive content creation, where the quality of your content will be the deciding factor in how well they help with SEO. 

With that said, make sure your ecommerce platforms offer these features:

featured items

Showing popular or โ€œbest-sellingโ€ products on the home page of your site not only reduces the possibility of visitors bouncing from your home page, it could also gives a search ranking boost to the products featured.

Since the home page of a website is often the page with the highest link authority, any pages linked directly from the home page will, in turn, receive a higher proportion of any link authority passed to them from the homepage.

Product Reviews

customer reviews for the best ecommerce platform for SEO

One way to avoid duplicate content penalties on pages displaying similar products is to include unique product reviews or some other form of User Generated Content (UGC) on the product page. Product reviews are also viewed favorably by consumers when considering which product to buy.

search results in the best ecommerce platform for SEO

Having an internal search tool is essential for customers to locate products, blog posts, and other content.

Using a tool such as Google Analytics, you could then analyze the most popular terms searched within your site. This can help you determine how to best name your products and product categories and even choose the type of products that you may wish to stock in the future.

SEO features are not the only factors to think about when choosing an ecommerce platform for your business. You should also consider:

  • Cost (monthly ongoing platform costs, premium add-ons and transaction charges)
  • Ease of use (Complex platforms might require additional staff training costs)
  • Customer Support (If your site goes down at 3 AM on a Sunday before Christmas will someone be there to help you?)
  • Choice of Payment Gateways (Stripe, PayPal, Square, WorldPay, etc.)
  • Integration with your existing point of sale (and accounting software)
  • Scalability (will the platform grow with your business?)
  • Mobile Friendliness (shopping on mobile devices has become the norm)
  • Security (Will your customersโ€™ payment and contact details remain secure?)
  • Risk of Service Termination (Adobe, for instance, eventually acquired Magento, forcing all users to either leave or migrate to its new service)

Our Conclusion on the Best Ecommerce Platform for SEO

Choosing the best ecommerce platform for SEO is not a decision to take lightly. While you might be tempted to use the cheapest, easiest solution, you could regret that in the future.

If you later find that your inability to attract and convert visitors is restricted โ€“ not by the appeal of your products โ€“ but by the limited features of your ecommerce platform, you might wish you had spent more time researching the best solution before you invested time and money in a second-rate platform.

Here are out final thoughts on the best ecommerce platforms for SEO:

  • All of the ecommerce platforms that scored in the top positions of this study (Shopify, Shift4Shop (formerly 3dcart), Magento, and WooCommerce) are safe bets for most small to medium-sized ecommerce businesses. 
  • If you're using one of the other platforms and you'd like to switch to a more modern and well-optimized solution, Shopify makes it easy by walking you through the process.
  • On the other hand, some store owners prefer to use a well-supported, self-hosted, customizable, open-source solution such as WooCommerce, which offers a wide range of free or low-cost add-ons.
  • While Big Cartel did not receive the lowest score in this study, it did stand out as the platform for which most of the SEO features included in the study were not available even at additional cost.

If you have any thoughts or questions about finding the best ecommerce platform for SEO, let us know in the comments!

Joe Warnimont

Joe Warnimont is a Chicago-based writer who focuses on eCommerce tools, WordPress, and social media. When not fishing or practicing yoga, he's collecting stamps at national parks (even though that's mainly for children). Check out Joe's portfolio to contact him and view past work.

Comments 75 Responses

  1. Steve ways says:

    Yes, Shopify Website design enhancement works on the amount and nature of users to the Shopify store through organic search engines like Bing and Google. Shopify SEO Web optimization helps the search engine to index the website’s higher rank and gaining more trust and engagement from the visitors. Shopify SEO services are in demand and it helps to increase online business profit. Thanks for the blog from SynergyTop

  2. MehveลŸ Erkan says:

    Hi Bogdan,
    Thank you for this great article. I’ll have a question , if you have time to answer I preciate .
    I used to work with Magento1 . And now ฤฐt has to be upgraded to Magento2. But my developer suggested me to write a new website with the frame Laravel.. He says it will be custommade , light and easier to control.

    What do you think? Should I have this change ?
    Thanks in advance ,

    MehveลŸ

    1. Bogdan Rancea says:

      Hello MehveลŸ, that can be a good idea, but keep in mind that the website will need maintenance. So the developer should be able to help on long term, or you need to make sure that you can find someone with ease when you need help.

  3. Glynn says:

    Hi,
    Thank you for the article, however do you have the full breakdown of the scoring for each platform?
    I can see the total numbers for each platform but not a breakdown of how each scores for each point.
    Thanks

  4. Henry Jurk says:

    Thank you for sharing these amazing blog of e-commerce platform for SEO. It will provide the whole discussion regarding the How eCommerce platform can help in the SEO terms. It gives a basic idea which platform you should choose For SEO and why.

    1. Bogdan Rancea says:

      You’re welcome Henry!

  5. Alexandre Pรฉres says:

    Hello! Your article us was really important, a tossed bottle of totally unfounded and inaccurate information when it comes to ecommerce. Congratulations!
    I missed, not because I made a mistake, the focus here is SEO. But we could complement from the numerous comments of the article to associate in a new article the items: Database, scalable or not, and another item would be cost per benefit. What about? In addition to an update to the article, here is a suggestion. If it has already been written, please offer me your analysis and considerations.
    Thank you for your great site.

    1. Bogdan Rancea says:

      You’re welcome Alexandre! ๐Ÿ˜‰

  6. Mark Oakley says:

    What about not using any of them and hosting on a shared server like Liquidweb. What is best purely from the SEO perspective.
    Thanks
    Mark

  7. Rolands says:

    It is such a dilemma to choose the right platform for an e-commerce project. I have been studying various platforms for a lot of hours.
    But in the end, I think that I`ll go with the most popular one – Shopify

  8. Hanna Giang Anh says:

    I don’t see OpenCart in your list. Is there a mistake in here?

    1. Bogdan Rancea says:

      Weโ€™re mostly discussing platforms that are easy to use for beginners. Will try to add it at our next iteration. Thanks!


      Bogdan โ€“ Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com

      1. Ketan Singh says:

        what rank will you give to opencart . do think its not good for seo.
        Please let me know asap because my website is on opencart and i am thinking to switch it to magneto just because of seo friendly .

        Thanks
        Ketan Singh

        1. Bogdan Rancea says:

          Hello,

          I would suggest contacting a SEO expert before switching to Magento.

  9. Scott McKirahan says:

    Hi Danny,
    Good breakdown of the carts, but I’d have to disagree with your assessment of 3DCart on two counts. I’ve used almost every shopping cart on this list and have all of my own stores on 3DCart now – the main reason being its superior SEO to the others listed.

    For some reason, you have 3DCart listed as a shopping cart where you cannot customize the title tags of pages. That’s just plain wrong. You can definitely make the title tags of any page of your site whatever you want them to be. The home page, product pages, categories, resources articles and all blog articles have a place in Admin to assign whatever title tag you want to each individual page.

    The other thing I liked about 3DCart that was not available with practically every other shopping cart is the ability to place whatever you want in the section of every page, independently. Most of the hosted carts (like BigCommerce and Shopify) share the same head for their product and category pages. This means adding a canonical tag, facebook graph, rich snippets, etc. to an individual product page is impossible with most of these platforms. Sure, they have blanks you can fill in to add a meta description and title tag, but you do not have the ability to add actual code. 3DCart has a META information section where you can add actual code for every single type page, which allows you to do whatever you want up there in the on a page by page basis.

    For sure, 3DCart has its share of weaknesses just like every shopping cart does. None of them are perfect. SEO is simply not one of them and is, in fact, their major strength.

    1. Bogdan Rancea says:

      Thanks for sharing your experience with us, Scott!

  10. thakaa says:

    big thanks for you for this very useful report
    i have two question
    1- what is the best platform for website to sell affiliate products i do not have products i will sell products of others on my website and the customers will do all the buying and pay through my website only ? do you think shopify is a good idea for it ? consider i do not have knowledge in programming
    2- what is the best eCommerce platform for travel website booking hotels groups transportation products ? something for lifetime

  11. Heather A says:

    Good article, thanks! I use Magento on ecomlane and have been really happy.

  12. alexander1234567 says:

    thats very good article,thanks for sharing it.

  13. Robert says:

    Hello.
    Can someone tell me which free platform offers 3 flat rate shipping costs by cart value, Like for cart values as 1-100, 100-200 and 200+, shipping cost is 25, 5 and free shipping. This feature must be included in the basic install version. Thanks

  14. santosh says:

    Can you suggest me WooCommerce or Magento which one website is best for a optimization and SEO friendly.

    1. Bogdan Rancea says:

      Hi Santosh,

      Both platforms offer extensive SEO capabilities.

      Cheers,
      โ€“
      Bogdan โ€“ Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com

    2. Gail Gardner says:

      WooCommerce is way easier. Most people who use Magento have developers do it for them.

  15. Tony Morrison says:

    My company currently uses Miva for it’s site needs, but I noticed it didn’t make your list either. Does anyone still use Miva for website solutions? Is Miva considered the same as these other solutiosn? After having been a WP user for the past 10 years, I feel like Miva is the 90’s Suburu Brat in the world of websites like Magento and WooCommerce.

  16. Isaac says:

    Great article!
    One critical note towards Magento SEO. Yes you have a ton of options, but be prepared to deal with sitespeed issues if you plan on adding a ton of products. Magento isn’t the fastest platform and good hosting, caching and clean code can make a big difference for your SEO and UX.

  17. Steve Mattero says:

    Do you recommend any platform the has eBay integration via API?

    1. Bogdan Rancea says:

      Hi Steve,

      Shopify has some great integrations.

      Best,

      Bogdan โ€“ Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com

  18. Vijay Singh says:

    Outstandingly detailed article on eCommerce software! Amazed to see it in such details. Though, due to the volume and budget, i prefer Shopify. It’s easy to implement and start your own storefront site with it!

  19. PB says:

    Hey thanks for the article!

    I’m just starting up my own venture-that’s an online rental marketplace for kids’ products. Any suggestions for the right platform?

  20. Farrah says:

    Can you suggest a software that allows monthly payment/draft set up? I also need the option of reporting to the 3 major Credit reporting companies. This is something we plan to offer to customers.

    I am new to all of this. Any help you give is greatly appreciate!

  21. Justen Homer says:

    Have been using Big Commerce for about 5 years. I am looking to upgrade! With recent rate hikes and errors causing my Google Merchant Account to be suspended…. Any advise would help. I have enjoyed the ease of use over the years with Big Commerce but feel with my business growth it is time to upgrade.

    1. Bogdan Rancea says:

      Have you considered giving Shopify a try?

  22. Drew Vanderbur says:

    Thanks for the good info. I am trying to determine the best e-commerce platform for our small business that allows us to grow with B2B functionality. We are currently on Magento and it seems like adding features for B2B is a custom build and costly. Giving our customers the ability to see “their products” instead of navigating through our entire store would be a big benefit.
    I have found many platforms that offer B2B functionality out of the box, but I am concerned that we would be potentially giving up SEO to get B2B functionality.
    Is there a platform that offers good SEO as well as B2B functionality without a custom build?

  23. Zeina says:

    Amazing article!!! I’ve been looking for something similar to it for about 5 months and I got lost in a sea of information. I really appreciate you taking the time and helping non-professional business starters like me. I would greatly appreciate your advice on which platform to choose for a clothing e-commerce business. I have no expertise in coding or retail business, but I have a passion for fashion and all I need is some guidance on this major decision. What platform would you use if you were in my shoes?
    Thank you so much in advance ๐Ÿ™‚

    1. Bogdan Rancea says:

      Hi Zeina, in your case I would chose between Shopify (easy to use for beginners) and WooCommerce (you would probably need to hire a developer for customization). Cheers!

  24. fpsi says:

    Tictail marketplace always shows from the same 4\5 designers again and again, totally useless as marketplace if you want to discover new designers, they have to improve it before making ads on famous magazine

  25. Erin says:

    Danny, thank you so much for all the effort and research you put into this article. I have spent the past three days reading every single tech-oozing word of it, visiting websites for all of the services you studied, making lists and taking a whole lot of notes.

    I was around for the rise and fall of the Etsy revolution. I opened a shop there in late 2006, sailed along with other artists and crafters for 5 years or so, then jumped ship like many others did when fees kept going up and up, and the market became flooded with a whole lot of crap that wasn’t handmade.

    I would love to see for you to add price into this study. The fees for some of these big ecommerce websites are harsh, and not everyone realizes it right away. For example, Shopify has 4 package options, the smallest of which is worthless because it doesn’t allow you to do much of anything. The $29 Basic option has the fatal flaw of not supporting gift cards (really?!), which makes the $79 Pro plan the lowest priced package I’d consider. An extra $40 a month to be able to offer gift certificates is robbery. On top of that are triple transaction fees: 2.9% plus is $0.30 per transaction, PLUS an additional 2% if you want to use an external payment gateway like Paypal.

    The product I sell is small, with a low price point, so I sell a LOT of them. By my calculations, Shopify would cost me around $400 per month in fees, not counting the external payment gateway fees. It’s fees like that that forced me out of Etsy.

    My current shopping cart system is Mals e-cart, and came pre-installed with the store admin panel and site building software my web host provides. Now two years later, my business is growing fast and Mals is full of bugs and severely lacking in the customer care department. I’ve found so many small independent web hosts that use Mals because it’s free, but free isn’t always good.

    I’m glad to find out that isn’t the case with WooCommerce. Even before reaching the end of your article and seeing your personal recommendation, I was leaning towards this option.

    Thank you again for all of your research.

  26. Wayne Hanby says:

    What is the difference between webserver software (ie: Apache) and an ecommerce platform like (ie: Shopify) and WordPress? Are they all the same or is each separate but all work in tandem alongside each other to build a better website?

    1. Erin says:

      Web server software handles your communication with a website. It’s the car, driver, and bodyguard all at the same time. It receives your request to access a site (clicking on a link on a page or browser), does some security checks, and takes you to the site you’ve selected.

      An e-commerce platform can be as simple as a shopping cart script (software) to manage your inventory and serve your customers, then take them to your chosen payment portal. Some shopping cart systems come fully integrated into other website management software, some can be installed separately and added to your website.

      Shopify is an all-in-one e-commerce service that hosts your website and provides site-building software, with blog and social networking options, e-commerce software (shopping cart), inventory management, and payment processing.

      WordPress was originally a blogging script, but has grown to be incredibly powerful. There are hundreds of add-on plugins and mods that allow WordPress to function as a completely customizable content management system (CMS) for just about any type of website, with or without a blog. About 25% of the entire web is built using WordPress. Yes, that’s 25% of ALL WEBSITES.

  27. Mathieu says:

    Thanks for this great article ! I’m wondering what to choose between Shopify and Woocommerce. I have basic knowledge in coding and stuffs so I would not be scared to go for Woocommerce, but I was wondering if it was easy to make it safe from hacking etc. Also, it seems like Woocommerce is the way to go for a multilingual ecommerce, is it? Is there a way to make shopify bilingual?

    Thanks !

    1. Catalin Zorzini says:

      Hi Mathieu, yup give it a shot with WooCommerce!

  28. Ted M says:

    Great article! Which Magento platform did you compare in your article? Was it the Community or the Enterprise addition?

    Thanks

    1. Catalin Zorzini says:

      Hi Ted, it was the Community Edition. Cheers

  29. dominic glancy says:

    Hi this is a great article. I am new to the whole ecommerce and rely on my Ebay shop. I Have set a website up via Godaddy and am now looking for my own online shop to run along side Ebay. Would you recommend not using Godaddy as i have my Domain name and website with them? Would Magento or Shopify be the best to sell used car parts? And which is the most simple (user friendly) for someone with limited computer knowledge?

    1. Catalin Zorzini says:

      Hi Dominic, Shopify is the way to go for people with no coding experience. Cheers

  30. Francis Kim says:

    I’m glad I use Magento. Great work Danny!

  31. Julie Brooks says:

    I have a client that is a wholesaler of fresh food items. We just want a customer order site and we would also like to integrate with an app that would push the inventory (it depletes as the day progresses) in real time to the customer so he can purchase directly from the app or go online and order. The customer is not charged until his order is filled since you don’t know the weight and it could be partial units. We would like to use Authorize.net Customer Information Manager (CIM) so our customers can manage multiple shipping addresses and payment methods. Our products don’t change, only the pricing and inventory. Our current ecommerce site is not working out, what would you suggest?

  32. Alice B Castle says:

    Thank you so much for the article. Was wondering what you thought of Adobe’s Business Catalyst compared to Shopify.
    I need something easy, looks professional, economical, responsive, does all the SEO things that you mentioned including cart abandonment, must have blog. Must enable e-book download (and merchandise sales, in time). Thinking big! in time :-).
    Any thoughts? That would be wonderful :-).

    1. Catalin Zorzini says:

      Hi Alice, I haven’t used Adobe’s solution but will give it a try in a couple of weeks and report back with a review and maybe a comparison. However, judging the design of the shops who are using their platform, looks like their templates don’t even come close the ones offered by Shopify.

  33. Ghulam Nabi says:

    Very nice guidance.
    The platform providers always appreciate their own services, however the customers face a no.of problems once they are entrapped.
    Thanks for your assistance to the customers through your hard efforts.I am also one of the victims.

    1. Catalin Zorzini says:

      Thanks Ghulam!

  34. mahender says:

    which one is good among magento, prestashop and woocommerce if one needs to site like amazon, snapdeal etc. requirements are: needs to be stable, secure, multiple payment option, customer friendly etc.

    Kindly reply ASAP

    1. Catalin Zorzini says:

      Hi Mahender, I would go with Magento + a strong development team!

      1. Jacques says:

        Hi Catalin

        I really enjoy your insightful opinions.

        I’ve had a look at “ease-of-use” capabilities and “flexibilty” within some of the eCommerce platforms, and thus far none of them are simple enough to do ?

        1) If you had to rate the EASIEST-to-use, which platform would stand out ? (assuming you are an end-user with ZERO programming or software development experience)

        2) Flexibility : I would have preferred to have my online business pages laid out in the way I want – but most of the platforms are pretty static with their layout. Which is easiest to adapt / change ?

        Regards

        1. Catalin Zorzini says:

          Hi Jacques,

          1. Shopify

          2. Magento

          Hope that helps

          Cheers

        2. David says:

          This was a really good read. This is a real comment, hence the detail I will go into.
          Shopify is by far the best ecommerce solutions for non programmers or coders.
          You can make an online store with shopify in no time with very little technical skills. Obviously, you need the bare essentials, eg literacy and common sense but what always makes me laugh is how people can master facebook and instagram, yet struggle with wordpress. The basic principle is the same with a few differences such as ‘liquid’ instead of html on shopify.
          No doubt, there will be a rise in ecommerce stores in 2017 due to so many people feeling the strain of today’s global financial state.
          eCommerce sites are usually hard but shopify is easy to set up with your own domain by changing your domain registrar’s nameservers (All explained in an easy-to-follow manner)
          My preferred CMS is WordPress so it was a change of UI for me but so easy to learn, it only took me a week or so to have my site up and running with dropship capabilities.

          This is where the rant stops but shopify wins for me, HANDS DOWN!

  35. Kenny says:

    Do you possibly know which stores will allow for intergration into an existing site? i.e. so the sites authority will give the store traffic, without having to use a new or subdomain for the actual store?

  36. Jason says:

    Is there a way to see which of the above top ecommerce platforms a given site is using?

    1. Catalin Zorzini says:

      Yes there are a few workarounds: BuiltWith or WhatTheme

  37. Caroline says:

    Hi!

    I really think that Tictail deserves a spot here. I use Tictail and I am so happy with it. It is free and it is super easy to use, you can use between different templates to make it as personal as you want too, and it’s easy to code if you want to change something. I really love it and can recommend it very much if you want something easy that you also can build up as you want to and in your own pace.

    Tictail also has this community that helps you meet other shopkeepers and help each other, which I have found very helpful. I have met many new friends and gotten much help from people. Love it!

    Check it out if you haven’t already!

    1. Catalin Zorzini says:

      Totally agree Caroline, will review Tictail in the next couple of weeks and add it to the list. Love your store btw ๐Ÿ™‚

      1. Caroline says:

        Oh thank you so much!! I really love it too, and I owe it all to Tictail actually. There templates are just amazing and the webshops look so good when you are done. Great that you’ll add it, and welcome back to the store any day ๐Ÿ™‚

  38. Pere says:

    Great article!!! Do you recommend squarespace? I want to know pros and cons…
    thanks

  39. Jon says:

    Great article Danny! I found this really informative. I am also interested in learning what a user can do to boost the “pre-configured” SEO capabilities using code injections, or use of the developer tools of some of these website builders. Would love to see an article about that and would be really grateful for any tips!

  40. Paul says:

    great article and although no real surprises about the top 4, Squarespace is not a platform I’ve done anything with.

    The major and fundamental drawback with woo-commerce – despite all of its wonderfulness is to do with sub-categories and their child products.

    Unbelievably the parent category also shows all of the sub category’s products and this cannot be stopped unless you hide the sub-category completely from the main body of the page.

    If there was a little more flexibility in this regard and more scope to alter the appearance of the category pages and product detail pages without a lot of additional coding it would be so much better. There are some amazing plugins that extend the woo-commerce in so many other ways.

    The bottom line is that if you want something to handle specific functionality or to handle a large catalogue with many categories, magento is the way to go if your budget extends to it. But that is a big IF for a small business :-0.

    Once again, great piece and thanks for sharing your findings.

  41. MAST says:

    OpenCart Not in your List, Why?

    1. Catalin Zorzini says:

      We’re mostly discussing platforms that are easy to use for beginners. Will keep your suggestion in mind though for the next comparison. Thank you!

  42. Isabella says:

    WooCommerce is a free, powerful WordPress eCommerce plugin.I like it very much

  43. LingerieLarry says:

    Very informative article…I actually have a physical store and want an online store, and so integration of inventory into one program would be important. Do most of the companies you mentioned also do this?

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