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Hitting a Search PotholeSep 23 2007 | SEO |
Sometimes I wish I was a movie star simply because I would have more occassions to wear gowns. I don’t even watch that many movies. But if I did have a chance to wear one gown this year it would have been this one from Oscar De La Renta. I loved it when I saw it on the runway, and it still looks amazing when on a real life person too.
So lovely. Sigh….
I decided to head on over to the site to take a look at some more gowns, and it seems that the folks in charge of Oscar’s website need to rework the homepage a bit.
When searching for “Oscar De La Renta” the first result is a link to the site (great!), however it is pointing to the error page you recieve when you do not have flash installed. I clicked on it blindly, and went to that page and got stuck. There are no links from that page at all to anywhere on the site. I am imagining the little Google spider finding the site, getting confused because there does not appear to be a robots.txt file, and getting sent over to this error page.
I know enough to delete everything and get myself back to the url, but I would be really curious to see what their bounce rate is. I know many people that would actually fall within their target audience who would not know how to get to the homepage from that screen. (Hi mom!)
Searches for other luxury brands like Lanvin, Chanel, Givenchy, and Jean Paul Gaultier do in fact bring me to their flash homepage without any redirects. I find each of these sites annoying however, since it is impossible to bookmark something that you like, the url never changes no matter where you are on the site, and hitting the back button brings you to the homepage where you have to start making your way to what you were looking at all over again.
So, if anyone from Oscar De La Renta (or any of the brands above) is actually reading this, I would be happy to go through your site and help you out. A little tweak here and there is all you need. You can pay me in gowns, and invitations to places where I can wear them. 
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Posted by Danielle Winfield at 2:14 pm
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September 23rd, 2007 at 6:24 pm
great post, Danielle. I wonder if use of Flash is the biggest disconnect between the big design agencies and search experts? It’s got to be up there.
September 23rd, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Thanks Jon! I agree about the Flash. I find it ridiculously frustrating to use some of these sites. I believe that eventually these luxury brands are going to crossover and become more user friendly. They have to. When I think about the amount of money that must be spent on advertising, promotion, brand recognition, it’s almost surreal that basic usability and search friendliness seem to be so overlooked. Especially since these sites are updated to reflect the latest ad campaign and collections. Someone must be working on them all the time.
September 23rd, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Prada is really bad if you have flash turned off or not installed you get a whole lotta nuthin’
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:10 pm
I think I might make my personal policy “Will SEO for clothes and invitations to fancy parties”. Chris would have my head though. LOL!
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Great post, not digging the dress though (I guess I shouldn’t be either) :P.
It would be interesting to see who does track the stats on these sites though, I’m sure they wouldn’t care much for an HTML version if 95% of people have flash installed.
Your right though, they should care more and certainly get it sorted no matter what the stats.
P.S. Shouldn’t you be changing your surname on the blog hehe
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:24 pm
I’m sure they wouldn’t care much for an HTML version if 95% of people have flash installed.
True, but it sure would be nice to bookmark something awesome to come back to later instead of my current screenshot method.
P.S. Shouldn’t you be changing your surname on the blog hehe
Good Point! Done!
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Hmm just noticed your image isn’t showing. I’m assuming the folder where you guys keep the images has it linked directly to filename / username. So changing your name has changed where it’s looking for the image..
So in the 10e20/authors/Danielle Lanzillo.gif just rename that to Winfield and it should work. Sorry for wasting your time.
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:55 pm
All fixed!
October 8th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Hey Danielle- did you know I’ve hung out with the girl on the left lol? True story- her name’s Shandi.
October 9th, 2007 at 11:14 am
It’s a small world Tom - that is too funny…