It’s time to unveil what is going on inside Simtech Development. Soon, our Add-On Development Department will release its brand-new features and products. In this post, we shed some light on their plans.
New Theme
A new theme designed specifically to perfectly fit the rising generation is undergoing the final reviews and testing before coming out. The theme will reflect the preferences and cultural values of Gen Z, today’s teenagers who are defining the face of the future. The ones who were born in the digital age and better deal with touchpad or screen rather than with a pen. The upcoming theme will have multiple features tailored for cross-device use (especially, mobile), social sharing (with emphasis on visual content – Instagram). Developers say the theme would not only be visually appealing but will have the corresponding back- and frontend functionality.
Here are some of the features unveiled:
- Interactive keyboard navigation on site;
- Smarter navigation designed for better SEO;
- Background image for sign in & authorization page;
- Improved functionality to introduce your promos with specific icons;
- Orders with different colors depending on status;
- Improved order page interface: the user will be able to see up to three products on the order list.
reCAPTCHA 3.0
The new version appeared last year, October 2018, to improve the user experience. But, the outcome was not quite about a new version but rather about a new variant as different features were embedded in both scripts. To be more specific, let’s take a closer look at reCAPTCHAs’ differences.
From the user interface side, the version difference is quite obvious: v3 is invisible. Previously, it was quite annoying for a user to pass an additional step to access a website.
Now, reCAPTCHA v3 provides a score telling how suspicious an interaction is. You can use the score in three ways:
- By setting a threshold that determines when a user is let through or when further verification needs to be done (like two-factor authentication or phone verification);
- By combining the score with own indicators, for example, purchase history or user profile;
- By training your Machine Learning code for anti-spam.
New reCAPTCHA is more customizable for website owners. It allows protecting your site against bots and improving UX based on the website’s needs.
However, despite all the advantages, reCAPTCHA v3 will not substitute v2. The 2nd and 3rd versions will coexist.
V3 is more suitable in those cases when showing a challenge is undesirable. It gives a frictionless User Experience, more accuracy for bot detection, and flexibility in spam prevention.
V3 won’t suit you and it’s better to consider v2 if you care about GDPR compliance. The third reCAPTCHA edition needs to load on all website pages including the privacy agreement links. It implies that user behavior data will be fetched by Google posing obstacles to GDPR compliance.
Independently of what your choice is, soon both versions will be available on the Simtech Development marketplace. Google reCAPTCHA v2 is already available. Google reCAPTCHA v3-compliant add-on is going to be released in the short run.
Google AMP for SEO
Accelerated mobile pages (AMP) are nothing but your website HTML-copies that load faster as compared to standard HTML5 documents.
If your webpage has an AMP clone, a link to the AMP version is placed on it to create mobile-optimized pages that load instantly and smoothly on all devices improving the UX.
Applying AMP doesn’t mean you’ll rank higher in search. However, “speed matters” and loading faster on mobiles means a lower bounce rate. For Google, this indicator is a determining factor to assess how valuable your content is for the user. So, it’s likely to get higher placement in search results if AMP alternative is present. In this context, the script is a pretty nice tool for SEO.
Why are we updating the corresponding add-on? The main reason behind updating Google AMP for SEO add-on for CS-Cart stores is product variations. Let us explain.
Product variations’ feature has been evolving for some time until in 4.10.1 version it has got its final shape. Starting from CS-Cart 4.10.1 and Multi-Vendor 4.10.1, a product variation can be:
- a separate product (with separate tax or shipping options and a separate SEO name)
or
- one and the same product (differencing from the parent product by color or storage feature).
At this, speaking about the ‘separate’ option, Google AMP would need to create a separate page as it another item to load it faster on other devices. In the add-on upcoming changes, it will be possible to create a separate AMP page for product variation to better affect SEO. That was the reason behind improving Google AMP for SEO.
Closing
We’re constantly improving functionalities of our plugins for CS-Cart stores to let our customers be in step with the times. While planning the changes, our experts are scouting tons of sources to reflect the latest trends and be valuable for online retailers. So, you can be confident that staying with Simtech Development, your online shop is always top-notch.
