Dead links to shopping cart page still on many Yahoo! Stores

A while ago, Yahoo! made a change to their checkout URLs – going from order.store.yahoo.com to order.store.yahoo.net. The actual add to cart functionality was automatically updated so no issues there, and visitors can still put items in the cart and then place an order.

The problem is if you have hardcoded a "View Cart" link in your navigation that links to order.store.yahoo.com/cgi-bin/wg-order?xyz. In this case, if a visitor puts an item in the cart and then continues browsing, the only way to go back to the cart page is by hitting the back button. Perhaps not a huge issue, but why risk annoying your visitors with a dead "View Cart" link?

In most cases, the fix should be easy even if your store was developed by someone else. Edit the Variables page and search (CTRL-F or Command-F in Firefox or Safari) for "order.store.yahoo.com". If it is found on the page just replace the .com with .net. If the View Cart link is not on the Variables page then ask the person who developed the site where the main navigation content is pulled from.

Remember to periodically put yourself in the shoes of your customers: browse your own site, place test orders, and ask your friends to do the same……because this issue would have been very hard to spot in web analytics reporting.