Bisyor.uz is a classifieds and online sales platform launched in 2022. The website, iOS app, and Android app form a single ecosystem.
In this article, I’ll cover three key challenges I faced while building a marketplace: catalog structure, balancing web and mobile, and releasing apps to the stores.
1. Catalog Structure — The SEO Foundation
On a classifieds site, much of the traffic goes to category and filter pages. That’s why the URL structure must be set correctly from day one — changing it later is expensive.
Rules that work in practice:
- Each category should have its own static URL, not just a parameter
- Filter combinations are unlimited — not all of them should be open for indexing, otherwise index bloat begins
- Valuable combinations (for example, “apartments for rent in Tashkent”) should be open and have their own
title/description - The rest should be
noindexor consolidated into the main category via canonical
If this decision is delayed, tens of thousands of duplicate pages will appear in Google’s index within a few months, and the trust of the entire domain will drop.
2. Listing Pages: What to Do With Completed Listings
In a marketplace, much of the content is temporary: a listing is sold and closed. Simply deleting it means creating a pile of 404s.
A working approach:
- When a listing is closed, the page is kept, but shows a “sold” status
- The page includes a list of active listings in that category — the user doesn’t land on an empty page
- Very old listings (for example, older than 1 year) are moved to
noindex
As a result, neither the user nor the search engine ends up on a dead end.
3. Web vs. Mobile App: Which Comes First
Many projects take the “app first, website later” path. For a marketplace, that’s a mistake — because:
- New users come from search, not from an app store
- Installing an app is a big barrier; a website opens with one click
- SEO traffic brings users to the app, not the other way around
At Bisyor, the website remained the main entry point, while the apps are for returning users.
4. Releasing to the Stores
When releasing an app for iOS and Android, what eats the most time is not the code, but store requirements:
- Apple: account deletion must be available inside the app (otherwise it will be rejected), privacy policy, content moderation process
- Google Play: Data safety form, target audience, permission explanations
Automating the release process saves a lot of time. I do it with a single script using altool (App Store) and the Android Publisher API (Play) — the build number increments automatically and uploads to both stores at once.
5. Moderation
On a classifieds platform, moderation is not a technical issue but a process issue. Automatic filters (banned words, duplicate listings, suspicious prices) serve as the first layer, but they do not fully replace manual review.
Conclusion
A marketplace is not just a website; it’s an ecosystem: catalog, moderation, mobile apps, and store operations. The most costly decision is postponing the URL and catalog structure.
Everything else can be fixed later, but the structure is hard.