5 replies to this topic

[sdavis]

Hello all,

I am in the process of creating an asp access drive site w/ dynamic content pages. I am curious how the spiders do with dynamic sites. My first guess is that they don't do as good with dynamic as static pages, but that is just a guess.

When creating a shopping cart with dynamic pages, does anybody have any simple tips to keep in mind while creating the site to keep it seo friendly?

Thanks,
Sdavis

[Randy]

The engines spider and index dynamic content just fine. I've got literally tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousand dynamic pages indexed that rank very well, since every site I've created in the last few years has at least some dynamic component.

So Dynamic vs. Static is not an issue in the least.

Three things to make sure of...

• Do not require cookies any place that you want the spiders to crawl. The spiders do not accept cookies.
• Do not require Session IDs in the displayed URL address if you want the spiders to crawl that page. This can effectively create a ton of duplicate content and also make the site seem like a spider trap.
• Try to limit your modifiers (ie page.asp?modifier1=something&modifier2=anotherthing&modifier3=somethingelse) so that the max the spiders will receive is Three or less. I generally try to keep to 2 modifiers max, especially for newer sites. Though the spiders are getting better at crawling multiple modifiers these days if you give them enough reason to do a deep crawl.

That's it, that's all. Cover those three bases and you're good to go for the most part.

[chrishirst]

and here's a thread about shopping carts specifically

[Jill]

Lots of threads in here our dynamically generated site forum. Plus, I believe there's an SEO FAQ answer as well, which references Alan's interview on the subject.

Short answer is that there's nothing wrong with dynamic sites as long as you follow a few simple rules.

[sdavis]

Cool. Thanks everybody. I'll use the info!

Sdavis

[microbe]

Take care how the queries are set up.

I run a site with a Coppermine Gallery. An annoying feature is that the content associated with urls changes - for example it displays "most popular" images - so this can have the effect that the wrong image is returned - your Google image search result for "Roger Rabbit" could turn up a picture of "The Terminator". In your context it may not matter though.

Also, I think you may find that Google is a little slower to list dynamic pages initially, I must admit I can't back this up with anything remotely like proof, but I think they may have some kind of filter which means a new site with dynamic urls is treated with extra caution. It would make sense if they have.

ALso there are other benefits to static urls, they can be easier to remember, and can be more descriptive of the content.