17 replies to this topic

[clearwater]

After reading Jill's advice and discussing options with my webhost, I decided to create static html pages for each of my web store categories and for some of the products.

So I have, for one product, two pages:
...store/index.php?productid=456&blahblah&blahblah...
and...store/product456.htm

This was very easy to do, since it's necessary to tweak the metatags anyway.

So the question is...will my site be penalized for having identical content on two different pages?

Thanks for your time.

Dan Eskelson
Clearwater Landscape Design

[SearchRank]

Welcome to the forum, Dan

You say you created a set of static pages that are duplicates of dynamic pages. My question to you would be - are these new static pages accessible to your visitors? In other words can you navigate to them through your web site or are they sitting on the server as orphaned pages? If the latter, the search engines aren't going to find them anyway.

Can I safely assume that the reason you created static duplicates is so you can edit the title and meta tags and if so, can I assume that you couldn't do that with the dynamic pages?

If that is so, and the search engines are able to find the static pages, they will probably index one over the other. If you have different titles and meta data though, that would make them different from the dynamic ones even though the content is the same so you would probably be fine. Really depends on your answers to the questions I posed above though.

[clearwater]

are these new static pages accessible to your visitors? In other words can you navigate to them through your web site or are they sitting on the server as orphaned pages? If the latter, the search engines aren't going to find them anyway.

Thanks for your response, David. I think I understand what you are saying. I created the pages so Google and others would not have to deal with very long query strings in the URL. But you point out an error in my method. I guess a solution would be to include the static URLs on the site map page.

I have such an excellent page ranking (#1!) for several of my keyphrases in several engines that I don't want to jeopadize it by trying to increase traffic to this brand new section of my site.

Can I safely assume that the reason you created static duplicates is so you can edit the title and meta tags and if so, can I assume that you couldn't do that with the dynamic pages?

Not just to edit the title and meta tags, but to reduce the incredibly long URLs of the dynamic .php product pages. Apparently, Google is reluctant to follow long URLs.

Again, my main concern is to optimize these pages with proper, ethical SEO techniques.

I included the link to the static version of the shop home page below.

Thanks again for your time.

[Scottie]

Welcome to the forum, Dan!

Remember that these are also the pages that visitors will see when they arrive at your site via the search engines-- make sure they can easily navigate the rest of your site from the static page.

Why not turn these pages into print-friendly versions of the product page by reducing graphics, etc? Then link them from each dynamic page. They serve a purpose for users as well as spiders that way.

And definitely include them in your site map or else the SE's won't find them.

[gstark]

I create static pages for all my categories and all important products.

I do this for several reasons, the tags as well as the ability to exceed the constraints of the database, and all product pages and many detail pages are just one link in from a static page.

All menus and navigation bars - even in the dynamic pages go to the static pages.

The only exceptions are the dynamically generated nav items on the dynamic pages.

Thus, if you use the Next, Back, or Up buttons, you stay on dynamic pages.

The downside is, of course, that you defeat the whole 'ease of changing prices etc.' reason for the DB generated pages to begin with.

If there is not a lot of that going on, it is worth the effort IMHO.


Gary

Edited by Jill, 31 October 2003 - 12:33 AM.

[Jill]

After reading Jill's advice and discussing options with my webhost, I decided to create static html pages for each of my web store categories and for some of the products.

What advice would that have been?

I don't recommend creating static copies of dynamic pages. If that's what you did, make sure to exclude your dynamic pages from the search engine robots through the robots.txt file so that you don't have duplicate content showing up.

Dynamic URLs are generally not much of a problem, at least for Google. You'd probably be okay with your regular dynamically generated pages just linked from a sitemap.

Jill

[clearwater]

What advice would that have been?

Hi Jill,

Thanks for the advice...that sure changes my understanding.

I was referring to several newsletter articles discussing very long dynamic URLs and the "unwillingness" of some engines to follow the long query strings.

I had asked my webhost about mod-rewrite on the Apache server, but they cannot do this for some security reasons.

I have noticed that previous static product pages, from an earlier cart system, were indexed very quickly by Google. But the newer, dynamic product pages have not shown up at all. So...I'm still trying to figure out how to get these pages indexed.

If I use the robots.txt file idea, I guess I would have to create all content with static URLs...sounds like lots of work!

Will have to go back to square one to figure this out. Thanks all for the excellent input!

[Scottie]

Dan, for the long term you are better off using a dynamic CMS that spiders can index.

If there are more than 3 criteria in your url after the ?, Google won't crawl the page. Less than 3 criteria with a unique title to each page and the spiders shouldn't have a problem with your dynamic page.

Best of luck!

(BTW- moving this to the dynamic sites topic...)

[Jill]

Dan, have you read my interview with Alan Perkins on optimizing dynamic content?

That might help.

Jill

[clearwater]

If there are more than 3 criteria in your url after the ?,

Aha! Now I have a framework to work with...thank you Scottie! I can clip the category page URLs and the product page URLs to comply with the above and still be functional...very cool! I've started listing these on the site map.

Yes, I read your interview, Jill...I learned a lot - esp. that I have a lot to learn.

Happy Halloween all. Nice hat Jill...thanks for providing this fourm.

[gstark]

Jill, I understand your and Alan's points but I still believe there is value in static pages in the following ways.

1) Databases all have restrictions - indexable fields, for instance, have a max size of 255 chars which can restrict short product descriptions etc. Static pages have no restrictions so the short descriptions on a category page can be more natural.

2) Static pages can help free your site from the hierarchical restrictions forced by DB design. I. E. a site sells home medical equipment. The DB is logically set up with the familiar Categories, Groups, Products type of structure. Static pages can be made which use other conceptual frames like pediatric, geriatric, respiratory, mobility, etc.

Google seems to only index the static pages in my various client's stores even though the links to the Cold Fusion generated pages have only 3 parameters.

Gary

[Ron Carnell]

Everything we know about Google and dynamic URLs is speculation, and without considerably more background information than is ever available to us, I think our guesses are likely wrong as often as they are right. It's simply an area where there are too many hidden variables at work, fueled in large part I suspect by less than detailed communication in forums (non-techies only mention what they see).

Clearly, though, at least in my opinion, static URLs (not the same as static pages, BTW) should probably be preferred over dynamic ones if you want into Google. In that, Gary, I think we are in agreement. The reasons you cite, however, are limitations of the database design, not limitations of the search engine. Even if Google didn't exist, those problems would be problems and should probably be corrected by a more flexible DB design. Unfortunately, in my opinion, fixing them would probably still privilege static URLs over dynamic ones. Until and unless Google gives us better information, we're shooting in the dark.

[gstark]

I agree with your statements, Ron, but I think the main limitation is true of all DB's. Memo fields (text fields of unknown size), are not indexable and therefore are invisle to DB based searches etc. The short indexable text fields are less than 255 chars as far as I know - at least that's been the case for the twenty years I have been working with them.

But again, your comments are right on the mark.

Gary

[domokun]

I don't recommend creating static copies of dynamic pages. If that's what you did, make sure to exclude your dynamic pages from the search engine robots through the robots.txt file so that you don't have duplicate content showing up.

what if the dynamic page is only accessbile through a web form and offers good advice to users?

surely then its acceptable to create a static version of it and link to it through a sitemap?

[Jill]

Right, Chris, that's fine because then you're not creating duplicate content. You're simply allowing people and the spiders access to your content.

That's exactly the way you should be doing it.

Jill