20 replies to this topic

[Ranger]

Hi Folks:

I'm new to these forums, and while not new to web design, I am new to serious SEO. I'm impressed by the info here already.

I'm looking for a content management system that *won't* generate dynamic urls. At first glance, it seems like Movable Type doesn't - but I'm not sure how much we can mess around with it to make it fit our format?

The site will be a collection of articles on a wide variety of topics.

Does anyone have any suggestions? We can do alot by server-side includes (php includes) but would prefer to use something that would save the time needed to code and re-code the Catagory sidebars, etc.

[Jill]

Welcome, Ranger!

Actually, dynamic URLs are really not a problem any more. Certainly not with Google. We've already got over 500 forum pages indexed, and look at our dynamically generated URLs.

Just make sure you don't require cookies or session ids. The shorter the query string, the better also.

Jill

[Matt B]

Welcome, Ranger!

From what I've seen, there are not a lot of content management software systems available that are search-engine friendly. Besides that, there is also a great deal of misunderstanding about dynamic sites and their performance.

Google, or any other engine, doesn't make a distinction if a page is static or dynamic, or even prefer html over php or asp. The critical differential for a successful dynamic or content management site is the amount of variables you are trying to pass in the query string. Most search engines can easily read past one simple variable, some as far as two with little difficulty. After the query string starts to pass two to three, or even more, variables, and become more complex, the search engines will usually stay away from those links, as to avoid the possibility of a recursive loop.

If you are looking for a software package - look for current sites already driven by the software and see how well they are indexing. Also, look at the query strings - avoid the long ones. Otherwise, get yourself a talented programmer to write the application that you want. It may be cheaper and better in the long run.

[robertclough]

I'm looking for a content management system that *won't* generate dynamic urls. At first glance, it seems like Movable Type doesn't - but I'm not sure how much we can mess around with it to make it fit our format?

You may want to take a look at pMachine:

http://www.pmachine.com/
http://www.pmachine....l#friendly_urls

[Haystack]

I've stumbled across some content management systems which use Javascript to serve headline content onto pages, which doesn't get indexed or followed by search engines. While it's very easy to set up, this should be avoided. Or, if you happen to like everything else about a system serving pages like this, just work with a programmer to create a better front end to serve your content.

[BrianR]

Oh dear - now I'm in a spot of bother!

I have just signed a contract to rewrite and optimise a content management system driven site that uses dynamic urls such as:

http://www.mydomain....page.asp?ID=148

In many cases, I have recommended rewriting the dynamic pages as static pages. Now Jill says: "Actually, dynamic URLs are really not a problem any more. Certainly not with Google." Oh dear!

Two questions, please:

1. For which other SE's besides Google are dynamic pages no longer a problem?
2. Does this mean that a dynamic page and a static page with identical content would now both achieve the same ranking in Google?

Depending on the answers, I may need to go back and renegotiate this particular contract! Thanks.

BrianR

[Matt B]

That query string looks ok - shouldn't need to re-write that.

There has never really been a difference of preference between static pages or dynamic pages in measuring relevance - the main issue has been that dynamic pages are traditionally unoptimized, incomplete, or just plain invisible to the search engines.

Ink doesn't do as good a job including dynamic URL's for free. IMO, I think it is mainly to increase their PFI program.

[BrianR]

Thanks, Matt - that's very helpful. But it raises two more questions:

1. So, are you saying that it's not possible to optimise dynamic pages? The text can probably be optimised, but can specific title and descrip tags be included in a page that's made on the fly?

2. In the Uk, most B2B searchers use Google, MSN or Yahoo. Google is no longer a problem for dynamic pages and if I use Ink's PFI to get dynamic pages in MSN, problem largely solved??

Thanks.

BrianR

[Matt B]

Oh - It's very possible to optimize dynamic pages. The truth is, very few people take the time to learn how, and as a result, most dynamic sites are horribly "template-ish".
Yes, you can do includes for title and description, which is one of the easiest ways to optmize.

I would do a wait and see on Ink for a couple of months - check your referrer logs to see if you are getting referrals from MSN from your dynamic pages before paying for PFI.

[BrianR]

Ok - that's sound advice - thanks again for your help, Matt.

One last request: can you point me to an article or source on how to optimise dynamic pages - at the newbie level, preferably! Thanks.

BrianR

[Jill]

Dynamic pages can actually be the easiest to optimize, once you figure out how to do it.

It's easy to create certain rules for the dynamic templates so that you automatically create a perfect Title, description and Meta tag. This is assuming that you already wrote wonderful optimized copy first, of course.

Jill

[BrianR]

Thanks again, Jill. I think I'd better go back to my client and renogotiate that contract!

BrianR

[Ranger]

Just a thanks for some good advice, and an update;

I've had some other suggestions as well - Drupal is one - which does mod rewrites for friendlier URL's. But the Drupal template system wasn't "simple" when I first looked at it - meaning I'm not sure how to even go about altering the site significantly from the demo I looked at, although it is possible.

Still have to check out GeekLog and Back-End, which apparently also both do mod rewrites. Many of these systems - All the "Nuke" projects, for example - seem to be inspired/designed off the Slashdot kind of site.

Personally, I'd rather have fast, static pages driven mainly by CSS if possible for maximum speed.

BTW, we do have a ColdFusion publisher that we built in-house the other year. But shared CF hosting is more expensive, and prone to a lot more failures. And you never bloody know how long CF will be around and supported! The URLS were dynamic: "id=pagename" kind of thing, not too many variables, and most if not all the pages WERE spidered, but then there were only 150 pages TO spider (current project will go over 1,000 articles in a year) - I'd hate to get 600 articles in and then find out that Google, etc. won't deep link all those...

So I think it'd cost us more in the long run to go with that versus use an existing system that does static pages... and I'd ideally like a system I can build into future client sites, or even build future client sites on top of...

Thanks,
Ranger

[Searchaware]

Hi

As Jill says, dynamic sites can be very rewarding to optimise with a few changes to the generic titles if you can pull relevant content in to each area of the page.

In terms of the actual dynamic URLs I haven't had much problem with them being indexed on sites I have worked on unless they have a session ID or similar in the URL.

For ASP pages a good choice is a simple ISAPI filter such as OpUrl which will take a URL such as http://site/page.asp?id=42 and turn it in to http://site/page/42.

I do recall a point being raised recently about a comment which came from Google (GoogleGuy I think) suggesting that the ?id= parameter might trigger Google to slow indexing as it is likely to point to a dynamic site. I can't recall exactly which newsletter I read this in but I am sure somebody will be along shortly to provide a link.

Having said this I haven't seen any evidence of this being a problem with dynamic sites I work on.

Simon

[Randy]

http://www.mydomain....page.asp?ID=148

If possible you'll want to change your query string to something other than "ID=" BrianR. I'm not sure anybody has been able to confirm it yet, but I've read here and several other places that googlebot may be thinking anything with "ID" or "id" is a Session ID and therefore won't index the pages correctly.

Other than that, as Jill mentioned above just make sure you're not *requiring* either Session ID's or Cookies. They can be an option, but don't require them since the bots trip over both of those.

Most of the search engines seem to be getting quite good at indexing dynamically created pages, so I don't worry about the query part of it much anymore.

Randy