3 replies to this topic

[ttt]

Hi everyone,

Here is the million dollar question. I have a site that generates content from a database (written in php actually). I've notice some controversy whether to use static urls or dynamic urls. I have many dynacally generated links that contain a querystring that passes the parameters to a sql statement in order to generate the results. For example ...
the link may look something like:

<a href="results.php?someId=123"> ... </a> // where someId is passed to db

and the result page url would look something like:

www.somesite.com/result.php?someId=123

I am told that some search engines have a problem indexing such a url and to explore the possiblilities of url rewritting (which I'd really like to avoid right now)

Is this true? Anyone have any input on this?

For example, which (if any) is more search engine friendly? A url that is something like:

www.somesite.com/dir
or:
www.somesite.com/results.php?someId=123

Thanks for your input ...

[Jill]

Welcome, ttt!

We've been discussing this in other threads here on the forum. You might want to take a look at those.

Basically, the engines don't have much problem with the type of URL you are talking about any more. This forum has similar URLs and has over 500 pages indexed already. (We're only about a month old or so.)

Jill

[BrianR]

(Jill - not sure which thread you want this post in, so please feel free to move it.)

I'm confused! - which is why I ask questions in this forum!

Basically, the engines don't have much problem with the type of URL you are talking about any more.

I understand that Google is now listing dynamic urls - I checked out a site I'm working on that is over half dynamic pages (content management system) and Google reported 74 pages, lots of which have dynamic urls.

Then I go over to Alltheweb and I get just 8 pages, only one of which is a dynamic url. And MSN reports just 4 pages, none of which are dynamic urls.

The difference is so vast that I find it difficult to believe that MSN and Alltheweb are searching dynamic urls thoroughly, especially as Google and Alltheweb both search roughly 3 billion pages.

What am I missing??

Thanks.

BrianR

[ChrisB]

Google specifically states in their webmaster help section that they will sometimes limit the number of dynamic URLs that they will index from a specific site.

Additionally such dynamic urls are not user friendly.

Tell me, which one is easier to remember:

http://www.example.c...icle.php?id=907

or

http://www.example.c...e/breastfeeding

The other benefit of search engine friendly URLs is that they mask what server side technology you use which allows you to more easily change it in the future (without losing any incoming links).

There are also easier ways to do it than using mod_rewrite.

http://www.websitepu..._friendly_urls/