URL Structure, Query Strings in URL Options

[Scottie]

I'm currently running a test to see if the length of the URL matters.

I converted some dynamic URL's to look like folders... they are still pretty long. It's been about a week and a half and Google has picked up 1 of them- so it looks promising.

Google definitely wanted nothing to do with my dynamic URL's containing 7 variables (wonder why? (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/lol.gif) ) and I finally got this fix in. We'll see if it works- giving it 2 months.

Old URL:
www.columbia4kids.com/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Forum&report=Topic&TopicID=0017&firstrecord=0&finalrecord=19/

New URL:
www.columbia4kids.com/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi/Forum/Topic/TopicID=0017/firstrecord=0/finalrecord=19/


The new URL is indexed- but it is only one of thousands... I'm waiting to see if Google only picks ones that are linked from the main pages or actually follows one long url to the next.

[csjavi]

New URL:
www.columbia4kids.com/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi/Forum/Topic/TopicID=0017/firstrecord=0/finalrecord=19/

That URL is rather long. (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) Why don't you use something like
www.columbia4kids.com/Forum/TopicID=0017/firstrecord=0/finalrecord=19/

[Scottie]

Working on that... it's a third party software thing and I'm trying to get the developers to get rid of some of the excess "stuff". I've got too much content and too few database-conversion skills and way too little time to try and figure it out on my own. They are making some progress though with the file structure URL as opposed to query.

I am interested to see how Google will treat this incredibly long URL though... if nothing else, it's an interesting test.

[csjavi]

You don't need any database skills. Use .htaccess.

CODE

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^Forum/([0-9]+)/([0-9]+)/([0-9]+) cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi/Forum/Topic/TopicID=$1/firstrecord=$2/finalrecord=$2/

That code should map /Forum/0017/0/19 to /cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi/Forum/Topic/TopicID=0017/firstrecord=0/finalrecord=19/

[Scottie]

Don't think I have access to .htaccess on that particular server, but I'm going to look into it. It might be worth changing hosts. Thanks!

[Craig B]

Don't think I have access to .htaccess on that particular server, but I'm going to look into it. It might be worth changing hosts. Thanks!

Usually if you have telnet or SSH support for a server you can access your .htaccess file. The file normally doesn't show up when you ftp into a site, but when you use Putty or something like that, do this:

ls -a

and it will show the hidden .htaccess files!

cheers,
Craig.

[Jill]

I don't think microsoft servers use the .htaccess file though. Linux and Unix servers do, however. You can just make your own text file and name it .htaccess and try it to see if it works.

Jill

[qwerty]

On a Windows server everything is set through the management console, AFAIK, and I'm not aware of any way to do that remotely.

[Scottie]

Google definitely wanted nothing to do with my dynamic URL's containing 7 variables (wonder why? (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/lol.gif) ) and I finally got this fix in. We'll see if it works- giving it 2 months.

Old URL:
www.columbia4kids.com/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Forum&report=Topic&TopicID=0017&firstrecord=0&finalrecord=19/

New URL:
www.columbia4kids.com/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi/Forum/Topic/TopicID=0017/firstrecord=0/finalrecord=19/

An update on the folder structure vs query string thing:

The modification was made on Oct 03- a little less than 3 weeks later I've got 114 of these URL's now indexed and Googlebot is digging deeper into the content every day; it crawled about 300 pages today.

The folder structure setup does not seem to be an issue. (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[bobsledbob]

Scottie,

This is extremely useful information. Thanks for taking the time to do this experiment and posting the results.

Adam

[Scottie]

Quick update- Google now has 453 of the modified URL pages indexed, about 6 weeks after changing them. (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/thumbup1.gif)

[well]

Thank you.

that information is with gold value (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/thumbup1.gif)

[SanDiegoMedia]

The length of URL doesn't seem to be a problem. Do a google for:
site:www.homecontrols.com inurl:www.homecontrols.com

My URLs look like this:
www.homecontrols.com/cgi-bin/main/co_disp/displ/prrfnbr/1561/sesent/00

Obviously long, but with 17k+ links indexed, obviously GoogleBot didnt mind.

[leond]

You can set up .htaccess using just FTP - create the file locally, and then upload it. To see if there are any currently on the server, you can almost always get a list by using your FTP client's raw command facility, and sending

ls -al

when you're in the directory you want to look for a .htaccess in. I'm not sure how well this will work with Windows FTP servers, but it's worked with Unix ones for years

[GeordieSEO]

Interesting information...

We've done a similar thing for a dynamic site which isn't live yet but we were considering changing it because we thought there were too many slashes and the spiders wouldn't crawl that deep.

e.g. on the live site a typical URL would be http://www.*******.***/articles/living_today/food_&_drink/recipes

Any comments and thoughts would be appreciated

(IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/cheers.gif)