Dynamic and Static URLs

This often happens when you communicate with network administrators. Some widely spread ideas may have been correct in the past, but they may no longer meet the current situation. This was the case when we recently talked to several friends about the URL structure. One of the Friends was worried about the use of dynamic URLs, and even thought that "search engines cannot process dynamic URLs ". Another friend thinks that dynamic URLs are not a problem for search engines at all. They are all past issues. Another one even said that he never understood the difference between dynamic and static websites. For us, at this moment, we decided to take a good look at the topic of dynamic and static websites. First, let's define the theme we want to talk about:

What is a static website?
A static URL, as its name implies, is a URL that does not change. It usually does not contain any URL parameters. For example, http://www.example.com/archive/january.htm. You can enter filetype: HTML in the search box to search for static URLs on Google. Updating pages of this type of website is time-consuming, especially when the amount of information increases rapidly, because every single page must change the compilationCode. This is why website administrators are processing large and frequently updated websites, such as online shopping websites and forums.CommunityWhy dynamic URLs are used in blogs or content management systems.

What is a dynamic website?
If the content of a website is stored in a database and displayed on the page as required, you can use a dynamic website. In this case, the content provided by the website is basically in the template form. Normally, a dynamic URL looks like this: http://code.google.com/p/google-checkout-php-sample-code/issues/detail? Id = 31. You can search for images? = & This symbol identifies dynamic URLs. One drawback of dynamic URLs is that different URLs can have the same content. In this way, different users may link URLs with different parameters, but these URLs contain the same content. This is one of the reasons why the network administrator sometimes wants to rewrite these dynamic URLs to static ones.

Should I make my dynamic website look static?
When processing dynamic URLs, you may want to know the following facts:

1. It is actually very difficult to correctly generate and maintain a change from a dynamic website to a static website.
2. It is safer to provide the original dynamic URL to us. Please let us handle such issues as probe and avoid the problematic parameters.
3. If you want to rewrite the URL, remove unnecessary parameters and keep it dynamic.
4. If you want to provide a static URL instead of a dynamic URL, you should generate the corresponding static content.

For static and dynamic websites, which of the following is better recognized by googlebot?
We have met many website administrators who think that static or seemingly static websites have advantages in indexing and ranking websites. This assumption is based on the assumption that the search engine is faulty in capturing and analyzing URLs containing session IDs and source tracker. However, the fact is that Google has made considerable progress in both aspects. In terms of the click rate, the static website may have some advantages, because users can easily read the website. However, in terms of indexes and rankings, using database-driven websites does not mean obvious disadvantages. Compared with hiding parameters to make them look static, we prefer that the website directly provide dynamic URLs to search engines.

Now, let's take a look at some widely-spread opinions on dynamic websites and correct some hypotheses that blinded website administrators. :)

Legend: "dynamic URLs cannot be crawled. "
Fact:We can capture dynamic URLs and explain different parameters. If you hide parameters that can provide valuable information to Google in order to make the website look static, it will cause trouble to capture and rank the website. Our suggestions are as follows:Do not change the format of a dynamic website to make it look static.. It is advisable to use a static URL to display static content as much as possible, but do not hide the parameters to make them look static when you decide to display dynamic content, this will delete the useful information that helps us analyze the website.

Legend: "The number of dynamic URL parameters is less than three. "
Fact:There is no limit on the number of parameters. However, a good experience is:Do not make your website too long(This applies to all websites, either static or dynamic ). You can remove some parameters that are not important to googlebot and give users a nice dynamic website. If you are not sure which parameters can be removed, we recommend that you provide all the parameters in the dynamic URL to us. Our system will understand which parameters are not important. Hiding parameters will affect the correct analysis of your web site, so we cannot identify these parameters, and some important information may be lost.

The following are some questions we think you may have.

Does this mean that I should completely avoid rewriting dynamic URLs?
This is our suggestion, unless you can ensure that you only remove unnecessary parameters or delete all parameters that may have adverse effects completely. If you modify your dynamic URL to make it look static, you need to be clear that this is risky and may cause some information to be unable to be compiled and identified normally. If you want to add another static version to your website, you must provide a static content in the true sense, for example, generate files that can be obtained through the corresponding path of the website. If you only modify the dynamic URL representation without actually providing static content, you may be counterproductive. Please provide standard dynamic URLs directly to us. We will automatically find redundant parameters.

Can you give me an example?
If you have a dynamic URL in the following standard format: Foo? Key1 = Value & key2 = value2. We recommend that you do not modify it. Google determines which parameters can be removed, or you can remove unnecessary parameters for users. But be careful. Just remove the unimportant parameters. Here is an example of a dynamic URL with multiple parameters:

Www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo? Language = EN & Answer = 3 & SID = 98971298178906 & query = URL

• Language = EN-mark thisArticleLanguage
• Answer = 3-This article contains numbers 3
• SID = 8971298178906-the session ID code is 8971298178906
• Query = URL-the query found in this article is [url]

Not all parameters provide additional information. So rewrite this URL as www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo? Language = EN & Answer = 3 may not cause any problems, because all irrelevant parameters are removed.

The following are some examples that seem to be modified as static URLs. These URLs may cause more crawling problems compared to those without rewriting or directly providing dynamic URLs.

• Www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/en/3/98971298178906/url
• Www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/language#en/answer%3/ SID = 98971298178906/query = URL
• Www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/language/en/answer/3/sid/ 98971298178906/query/URL
• Www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/en,3,98971298178906,url

If you rewrite the dynamic Web site to the example above, it may lead to a lot of unnecessary crawling, because these web sites contain session identity (SID) and query (query) variable value of the parameter, which virtually generates many URLs that look different, but the content they contain is the same. These formats make it hard to understand that the actual content returned through this URL is irrelevant to the parameter URL and 98971298178906. However, in the example below, all irrelevant parameters are removed:

• Www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/en/3

Although we can handle this URL correctly, we do not encourage you to use this rewrite. Because it is difficult to maintain, and once a new parameter is added to the original dynamic URL, the URL needs to be updated immediately. If you do not do this, a URL that hides the parameter and looks like a static URL will be generated again. So the best solution is to keep dynamic URLs as they are. Or, if you remove irrelevant parameters, remember to keep the URL dynamic:

• Www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo? Language = EN & Answer = 3

We hope this article will help you and our friends to clarify the speculation about dynamic web sites. If you have more questions, you are welcome to join our website administrator support forum for discussion.