By Julian Lynch
Online Marketing Account Manager
If your URL looks anything like http://www.domain.com/category.asp?ct=this%28that+other%29 then your site is dynamically created.
Dynamic pages are database generated and may make your life easier as they are only created when a visitor requests that page. These pages are fine for human users, but they don't work well for search engine crawlers because the search query strings require answers to questions that they can't provide and so the spiders get stuck and leave.
Therefore the directory-based search engines (created by human editors) are the only places those URLs will show up organically. However there are a number of dynamic-page optimisation techniques that can be used to facilitate the indexing of dynamic sites:
- Utilize Static Or Informational Pages
Place links to your dynamic pages on your highly optimised static pages, and submit your static pages to the relevant search engines.
- Convert Some Or All Of The Dynamic URLs To Static URLs
There are a number of tools available which are designed for different site technologies that enable re-writing of dynamically created URLS. These basically involve replacing characters in the url e.g. "?" to characters that search engines can read. One elegant solution called "mod_rewrite" involves creating a set of instructions for your web server to present URLs in a different form that replaces those "bad" question marks and ampersands with slash marks (/) instead.
- Paid Inclusion
Another good way to achieve wider visibility is to use paid inclusion programs that guarantee the indexing of dynamic sites, or a specific number of click-throughs e.g. Overture Site Match, Looksmart and Ask Jeeves.
- Site Map
Create a search engine friendly site map. Use keyword-rich links that point to each of the important dynamic pages as well as any static pages that are on the site. The site map should be visibly linked to from the homepage using an html link. Submit the site map directly to the engines.
