Google prefers dynamic site, not mod-rewrite

I don't know how typical my experience is but may be it is worth to look at. I have site which is in ASP, so every link to different listings would be in form of program.asp? link=123. The site was indexed by Google with no problem but after reading the threads here that static sites suppose to be better, I installed a mod-rewrite that converted the links to something like title-link-123.html . My site has been indexed but now the same content that was showing in Google with dynamic link, it is indexed as supplemental result with static link.

 

How long has it been since you changed the link structure? Did you create a 301 redirect from the old to the new links? It can take Google some time to figure out the new links and not just think they are duplicates of the old links.

 

I removed the old links with Google link removal and added the new ones with site map. It has worked since old pages are not showing in the index anymore.

 

It will take alittle time, but html pages are definately better (even if it's to a small degree).

 

Any proof or just an opinion?

 

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40349

Now, obviously Google can crawl dynamic pages (look at DP's cache), although in my opinion, based on what I've learned and experienced, pagerank has alot to do with getting pages cached and those using dynamic url's are likely to have fewer pages cached compared to the same site using .html type extensions (as in those with no parameters).

Also, an added boost for most that use static url's are keywords. Keywords in the url, however insignificant, most certainly do contribute to the search results, as evidenced by a search on MSN. MSN bolds the search terms in their serps, and along with the keyterms being bolded in the title and description, it's also bolded in the url. One can only assume the other search engines use this as well to some degree.

 

Since it appears you are now including the title in the URL, then there should eventually be a SEO benefit... but it will take some time. Provided there are not too many parameters in the URL, Google typically doesn't have a problem with dynamic URLs.

Adding the title of the page in the URL can help with SEO, but otherwise I've had no problems getting Google to index dynamic URLs.

It is often believed one factor in SEO is how long Google has known about a URL. These URLs will be new, and have to be learned again.

We also know that not all ranking factors happen "on the fly" at Google and things like "data refreshes" can have an impact. Thus it will take time for the new URLs to show their full effect.

There are other things to consider too like any backlinks from external sites pointing to your old URLs.

Personally, I wouldn't have used the URL removal tool for the old pages. Even though they are removed, I've seen instances where Google's memory is a little too good and it doesn't like to forget about old pages. That is why I like the 301 better as you can keep reminding Google about the new URL.

 

Just wanted to ask, would .html extensions be better or if I mod rewrite my pages to /filename ?

 

I prefer .html for the money pages, though there are differeing opinions on this. My preference is because /filename and /filename/ are technically different url's. I find it common that when obtaining natural inbound links (which almost always go to the money pages) that some people will append the trailing / and others won't. Also, I just prefer reserving / for categories (I'm a structure freak).

 

imho to make any conclusion these days will be on weak bases.
because Google is very unstable in its acting in these months.

My one site has from 55 to 14XXX pages indexed in different datacenters for more than two months.

now what would you say ......?

Google is Unstable!!!

though i like html pages.

 

I am quite certain that google can still tell the difference between dynamic pages and static pages even when if mod rewrite is used and .html extension spoofed. Simple Urls are still best... Especially when they contain keywords..

 

How would that be possible?

 

Google sucks Alright!!! but they are the best. So chew on to it. Static sites are better and Mod Rewrites work well for goog. You have done the right thing , but be sure to implement the right redirect error pages. Make sure that you change your Google sitemap file and The Robots file too. Its not worth the trouble of going down on google for months because you have duplicate content. And Google does not recognise Mod rewrites in anyway. But you know what??? google will find no content on your html file if they come from a database... So make sure that there is at least some static content on the ASP/PHP file.

 

The thread title is a bit misleading. When starting a new site, I'd say it's almost certainly better to use mod_rewrite (especially when there are session ids).

However, when hundreds/thousands of dynamic pages are already indexed, then those pages are replaced with identical content on a different URI, It's going to take a while for the search engines to sort out the duplicate content and other problems (especially Google, it seems).

I've had similar problems with phpbb forums. A bunch of pages are already indexed with session ids. After removing the session ids, search engines, especially Google, seem slow to replace the problem and there are ongoing supplemental index problems.

The supplemental index sucks, hopefully Google will fix some of the major issues soon.

 

If anything, using mod_rewrite is great because you can embed keywords into your URLs, which would in turn help you with SERPs.

 

I find out abou the trailing slash issue as well, and have wrote 2 rewrite rules, both with and without trailing slash to point to the same page. Does google think that both are different pages?

 

That is completely false. Google has no way to know if you have hand coded static content into a page or it is pulled from a database. This is done on your server and served as the same file no matter where the content comes from.

 

Yes, they can be looked at as two different URLs. Just like the old problem of with "www" or without. Although, they have begun to solve that problem.

Just make sure that your rewrite is a 301, so that google can begin to update it, and it will always redirect to one page. Make sure to be consistent from here on out.

 

You should make sure you have done proper mod-rewrite using 301 so that even with the old urls it points to the new URL, so when the bot comes visiting your site with the old url, it will pick up the new url and your page content will still be crawled. Don't just rely on google link removal.

 

As most have said removing old links is bad, 301 works great, in early July I moved my static asp site over to php and mysql so since I new websites was in CMS and all links changed I went SEO crazy with mod rewrite and had htaccess redirect all old links (some 1800+) to there new location (using php script or it would have killed htaccess) and during July I had something like 2,2 millions 301 redirects!

End results is that Google drooped old urls replacing them with new ones and also killed all duplicate content from before since many pages were indexed with and without "www" and as "default.asp" or just "/".

I used link removal only once when I got hit by hijack bug during Bourbon update when my previous website which has been dead for two years took over my new website.