|
|
Web Site Design Mistakes -- Database Parameters In URLs
|
|
|
| 2.0/5.0 (1 votes total) |
|
|
|
|
Halstatt Pires
January 17, 2007
|
| Halstatt Pires |
| Halstatt Pires is with http://www.marketingtitan.com
- an Internet marketing and advertising company comprised of a search
engine optimization specialist providing meta tag optimization services
and Internet marketing consultant providing internet marketing
solutions through integrated design and programming services. |
| Halstatt Pires
has written 3 articles for WebKnowHow. |
| View all articles by Halstatt Pires... |
Creating a web site takes thought, planning and execution.
Unfortunately, many designs are dead in the water before they are even
published as far as search engine optimization is concerned. Whatever
you do, avoid these critical mistakes.
Database Parameters in URL
Many
web site designers don’t take into account the effect of database
parameters in site URLs. A database parameter tells the server what
should be loaded onto a particular page when a viewer tries to see it.
In essence, the page is “dynamic” because it is being pulled together
with each click. Robot programs that are used by search engines to
index sites hate dynamic pages. Often, they will not even index the
pages and the page of your site is not listed in the search engine.
Let’s
look at an example using the Nomad Adventure Journals site. The home
page URL is aptly, http://www.nomadjournals.com - a static page. In
this URL, there are no parameters telling the server to load anything
other than a static web page. All search engines will index this page
without any problem.
Now, what if we changed the page to
something dynamic. Let’s say we designed it to record the session
identification [identify the viewer] and dynamically load the pictures
on the page. We would have one parameter for the session identification
and four parameters for the various pictures on the page. The URL for
the home page might look something like:
http://www.nomadjournals.com/home/index.html?&DID=9&User_ID&CATID=15&ObjectGroup_ID=39
What
a mess. A search engine robot is going to balk at indexing such pages.
It simply can’t tell what is on the page. If you have parameters and
session identifications in the URLs of your site pages, you are going
to have a very difficult time getting into the search engine rankings.
Obviously, that precludes you from getting any top rankings and free
traffic.
Fixing The Problem
Fixing the problem often is
lengthy and costly depending on the number of pages on your site. If
you have over 100 products, a complete re-design may be the best
answer. If you have a relatively small number of pages, there may be
less brutish options.
Converting pages to static html is a
definite solution for smaller sites. Essentially, one would take the
page for each product and convert it into a static html page. The
domain would then be converted to short sub-domain. If a user then
clicked on the “buy” button for the product on the page, they would be
sent to a dynamic database page. The viability of this solution is
dependent upon the layout of the site. Some sites can be fixed, some
simply cannot.
In Closing
The database parameter
problem is surprisingly common with sites selling products. A majority
of site designers do not understand search engine optimization and
don’t realize the problem they are creating. If you intend to build a
database driven site, make sure you bring in a search engine
optimization specialist before it is created. Nobody wants to spend the
money to design a site twice. |
|
 |
FEEDBACK
COMMENTS
PRINT
SUBMIT TUTORIAL
RSS
Add comment
(Comments: 1)
