Make Dynamic URLs Search Engine Friendly
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Using a database to dynamically create web pages makes for a much improved site in many ways. However, such URLs are not very search engine friendly. Search engines are much better at indexing static pages, and don't do a good job of following hyperlinks that contain query strings. The advantages of a dynamic site are overwhelmingly obvious--so what is to be done? With a little extra effort, you can create a dynamic site that is easily crawled by webbots.

The robots used by search engines have problems with dynamic pages. You may review Google’s comments on this subject at http://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html.

However, dynamic URLs can be converted into static URLs so that they can be indexed. For example, the dynamic URL

http://www.mysite.com/main.php?category=books&subject=biography,

can be rewritten as

http://www.mysite.com/pagebooks-biography.htm

This article will show you how to do this and in so doing make your dynamic, database-driven website search engine friendly.

The steps involved are:

1. make sure your web server supports “mod_rewrite”
2. create a “.htaccess” file
3. upload this file to the correct directory on your server
4. test the results by typing the modified URL into the address box of your browser
5. modify your original code to write your links in a search engine friendly form

Next: Check Your Server >>
 

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