Effect of URL parameters

[Enigma121]

Often, when you are looking around a web site, you will find that the address bar in the browser will have things like ...page.php?name=fred&cat=small. The information after the name of the file/page you are after is being passed to the programmes - it is one of the ways information can be passed between programmes (or indeed the same programme as it is executed in stages) as you work your way around the web. The & sign is used to split things up as spaces and commas do not work in web addresses.

I would add to the section quoted that such parameters can have a negative effect on getting your site listed in search engines.

Google in particular specifically state that they don't index sites that use "&id=" as a parameter in their guidelines (link below). There is a number of other good points raised on this particular page.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

[TWD-Tony]

Agreed...

Google has stated in the past though that it IS able to spider dynamic URL's (although this spidering is known to be limited). I suggest to anyone with a site that uses dynamic content (eCommerce, Content Management System etc) then they should seriously look at something like mod_rewrite to change these URL's into something more "normal".

On the subject of eCommerce and mod_rewrite, we use a shopping cart solution called "zencart" - the new version of this uses mod_rewrite to great effect... Not only does it render new URL's instead of dynamic ones but it creates META tags for all products "on the fly" as the pages are generated.
It's seriously worth a look if anyone is thinking of launching / or changing an existing ecommerce website :wink:

[JoyDivision]

They are called query strings, they often need a bit of tweaking to pass W3C validation but also they create problems with search engines.

I would suggest in areas where you don't want indexed (such as private login areas) querystrings are fine, this forum even uses them, but if search engine ranking is very important try to avoid them :).

[Dread]

Gotta love mod_rewrite. In the original example page.php?name=fred&cat=small can be seen to be a negative thing in google, however with mod_rewrite it can be extremely positive as you could turn it into page/fred/small-cat.php which would rank you better because your pagenames are descriptive to the specific content on the site. I practice this method when i do SEO work.

[Richard Conyard]

On the subject of eCommerce and mod_rewrite, we use a shopping cart solution called "zencart" - the new version of this uses mod_rewrite to great effect... Not only does it render new URL's instead of dynamic ones but it creates META tags for all products "on the fly" as the pages are generated.
It's seriously worth a look if anyone is thinking of launching / or changing an existing ecommerce website :wink:

nah, I'll stick with our one that does all that and more as standard and bolts straight into the cms ;-)

[TWD-Tony]

On the subject of eCommerce and mod_rewrite, we use a shopping cart solution called "zencart" - the new version of this uses mod_rewrite to great effect... Not only does it render new URL's instead of dynamic ones but it creates META tags for all products "on the fly" as the pages are generated.
It's seriously worth a look if anyone is thinking of launching / or changing an existing ecommerce website :wink:

nah, I'll stick with our one that does all that and more as standard and bolts straight into the cms ;-)

I don't want to get into a "mine is bigger than yours..." arguement here, i'm not trying to sell zencart - because zencart is FREE :D

It's horses for courses think - zencart has a good reputation in the ecommerce world and there isn't much that it cannot do as standard - except bolt onto your CMS of course :wink:

[Richard Conyard]

Was a joke Tony - thus the smiley.

Have you got a url for zencart?

[Richard Conyard]

http://www.zencart.com/

I'm guessing, although from the feature list it does seem a bit mickey mouse. If going down the free route OSCommerce ( http://www.oscommerce.com/ ) might be a better bet.

[TWD-Tony]

http://www.zencart.com/

I'm guessing, although from the feature list it does seem a bit mickey mouse. If going down the free route OSCommerce ( http://www.oscommerce.com/ ) might be a better bet.

Mmm - zencart IS oscommerce, it is built on the same code base - just the template system and a few other bits 'n peices are altered in zen. I agree that there website is pants though! The software is 100x better than the website :lol:

[Richard Conyard]

dear me, you're right about the website then - you certainly wouldn't have guessed it was the oscommerce base from the features list.