Search Engines

[TeamUpHere]

Hi All,

I'm in the middle of a debate about the best way to optimise my website's search engine ratings. One the one hand I'm being told (by my web developer) that our 'Members Pages' will not get picked up by engines because they are held on a database, whilst I am also being told (by an independent web developer) that they should be.

We have over 400 of these pages with a further (between) 2-10 sub pages, so there are in excess of 1000 pages which should be getting picked up by search engines - or should /could they?:|

Any advice (laymen's terms please) would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Stewart
TeamUpHere.com

 

[Toon]

Aren't most sites built using a database? If you have a site with lots of products then chances are they are on a database and of course search engines can read these.

 

[TeamUpHere]

Thanks Toon.
Why do think they are not getting picked up - we've been live for almost 3 months?
Stewart

 

[DuaneJackson]

I think what the web developer is saying i sthat because the URL has a query string, ie:

/memberdetails.asp?id-2987

it wont get indexed as well as other pages without a querystring. This is true, but can easily be got around by your developer by using urls like

/member_2987.asp

This requires some funky stuff server side to handle it (either intelligent 404s or a mod_Rewrite) but it's not a big deal.

Hope that helps!

 

[TeamUpHere]

Does the fact that one has to register before being able to view members' details have any significance?
Stewart

 

[DuaneJackson]

Yes, 100%

Unless the search engines sign up and register and then login, they'll never see the member detail - how could they?

 

[mattk]

As Duane said, it's largely due to how your site is put together. There is no technical reason why database-driven pages can't be seen by search engines. However, search engines can only follow links, so if your member pages are only accessible via a search, or you have to be registered to view them this will definitely prevent search engines from seeing and indexing them.

 

[BlackBerryUK]

Hiya,

It is possible to optimise database driven sites by making sure your pages can be read by the spiders. spiders do not read JS or flash. They need to see a html link to visit the pages. if your URLs are not spider friendly thats another thing you could look into.(mod_rewrite to create crawler-friendly URLs)

keyword-heavy flat HTML page with hard-coded links to other similar pages is best for getting top search rankings. but for CMS and databases you really need to look into the url. and make sure it can be read by the spiders.

very relevant post has been discussed here about the database websites: http://www.e-consultancy.com/forum/1319-seo-and-database--driven-web-sites.html

hope this helps.

thanks
Tala

 

[mattk]

keyword-heavy flat HTML page with hard-coded links to other similar pages is best for getting top search rankings.

I'm not sure that is necessarily true. Sites like Wikipedia, Amazon and MSDN all rank very highly for competitive search terms, yet all are data-driven and dynamically created pages.

very relevant post has been discussed here about the database websites: http://www.e-consultancy.com/forum/1319-seo-and-database--driven-web-sites.html

That is an interesting discussion, but it's nearly 4 years old, which is an awfully long time in seo terms.

 

[DuaneJackson]

But don't Amazon and Wikipedia have SEO friendly URLs?

 

[mattk]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802131379/104-8742010-6349526?v=glance&n=283155

Err.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Exit_to_Brooklyn

Wikipedia do though.

 

[DuaneJackson]

Yes, but in the amazon example, chopping of the querystring still gives you

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802131379/102-7548707-7791357

a unique product/page. This is SEO friendly enough IMHO. An unfriendly url would depend on the 0802131379/102-7548707-7791357 bit being passed in a querysting.

As for the Wikipedia URL, thanks for proving my point : )

 

[mattk]

I see what you mean - I was thinking user friendly, rather than search engine friendly!

 

[BlackBerryUK]

spot on Mattk - my mistake