mod rewrite subfolder-based URLs to script filepaths

What 'friendly URL' approach is best?

[fahad direct]

Hi,
If we have lot of parameters on form submit say 20+ parameters/arguments like domain.com?a=1&b=2&c=3...z=50

which way is better to be crawled and avoid spamming:

1) Either to do it subfolders way like:
domain.com?a=1/b=2/c=3.../z=50

OR

2) leave it in parameters way like:
domain.com?a=1&b=2&c=3...z=50

[g1smd]

If you go for rewritten rules, you'll have to design things to that you don't exceed the maximum of NINE backreferences allowed in a RewriteRule directive.

[jdMorgan]

For 1), I think your meant:
1) Either to do it subfolders way like:
example.com/a1/b2/c3.../z50 or example.com/a/1/b/2/c/3.../z/50

The major search engines "do OK" with a few (one, two, or three) query-string parameters in dynamic URLs. However, less-advanced search engines may not handle them all that well, if at all. And even the major search engines will not handle more than a few query parameters -- At some point, they all give up and say, "That's too many, this site may have an 'infinite' URL-space." When this happens, they will place an arbitrary limit on how many URLs they are willing to follow and list on your site.

There's a third option, and that is to use hyphens instead of slashes as the parameter delimiters in the 'friendly' URLs.

Another consideration is that perhaps you don't really need all of those options competing with each other for ranking and space in the search results. Regardless of the form of the URLs that your decide to publish and use, consider limiting the number or parameters which are visible to search engines, and instead return only 'category' pages and a few of your most popular 'product' pages. There is no reason to clutter up the search engines' view of your site with every possible 'search option,' for example. It is a waste of their resources, and they will react (and rank) accordingly.

One thing that's often helpful in order to get a good understanding of these issues is to investigate how the major sites in your market sector do things. You'll notice that they limit the number of parameters so that redundant URLs do not appear, and focus the PageRank and link-popularity onto their unique and non-redundant pages instead of allowing these ranking factors to be 'spread too thin" across all possible URL-variations.

Jim

[fahad direct]

Hi Jim,
Thanks for the explainations.