Best URLs and Rewriting

To embed the product code or not?

[RossWal]

Creating a new ecommom site - what's the current best practice on URLs?

The problem I'm trying to get my head around is what we need to translate a friendly static looking URL to a dynamic one, and where that info will be stored.

One possibility is:

acme.com/spiffy-new-fangled-widgit
gets translated to
acme.com/product.aspx?id=123

The difficulty here is where to hold the translation and what would be required for our internal users when setting up a new product.

Another (and simpler) possibility would involve an out-facing url like:

acme.com/spiffy-new-fangled-widgit.aspx?product=123
or
acme.com/spiffy-new-fangled-widgit/123
or
acme.com/123/spiffy-new-fangled-widgit

As I type this, I realize there are at least three issues at play: SEO, User Experience, Technology (software performance, maintenance, etc)

Comments? Experiences?

[akmac]

I use:

myurl.com/new-fancy-widget-5477.html

Best to avoid additional /'s where possible.

[RossWal]

Thanks akmac - I like that. Here's a new thought:

acme.com/new-fancy-widget.aspx?widget=123

Thus highlighting that this is indeed a widget for sale. If I were a SE and I saw a widget company with a bunch of widget=123, widget=345, etc. I might think it more likely that these were indeed widget pages.

Is it better to avoid the dynamic looking parms all together, do you think?

[rocknbil]

First, think about the REAL reason you are rewriting the URL. To make it more memorable? To get rid of ugly query strings? No, these are just "bonus features" - your real reason (IMHO, of COURSE :-) )is to make a URL that succinctly defines the product, which equates to a keyword-rich URL. A page with the keywords in the page, title, title tag, and URL (URI, you purists) will naturally index much better.

acme.com/spiffy-new-fangled-widgit
gets translated to
acme.com/product.aspx?id=123

The difficulty here is where to hold the translation and what would be required for our internal users when setting up a new product.

If your programmers are on the ball, this is easy. You extract the url from the product title. Your rewrite directs anything not a file and not a directory to your products script. The products script takes the last parameter of the request uri, subs the "-" for spaces, looks for a product matching it, then creates the variable id=123. The script then goes on to pull up the product as it normally does, using id=123. This last part is important, it keeps your site working for both /spiffy-new-fangled-widgit and product.aspx?id=123.

When you generate product page links, Froogle or other product feeds, you simply use this formula to generate the rich URLS.

So what it means for those creating products: work those keywords into the product title. The only restriction is that your product titles must be unique, which is a Very Good Idea anyway. You can program in error traps to prevent duplicate product titles from being inserted.

About product codes: Unless your industry is one in which product codes are commonly used as search terms (like "Ford F150") I would not waste any time or effort on inserting the codes in the URLs. You want someone to search the SE's and find your products. Generally I wouldn't even be looking for a "spiffy" widget, I'd be looking for a "Large Blue Widget" but in any case I would rarely look for it by product code unless it's an industry standard.

[sun818]

You want NOINDEX on the dynamic URLs if your intention is to include only the static looking URLs in the index. Otherwise, you will have duplicate content being index. I would also limit your URLs to a reasonable length. If you make it too long, URLs will break when sent via e-mail. (Maybe its just me, but I make it a point to send e-mail by plain text whenever possible.)