Query Stings For Dynamic Pages

[Demaestro]

We have been dicussing, in our company if we should do away with using query strings to pass arguments to pages who's content is dynamically generated, depending on arguments passed through the query string.

We are thinking of replacing a lot of the logic we have in place to use a Direct Traversal linking system that uses some backend python code to pass arguments to dynamic pages and to give the dynamic page to the illusion of being a dedicated page rather than a dynamic one.

The only reason we would have for undertaking such a change to our code base is to help increase rankings with our client sites.

Does using query strings really hurt with rankings?

I know Google includes query strings when crawling a site, but does the fact it has to use the query string impact the ranking negitivally?

Also Google is not the only web indexer and we would like to play nice with all web crawlers.

Any input on this matter would be greatly appriciated.

[Philosopher]

Any time you can remove the query strings from your URLs, you are doing yourself a favor.

Engines have always had an issue with query strings. While they have gotten better, you are still going to be MUCH better off long-term if all of your URLs look static.

[txbakers]

Search engines do not care about short query strings.

Google, et al, can index them just fine.

If you are concerned about other issues with query strings, like security, then find another way to send the parameter data.

But it's a proven fact that Search Engines are not deterred by reasonable query strings.

[Demaestro]

We have been playing with this tool we have called Direct Traversal and you can define an access rule that re-writes an URL using a query string.

Example
A link I have points to:
www.someExampleURL.com/list_info?id=fooBar

My access re-write rule passes the info the this page the same way but in the URL bar it puts in a new values of:
www.someExampleURL.com/list_info/id/fooBar

It appears to be a dedicated page however in my folder structure there is no /id/fooBar.

Have made the changes to one of our sites as a test and I will be watching to see if rankings improve. I will post the results in a week or two for those interested.