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The best way IMHO is to get a script that creates static pages from your database. (e.g. webmasterworld).
This has two benefits:
1. No querystring complications with search engines
2. Less load on the webserver and database server
Dynamic database driven websites are no different to a manually built website if they are done correctly - construction guidelines are the same as they would be for normal pages.
In other words build clean valid HTML and built for the user rather than for the search engines - if you can get lots of quality content into pages which the search engines can index they you're on the right track. Oh and avoid stuffing either session id's or too much data in the querystring - they dont like that!
since they have some many pages pointing back to the homepage
there's nothing forcing you to link back to the homepage, even static sites link back to their homepage - mostly because if someone gets lost then they might want to start at the first page of the site.
MadWeb
The downside of an all-static configuration is that you lose the benefits of having dynamic database driven pages - ie after a certain point you simply cant maintain a site where most pages are static.
I also think you'll find that 90% of the pages here (webmasterworld) are in reality dynamic but have been given a .htm extension even though the pages are processed as server-side scripts.
1. No querystring complications with search engines
Using querystrings is not the only option and they are a design choice - there are lots of other alternatives. For example you could encode the data into the URL or even map "nice" URLs onto purely dynamic paegs. (see mod_rewrite / custom 404 handlers)
2. Less load on the webserver and database server
This is true but even so it only applies once you get a significant level load across the site. You'll find that once you reach this level of load the first thing to go typically is your basic webserver because the hardware they are using is not going to be suited to your needs.
Once you reach the point that you think load dictates that you must use static pages then you'll probably be on a dedicated server with lots of CPU, RAM & RAID drives and it will simply be an easier answer to throw more another CPU or drive into the system.
- Tony
