Google and .ASP?

[Gateway]

I’m not sure if this has been covered before in this form, I tried to do a search but didn’t find any relevant searches on the forum :)

anyhow, I have a client that their system is running on windows servers and they use .asp for most if not all of their stuff. This is the first time I have dealt with a client that uses .asp

I’m wondering if there are any issues with Google spidering asp? From what I understand asp is server side so by the time Google see's it its plain html?

Thoughts, comments, suggestions?

thanks

[HughMungus]

I think you're right. I asked the same question about includes and was told that "however it appears in the browser is how it appears to google".

[korkus2000]

Query strings are the issue. Google does not spider query string urls very well if you add more than one name/value pair.

Also I have heard from good authority that google does not score .asp as high as a regular .htm or .html. It is not a big difference, but maybe worth mentioning.

As far as code goes, what the browser sees is what googlebot sees.

[Polarisman]

"Also I have heard from good authority that google does not score .asp as high as a regular .htm or .html. "

My personal experience with .asp pages is contrary to this. I find that G ranks them as well as .html or .htm. YMMV.

I have many, many top ranked .asp pages, so I am not talking theory.

If there is a difference, I DONT think its worth mentioning.

[Polarisman]

Having said that, the longer the query string, the more trouble G may have finding the page in the first place.

Though once indexed, I don't think G cares whether it is an .asp or .htm or .html page.

[GoogleGuy]

We don't care if a page is .asp, .php, .cfm, or whatever. The same issues apply to all filetypes (e.g. fewer parameters are better), but the page type doesn't matter in scoring.

[ogletree]

I use a CMS with no pages at all. Every page I have in google is domain.com followed by a? and a word. They are all spidered by Google and a lot of them rank well.

[bilalak]

Is it effective anymore to use simple page names name.html?
Or we can rely on google dynamic page indexing and forget the old trend?

Thanks

[vnsampat]

I have several websites with .asp and they rank very well with Google. As GoogleGuy said extensions don't matter. Only thing is since ASP is processed on the server side, the content served to the googlebot is same as the content served to human visitors (ie - processed queries, results of which are visible in the browser). So if you are dealing with asp for the first time, start with optimizing the visible text and other html sections and leave the asp code alone. Just a few suggestions.
Vishal.

[richardb]

Good and thanks for the clarification!

...the fewer parameters are better), but the page type doesn't matter in scoring.

K.I.S.S. - I like.

[hazardtomyself]

GoogleGuy - Thank you for the clarification. It *always* helps when you give definitive input - it seems you do when you can. This file extension issue should never be an issue again.

I would think that .php, .cfm, or .asp pages would be the best file formats for creating websites because it is so much easier to create on page permanent 301 redirects in the future when the page changes; as opposed to static pages. It would seem that dynamic page extensions are superior to static page extensions simply for that reason alone.

[frances]

And does .aspx rank ok as well?

[DavidP]

asp, aspx, etc are all fine - provided that there is some link through to the parameter combination in question. If the only way to get to query.asp?zip=90210 is through a search form it will never be found.

If what you have is a query form to a database the way around this for intranet searching has always been to create an index page that links to every relevant combination of parameters. Needless to say though that would certainly butcher your PR.

[Munster]

I have several sites that are built in asp, all of which get fully indexed and perform excellently. As Google guy says as long as each page address is kept tidy there is no issue at all.

I do however have another query regarding asp. we are finding more and more affiliate links appearing in Google. This is particularly annoying for us as once we have optimised a clients page the affiliate link often scores a higher ranking for the optimisation that we have carried out, just by using an asp redirect. This results in our client paying for Google traffic through the high ranking affiliate link. Moreover it means that the content is duplicated in Google which could mean that our optimised page gets excluded from the SERPS.

Has anyone else had this happen? Can anyone offer a solution?

Munst

[GoogleGuy]

hazardtomyself, happy to help. It is easier to do 301's with php (haven't played with cfm/asp much), but another factor you might want to bear in mind is other search engines. Googlebot can handle dynamic pages just fine, but there are search engines that can't handle dynamic pages unless you submit them by hand, pay for inclusion, or have a link from a static page. All in all, if you want maximum exposure across all search engines, I'd still recommend urls without the '?' if you can manage to work it that way.

[Gateway]

well thanks guys for all the answers, really helped out since i was moving into new territory with .asp stuff..

I prefer html or php stuff but wasnt sure to tell my client about how google handles .asp ..

thanks

[hazardtomyself]

<< It is easier to do 301's with php (haven't played with cfm/asp much) >>

When a page changes I use this for the re-route. From all my searching WW, this seems to be the most accepted for .asp

<%
Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently"
Response.addheader "Location", "http://www.site.com/whatever.htm"
Response.End
%>

[Polarisman]

"All in all, if you want maximum exposure across all search engines, I'd still recommend urls without the '?' if you can manage to work it that way."

Not that that's bad advice, just strikes me as odd that a company that basically is anti-SEO is giving advice as to how to rank on other search engines.

[Small Website Guy]

My own limited experience is that Google ranks my aspx pages, except the ones where I had querystrings. Using ASP.NET tricks you can hide the querystrings (thanks to advice I learned here on this forum).

If you think about it logically, it only makes sense because asp and aspx are quite common, and Google wouldn't be fulfilling its mission to help people find what they are looking for.

Furthemore, an asp or aspx page is more likely to be a professional page than all the zillions of HTML science projects out there.

Of course, just because someone knows how to code ASP.NET doesn't mean they know how to do it well, or make it look good.