Getting PageRank to your dynamic pages

do the number of variables make a difference?

[mona]

I have as site that has 3 variables in the url of the dynamic pages. None of these pages receive PR from the static pages of the site. I just found a site where the dynamic pages do get PR passed on, but this site only has 2 variables in the url.

Wouls this be the reason? Cuz it's driving me a little nuts;) Everything gets spidered fine and the pages rank well. I know that mod_rewrite is an option, but I don't want to mess with a site that is working.

[diamondgrl]

i would think that it would make a difference. think about it from a google bot writer's perspective and it would seem that you can quickly lead to the problem of a seemingly infinite number of pages if you have multiple variables. (the same can be said of one variable passed in the url but at least it's more likely to be a reasonably countable number.)

how many different pages do you have if you count every single combination of all the variables? is it a tightly bound number or do you have a relatively infinite number because you pass something like a sessionid which googlebot would probably choke on?

[nalin]

I am sure the length of the url is one factor - also anything that looks like a seesion id would stop googlebot dead in its tracks.

I know that mod_rewrite is an option, but I don't want to mess with a site that is working.

If your not indexed and positioned where you would like to be then its not working. Also their are spiders more fussy then googles that will avoid dynamic content completly.
For a long time my company tried to work around horrid urls (several variables extremely long) - we took the plunge ~3/03 and started landing good terms within 2 months, now we are competitive for every term we wanted and first for the majority of less competitve ones we went after. I would go as far as to say that we are the best placed company selling our particular widgets - obvoiusly I am glad to have made the switch.

[mona]

We don't use session ids, and there's close to 2,000 pages. Ink picks everything up fine, too. The only difference I see from my site and the other site are 2 things.
1) We have 3 variables and they use 2.
2) Our site is cold fusion and there's is ASP, although I don't think that has anything to do with it.

Again, we're indexed fine, we rank well, good PR. I just want to get that PR flowing to those pages! Thx for the responses...

[tenerifejim]

Hi Mona,

we're indexed fine, we rank well, good PR. I just want to get that PR flowing to those pages

Maybe I have got the wrong end of the stick, but if your pages are ranked fine, do you really care about PR. PR is a means to an end- ranking well is that end. I think sometimes we forget that.

If you are saying that your 'home' page is ranked well but not sub pages, I don't think the PR transference is not talking place because of the '?' and '&' in your url. I have similar pages with high PR. There could be several reasons for no transference.

But if they are indexed and rank well anyway, why worry?

[mona]

Hey, tenerifejim.

But if they are indexed and rank well anyway, why worry?

It's not so much that I'm worried about it, I'm just one of those people who likes to know why? And even though these pages rank well, they could always rank better...

There could be several reasons for no transference.

Yep, this is what I'm looking for. Why is the PR not transfering on my site when it does for another site? If you can share any of these reasons, I'd appreciate it!

[Lord Majestic]

about it from a google bot writer's perspective and it would seem that you can quickly lead to the problem of a seemingly infinite number of pages if you have multiple variables

Pardon my naivety, but why would finite or infinite number of variable-value combinations matter to bot?

AFAIK bot parses new URLs (or gets them from URL server) and crawls for them, with some soft or hard limit of URLs per site to avoid infinite looping, perhaps with preference for shorter rather than longer URLs, but it certainly should not be guessing variable values.

[tenerifejim]

If you can share any of these reasons, I'd appreciate it!

Ok, just a few thoughts:

Toolbar PR can often be wrong anyway and waaay behind google's internal PR value. So that little green bar could be lying.

How many links do you have on your home page to the sub pages? Don't forget the algo is logarithmic. A PR 3 home page probably won't pass much PR from a 20 or 30 link page. But a PR 5 should give quite a few of the pages and PR 3 or 4.

Is the PR white or grey? PR 0 is STILL a PR value.

You haven't mentioned if the links are javascript or not. I assume they aren't.

Google is now staggering updates for PR, serps, toolbar PR, directory PR, etc. You might just be caught between the stagger.

[doc_z]

The PR displayed in the toolbar for dynamic pages isn't correct. It seem that the URL is truncated after the '?' for PR queries. Therefore, you can't get any information from the toolbar about the real value. The only proof if these pages have PR would be to find out if PR is passed to other (static) pages.

Normally, dynamic pages get PR in the same way as static pages (even if the value shown in the toolbar isn't correct). Thus there shouldn't be a problem as long as there are not too many variables and the page isn't indexed.

[mona]

> Toolbar PR can often be wrong anyway
> the PR displayed in the toolbar for dynamic pages isn't correct.

tenerifejim and doc_z, thanks for the writing back. It seems like you both agee on this point. Maybe that is the problem, seeing as these pages do rank well and get updated within a couple of days.

> The only proof if these pages have PR would be to find out if PR is passed to other (static) pages.

Cool, I never thought about this. I'm making some new static pages right now. I'll try linking to one of these from one of the dynamic pages and see what happens.

[mikemcs]

mona, I have the same problem and I noticed that If I come into one of my dynamic pages (with only 1 variable so that is not the issue) I see a toolbar pr. If I navigate to the page from inside my site no toolbar pr. (I use php)

I like you understand that at best toolbar pr is outdated but I just want to understand things better.