Creating a static page on back end

[shyla]

I have a question that I'm going to have a hard time explaining- so I hope you understand.

I have a client that has a dynamic site and has created static html pages for certain products. They have just recently updated their site but kept these old static pages for SEO purposes.

They want to now maybe get rid of these pages 1.because they are ugly and 2. its difficult to update the links when things change, since links on their site change often. I suggested that we need to keep these pages for SEO reasons. They then suggested that they can keep the static pages but put them on the back end so its easy to update the links/content and those pages can be highly optimized but not really viewable to the viewer- only the spiders. The viewer will then get a different page that is currently on their site.

Now, to me it sounds like your tricking the SE's- but I'm not too sure if it really is. Can someone please advise me if this is something I should not do and what you might suggest?

Thank You!

[ncw164x]

First thing to check is how many visitors do these pages generate, you can live with 404's for a few months from seach engine spiders but if you are loosing possible customers by deleting them this could become a problem.

If the pages are the same layout as the site then why would they be ugly - unless they are some old doorway pages with no layout?

You will "normally" rank higher at a SE for a html page than a dynamic site

[jatar_k]

hmmm, I assume that what you mean by a dynamic site is that they have a monster query string on all of their pages.

I would be very hesitant to move (change the paths on) the static pages for the possible loss of traffic, as mentioned above. Especially if those are the only pages that rank. Though you could easily set a 301 redirect permanent in apache for them to redirect the siders to the new location.

The thing they may want ot look at are methods to rid themself of the query strings and stop having to work around them. Dynamic sites are no problem for search engines but query strings are.

not really viewable to the viewer- only the spiders

if you mean they are going to serve different content on the same request then that might be a bad plan.

I still think the best idea is for them to make the actual site spiderable instead of messing with work arounds.

<added>
by the way

You will "normally" rank higher at a SE for a html page than a dynamic site

not true, how do you know that my all html site is not dynamic. People confuse the word dynamic with query strings the two are only connected because programmers are too lazy or too non SE savvy to do it otherwise.

[ncw164x]

I was also assuming that by dynamic they had "monster query string on all of the pages", therefore a pure html page would "normally" rank higher than a site or page with query strings

[examplesite.com...]
[examplesite.com...]

[shyla]

You are correct they do have monster query string on all of the pages" well at least the pages they want to promote. Most other pages contain a cgi variable.

How can you rid the query strings? I know they use Domino and I'm not familiar at all with the "technical" part - bad me I know!

[jatar_k]

have to admit that i dont know much, or anything, about Domino but one option for getting rid of the query strings is mod rewrite. It will change the? and & to something that looks like a directory structure (depends on how you rewrite it though).

The other option is to change the way the site functions so as to not use query strings, possibly sessions, but that would involve much recoding on their part and probably would not be overly attractive.

[mil2k]

You can go to sitepoint and search for "Search engine friendly urls".

These are two of the good articles. There are some others.
mod_rewrite: A Beginner's Guide to URL Rewriting [sitepoint.com]

Search Engine-Friendly URLs [sitepoint.com]

Do not use Session Ids bcoz that will make things worse.

those pages can be highly optimized but not really viewable to the viewer- only the spiders.

That is a tricky road and proceed ahead only if you know what you are doing. May get punished by SE's for that.

If you use the url renaming method then i think all your problems should be solved. HTH :)