Could Google Index this URL

/links.php?jd=f7c39...

[mikeD]

/links.php?jd=f7c39c581bb1282aa3310c6e0b7c693e

If you had a link on this URL extension would it be counted by Google

[mrutkowski]

MikeD-

I'm sure that it can, I've seen indexed pages with one? in them.

My question is what is the limit to the number of?'s appearing in a URL that Google can still index?

Mike

[rogerd]

Mrutkowski, I think you mean number of parameters rather than number of question marks. As far as I know, there is no fixed limit, but there is near-complete agreement that one or two parameters is better than a larger number. I think even GoogleGuy commented that a short query string has a better chance of getting spidered and/or indexed.

Personally, I'd advise rewriting them if possible. Nice, short, clean URLs are a plus both for search engines AND users who may e-mail them, or even key them in. And, by all means, don't use session IDs - they are a killer for getting properly spidered and indexed.

[dirkz]

If you had a link on this URL extension would it be counted by Google

Googlebot will eat a lot on a PR10. But this may not be true for a PR1.

In essence, it's best to use mod_rewrite (or some IS... layer on IIS).

[nicco]

my experience tell that also with one parameter and one question mark a url could not be counted.
I have several urls like that:
/action.shtml?id=XX
and no one could be found in the SERPS for my PR4 site.
I think that it depends on the importance of your site. In fact a lot of PR6 or PR7 sites have urls with lots of parameters and question marks.

[rogerd]

Nicco, you are correct - Google spiders dynamic URLs more aggressively on higher PR sites.

[chadmg]

nicco, you should try changing "id" to another variable name.

[dirkz]

you should try changing "id" to another variable name

Have ranked sites with "id=". Shouldn't matter.

[nippi]

gg says stay away from id.

does not mean id will never be indexed, but increases risk.

i won't exchange links if link is on an?id page and many others won't either

dont use them

[WebmasterFisherman]

That's a nice post, just to the topic i'm investigating.

Regarding clean linkage:

I have a footer link from a big directory site with over 30 pages with PR4 and up (top is PR6)
The link is (#1) www.xyz.com/index.php?id=5&b=5 Anchor text is about 40 chars.

I have a strong feeling that 2 index.php file parameters scare away GoogleBot from counting this as a backlink.

Another idea is that GoogleBot sees a long anchor text (+ suspects some sort of trap from index.php parameters) and this is whay axes these links.

Yet another idea is that PR of the page is not high enough for google to consider this link eatable.

Yet another idea it's the combination of the four mentioned above.

I personally saw links of the sort:

(#2) www.somebodyssite.com/rt.phtml?uid=1231&url=http://www.xyzzz.com

or

(#3) www.somebodyssite.com/cgi-bin/go.cgi?http://www.xyzzz.com

registered as a backlink for www.xyzzz.com and visible when doing link:www.xyzzz.com search.

Programmingwise those three links look the same to me (especially #1 and #2).

Any other variables to consider?
Anything that I'm missing here?

[Istvan]

I am not sure, but I read somewhere that you can rewrite those urls like /cgi?id=1323 to something like 1323.htm. By using htaccess.. What is the exact way of doing such? Also will google crawl the 1323.htm url or will it stick to /cgi?id=1323?

Istvan