Handling of '?' in URLs in Google

[huppy99]

Hi.

We have a number of URLs such as this :
domain.com/cgi-bin/browse.cgi?itcMenu=nav&category=12

How does Google handle '?' characters in URLs?
We tend to rank very well, but our online shop section could do better,a nd I suspect it might be because of this...

Cheers.

[bcc1234]

bcc, that's a pretty ugly url.

True, cause
/DisplayPage_q_site_d_refnum_e_6006_a_page_d_refnum_e_30103_a_cat_d_refnum_e_6951.htm
in reality is
/DisplayPage?site.refnum=6006&page.refnum=30103&cat.refnum=6951

but I made it look static.

The question is, do SEs prefer short names ? or can I get penalized or simply not indexed at all with such file names ?

[Kilonox]

In response to the statements that google hacks on PR for
dynamic pages in general is not true. Google from most
opinions lower PR with multiple characters in the site's
links. There is no reason why you have to announce to the world
what technologies you are using and risking the SE
penalties for the file extensions. Force the .htm to whatever
backend you are using and use regexp if needed to make
your urls look pretty.

Just my 2c-

Karsten

[JuniorHarris]

>My error page was working fine in test mode, until I installed the page as the actual error page. It seems like it doesn't execute

When setting a custom error page for IIS through MMC be sure to use the url option to enter the script name (ie: /asp/404.asp). For some reason, using the browse option to set the page causes the script not to be processed, and is returned directly to the browser (revealing all ASP code).