How does google handle?#*$! parameters in a URL

Will google see www.widget.com?123 as the same thing as www.widget.com?789

[cmendla]

Someone has a site up on a fairly well known shopping cart provider. The site initially ranked very well and they were getting a decent amount of orders.

About 90 pages were in the google index.

Around July 1, that dropped to almost nothing. Since then the amount of pages indexed has been about 20 but traffic is non existant.

I'm thinking it is some type of sandbox effect. However there is an SEO also involved. He believes that the problem is the parameters tacked on the the URLS. For example, their about page might show in the index one day as (carthost is made up. It is not the name of the real shopping cart host. Clientname would be the name of the individual store.)

Clientname.CartHOST.com/about?123
and the next day as
Clientname.CartHOST.com/about?789

The cart provider says that is simply so that they can provide tracking to the store owner so you can see where the person came from before getting to that page.

Question

1. Could the parameters after the question mark confuse google?

More info
1. I am also involved with another site using the same cart and they show up OK in the SERPs and are getting decent traffic.

2. This is weird. If I do a google search to see that is listed for the site in question I see that all of the cached pages are dated as of april. When I look at the other site using the same host (that has been up longer) I see that the cached dates are august and sept.

I'd really appreciate any thoughts.

thanks

chris

[internetheaven]

1. Could the parameters after the question mark confuse google?

Ummmmm, it's late and I'm not sure I completely understood the question (but I'm Scottish and can't read so well) but yes:

Clientname.CartHOST.com/about?123
and
Clientname.CartHOST.com/about?789

are two different pages to Google. If you have hundreds of URLs that point to the same content you might just get Googlebot confused and then he gets mad, stomps his feet and then leaves never to return ...

(Googleybot gets wound up easily, he doesn't like not understanding things, his owners are always telling him how great he is and that he can do anything so he gets dispondent when he realises he can't ...)

[crobb305]

I have a very similar problem. I have a 100 page website that is suddenly gone from google. The url structure required by the host I originally developed the site with includes:

/default.asp?S=AC3&Document=filename

Furthermore, the templates provided by that host include an embedded "home" link which has session ids that change with each refresh.

The pages that do remain in the google index are also cached from April just like yours. Did google suddenly make it more difficult to use dynamic urls?

Thanks

[cmendla]

Crobb305 and Internetheaven.

Thanks. This has me pretty well baffled. Again, the odd thing is that I have two clients using that host.

In one case the listings dropped out, the cache dates are april and traffic disappeared.

In the other case, the listings are there, the cache dates are late aug/sept, and they have traffic.

THe characteristics of the first site
- It is newer than the 2nd site
- I believe the industry is more competitive than the 2nd site
- I think that the second site has more quality backlinks.

I've been following the other threads about 301/302 redirects stealing pagerank.

An SEO working with the first site is convinced that the problem is the hosting and the variable urls. If I read Internetheaven's post properly it seems like IH thinks it could be the case. The only thing stopping me from agreeing is that the second site from another client on the same host is doing great.

Thanks

chris