Google and .asp pages

Does Google catalogie asp pages with? in the address?

[the_bfb]

We use a CMS (Content Management System) on a number of websites we have built for our clients - local government websites. This enables them to build pages easily with no html knowledge.

Where the page is www.localgovernmentwebsite.gov.uk it seems to have been catalogued by Google. Nearly all pages with this type of address can be found. Meanwhile pages created by the CMS with addresses such as
www.localgovernmentwebsite.gov.uk/live/welcome.asp?id=996 seem to be invisible.

I read somewhere that the? and/or asp in the address does not stop Googlebot - this indicates differently. Any ideas?

[Woz]

Yes, Google does spider and list dynamic URLs. To make it easier you need to keep the number of variables in the dynamic string to a minimum. Also, a higher Base PR will help to drive Googlebot down deeper into the structure.

There are many threads here on this subject, you might want to use the search funciont at the top of the screen and search for "dynamic urls" and you should find them.

Onya
Woz

[Skier]

We added a new section to our site using dynamic urls for the same reasons as you, two or three months ago. No sign of them in the SERPs for a few weeks.

Since then I have been searching the threads on this site for specific information about how Google deals with dynamic urls. As you no doubt found, the information was not completely reassuring, and a bit ambiguous. As the weeks went by and the new pages failed to show up on Google SERPs I became increasingly worried. (and a pain in the * for my webdesign guys as I hinted at re-doing it all without the?'s and ='s)

After 5-6 weeks some of the new pages started to show up as minty fresh listings, then disappeared again.

After the Superbowl update (a week or so later), all new the pages showed up in the results and also in the backlinks. The "index page" of the new section had also been promoted from a PR4 to a PR5. The internal pages advanced from PR3 to PR4.

After a lot of anxiety and stress about it, it seems that dynamic url pages are totally acceptable to Google, but may require more time and higher page ranks to gain traction.