Forum Moderators: coopster
I have a page of indexes (for our purposes, I'll say I'm indexing 20,000 items) and I want all of them to show up. I have two options. One option is that I can use a static index page of part numbers, with links to a page that will use _GET to pull the part # out of the url and insert it all over the webpage. This way, php generates the page based on page.php?partnum=ABCDEFG1234567 by changing meta tags, title, etc.
My other option is that i can create each of those 20,000 pages independently as static pages, with a link of say, ABCDEFG1234567.HTML instead, making them undynamic. Which is better for SEO purposes?
This can be achieved using the mod_rewrite function in php if you are on a Linux server. (you will also need to look into setting up your .httaccess file properly)
However,
I am begining to think that this is becoming less and less of a problem. Search engine crawlers are extremely sophisticated, (especially googlebot) and have no trouble in rendering dynamic pages and viewing the content as a human would.
So if your content is right, then you shouldn't have a great deal to worry about.
I am of the thought that content is THE most important thing in SEO, remember Google wants sites with good accurate content to perform well. So your SEO campaign should revolve around, "what are the traits of a good popular website?"
As far as mod_rewrite is concerned, it's not an issue. I have text files containing part numbers (there are 20,000,000 in reality) and they are seperated by line breaks (\r). I wrote a script in php that uses fgets to parse data from the text files, so the part number can be stored to a variable and used over and over again with no issue. My only problem was with space and resources, but the owner of the company has assured me that I have whatever I need at my disposal
Why do you not store the part numbers in an sql database, and use a php script to extract the data and do what ever you want with it. That would be alot more efficient.
So are you concerned that robots will not be crawling the text files, and therefore not reading the part numbers?
If your script is open to the crawlers and it outputs the part numbers onto the rendered page then you shouldn't have a problem.
Like I said earlier it is generally thought that dynamic URLs are less effective than 'plane' URLs that contain keywords relating to page content.
However, I am finding that this is becoming less and less of an issue especially with google. Take, the bbc for example, bbc.co.uk performs exceptionally well in almost every search, yet it does not use any 'SEO friendly' urls, they are all dynamic.
It performs well, because it is a popular site with excellent content, which brings me back to my point. - "Think about what traits does a good popular website have?"
This is also normally specific to the area you operate in, a popular news site would have different characteristics to a popular website selling widgets, and the SE have sophisticated algorithms that test these characteristics.
The number one rule is providing good content for your area of business.
I do agree though that having keywords in URLs are important from a user point of view. If they see their searchterm in the URL on the SE results they are more likely to click on that link.
You're half way there already, becasue you're considering your target, and what they need is the content your provide.
Research is very important, find out who does the initial research into your product, and what decisisions they need to make to buy / contact you.
Look at your competitors, what are they providing, and most importantly what are they not providing. Try to be innovative in the content and delivery of your content, but in a useful way.
After you have researched your target and what they are looking for, reasearch keywords. Search the keywords, look at what comes up, and study how the pages are built - copy it. Look at what sites they link to and from, contact them and convince them to link to you (or instead).
With linking, quality not quantity is most important. A few good quality back links can do wonders. Look at sites that provide info in your industry, are there journals? Also try PR, do you have a new product / interesting news - send them a story asking for a credit and link, or pick up the phone and speak direct, this is normally the most effective method.
Aim high, try government / public body / high profile brands. Try not to 'link exchange' spiders detect reciprocal links and downgrade them. If you do reciprocal link, keep them contextualised in content and not on a links page. NEVER automate linking or linkfarm.
Start a newsletter, or write for an industry related blog.
Make sure you've got all the basics in place on your site, correctly configured robots.txt, sitemap, meta tags (with no spamming). MANUALLY submit your site to directories and search engines, monitor your site and make sure the robots are regularly crawling your content, check broken links and 404 errors.
I know what customers are looking for - most likely, in this particular industry, a customer would just type in the part number into google and pick whatever looks the best.
As it were, the site i started with was all flash, so i guess we'll have to see...
If you go down the route of storing the data in a database, you will need to make sure the pages are 'renderable' by a search engine.
For example, don't just have the data available through a search or a form, as a robot will not submit a form. Make sure you have some sort of menu system or directory through links that a user or 'robot' can crawl through. This way, it will not matter if this is dynamically driven, as the robot will render the page (like your browser) and then crawl each link, and eventually crawling each part number.
If you setup your script properly to output the part numbers in important areas ie links and <h*> tags then this will give the part number high importance. Also dynamically print the part number into the meta tags.
The bots will then crawl all the pages.
This will mean that, you won't necessarily have to have direct links to all pages
This file can link to upto 1000 sitemaps.
So in theory, you can give any crawling bot, information on upto, 50,000,000 pages.
