search engine spider asp .net

[marklapsley]

Hi

I am converting my site <snip>

and as the current site uses in process session. I am using ASP.Net Session Service for new website which builds the session identifier in URL.

Example

<snip> will be

<snip> (sessionidentifier)/default.aspx

The session identifier is different for every user as well

Will this affect the way Google spider pages and other search engines?

[edited by: pageoneresults at 10:40 am (utc) on May 29, 2003]
[edit reason] No URLs Please - Refer to TOS [/edit]

[Dreamquick]

Personally I'd say yes because for each visit a crawler makes to the site it would get given what it percieves as a different URL, even though in reality the only thing which is changing is the session id.

This could potentially lead to one of several things;

1) Potentially you could get duplicate content penalities because you appear to have the exact same page with different URLs

2) If they index URL including a session id then users would go into your site with a session id already set - dependent on the configuration of the server they will either immediately be forced to get another session id or they could end up all sharing that single session if they come through from a search engine.

3) If a crawler recognises the session id in the URL then it may simply refuse to index any pages.

What's the best plan?

To be honest I can't think of any benefits of having a crawler index pages with sessions ids - the simplest answer is not to put the session id in the URL if you know the request is coming from a search engines crawler.

...and besides, what's wrong with the classic session cookie :)

- Tony

[marklapsley]

Thanks for your comments they are very much apreciated

with asp.net we have found a way of storeing the session identifier in sql sever insted of the url. wich only meen we will have to clear the datbse every so often wich is not to much of a problem

do you know if asp.net is penilzed in serch engines?

allso using a seesion iden session identifier use less resorces on the server and is easy to montior user

[Dreamquick]

ASP.net itself wont be penalised in the same way that ASP & PHP aren't penalised.

If I'm reading your comment correctly you've created your own session handling mechanism - if this is the case unless you know exactly what you are doing I would recommend against taking this approach as even the smallest mistake can leave you open to security problems.

- Tony

[marklapsley]

no we havenot creted our own way but asp.net give you severl options that cant be set in the web config file for handling session

they are the

1tradtional way of storing sesstion in memmory

2 soring them in a session identifier in the url( as we where Doing)

3 storing the session identifier in a database

Please excuse spelling

[seoRank]

Like dreamquick says, if SEO is important to your site / business, stay away from session ID's in the URL. The SE's may interpret it differently and you may get penalized. Some SE's may have problem even reading the URL to index your site.