Using URL Rewrites - Valuable?

[mkinstlinger]

I'm doing a little SEO work on an existing site.

How valuable is using a URL rewrite, so that a URL that includes something like:
URL/album2.cfm?upc=66065

would be rewritten as
URL/66065.cfm

or something like that?

-MK

[caveman]

They can be very valuable, but to be very clear, not if used as outlined above. Better to focus on kw's, unless you really are targeting model numbers, product codes, etc.

So, rather than this:
example.com/widget2.cfm?upc=66065

...or this:
example.com/66065.cfm

How about this:
example.com/widgets/latest-hot-title

...or along those lines.

[Kurgano]

How about

example.com/index.php/latest-hot-title

does the .php cause a problem?

[agerhart]

example.com/index.php/latest-hot-title

does the .php cause a problem?

That doesn't look like the proper format.

Try this instead:

example.com/latest-hot-title/index.php

or

example.com/latest-hot-title.php

[Kurgano]

Its not the proper format, which is why I'm asking.

Yahoo! hosting disallows .htaccess and so uri mod-rewrite is out.

It's still possible to convert the php "?" and "=" with Yahoo via code changes but you end up with the "index.php" being before the rest.

".com/index.php/my-big-blue-widgets" is better than ".com/index.php?mode=192321" etc.

IE: the uri better describes the page content (no more "?" and "=" variables or long number strings) BUT doesn't represent the exact file structure anymore.

Is having the index.php in the middle of the uri like this going to cause problems with indexing?