ASP and Indexing?

[trader113]

We have a graphics design company building our website and they say they are using ASP and using srtings such as "P_ID=121".

However a friend says that saerch engines such as google will have problems indexing product pages in asp when done like this.

Is this rtue?

Also I am told that it would be better to use php paegs built using phpincludes, but would these work on a Windows Server?

I am not sure what to believe and as I would like to have good visibility on search engines, especially google.

[King of Bling]

Welcome trader...

"We have a graphics design company building our website and they say they are using ASP and using srtings such as "P_ID=121". However a friend says that saerch engines such as google will have problems indexing product pages in asp when done like this.

Is this true?"

>> Google should index those pages. It's the ones with "?" in the query string that can cause problems. And from a SEO perspective, descriptive filenames seem to help (users too!), such as 'graphic-design.asp'. Something to consider.

Good Luck

[topr8]

google can spider those url's no problem, however i would specifically avoid using the letters ID if possible.

google may not spider dynamic pages when they are two deep, eg. if a dynamic page is only linked to from another dynamic page... ensure you have a hard coded site map page with links to you pages such as..

<a href=page.asp?P_ID=121>page 121</a>
<a href=page.asp?P_ID=122>page 122</a>
<a href=page.asp?P_ID=123>page 123</a>

this will ensure that they are spidered

[xbase234]

I'll second that post. I have had no problems with ASP with one or two variables. One site I worked on has over 50,000 ASP pages indexed, with one and two variables in each string.

[xbase234]

I should add that no cookies or session ID's were thrown at the spiders for those pages.

[DaveN]

trader113,

look at some of the IIS rewrite engines.

DaveN

[xbase234]

Ask your web design company how they intend to get your content indexed. You are the client, and if you are paying for a website that should be "indexable" by the SE's, then it is their obligation to show you how they plan to do it.