URL variables make pages unique?

[defduane]

Say I have a page like:

default.aspx?categoryID=1&productID=2

and:

default.aspx?productID=2

The content on both of these pages is identical or nearly identical. Would these be treated as separate pages according to Google? And if so, would the identical content hurt SER?

In addition I would like to create versions of these dynamic pages that apppear static. i.e. category/productname.html and have a sitemap that links to all products. If Google still indexes the page with URL variables, would the duplicate content hurt rankings more that the static SE friendly URL with keywords would help?

(note: I cannot remove all links to these pages b/c they are built into the ecommerce dll)

[manu_patel]

hi all
actually i am new i want to know meaning of URL in details
thanks very much

[the_nerd]

defduane,

duplicate content (within one site) shouldn't hurt a lot - Google simply chooses the most relevant page.

Which one will that be?

Assume the linking page has PR 5.

If you link to something1.htm, this page will probably have PR 4 (meaning it's about 1/10 as important as the linking page)

If you link to something.asp?par=1

it will probably have PR 3
(meaning it's about 1/100 as important as the linking page)

and finally if you link to

something.asp?par=1&par2=2

it will have PR 2 (if any). (meaning it's about 1/1000 as important as the linking page)

So my prediction is the static looking page will show up and the other two will be neglected.