Static VS Dynamic URLs
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Several in the SEO world have long questioned the necessity of re-writing dynamic URLs, those that pull content from databases into static URLs that appear to end with a finite .php / .asp / .html / .cfm etc. A dynamic URL is often criticized by search engine optimizers because of the difficulties search engines have had indexing and reading them in the past.
At this time, however, Yahoo!, Bing, Google & Teoma all have dynamic pages in their index and in the top search engine result pages for many different searches. It would seem the issue with search engines has degraded. However, the usability matter of dynamic URLs still exists. From a user’s point of view a URL in the form of http://www.site.com/page.html is considerably friendlier than a URL written as http://www.site.com/page.php?ID=2&TAGformat=945bb399ls3.
No matter if it’s posting the URL to a website, sending it in an email, or save it on a notepad for later, the dynamic URL is something that is definitely unfriendly for users. The advantages of mod_rewrite and other tools that permit for the conversion of dynamic URLs into static ones may be lessened by the new abilities of the search engines, but they are not altogether gone.
John Griffith
November 1st, 2009 at 6:32 pm
A site with a search engine friendly url will outscore a site with a dynamic and search engine ‘un-friendly’ url for a competitive keyword group every time.
Simply stating that the major engines index and show pages with dynamic urls without noting WHAT keyword terms you are referring to and giving examples makes this post nearly pointless and certainly does nothing to diminish the discussion about friendly vs non-friendly urls.
You may be correct that search engine friendly urls are less important then they used to be – but I’d really like to see a competitive keyword / key phrase with significant search activity AND well optimized competition where a dynamic url outranks a search friendly url.
The reality is that search engine rank is a reward for doing the many things with your websites that are reflective of the needs and desires of your site visitors. The more you do that aligns with user expectations, the more relevant your site will be.