Dynamic vs. static URLs
-
Hello Everyone,
I'm new here on MOZ and just getting back into SEO (a little bit) after not doing anything 'myself' for a couple of years. Currently my individual URLs show as: https://www.example.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=107 (dynamic responsive site).
I can switch it to a static site, so the individual product pages read as:https://www.example.com/catalog/category name/product name-107.html
It's still a long URL, but it would be keyword rich. Some of my current dynamic pages are indexed,and due to an upgrade I had to do several months back, I already have some redirects (301) from my php extensions to the one listed above. This is my long explanation to my following questions:
-
Does having a dynamic or static site matter when ranking in search engines
-
I already have some redirects coming my older site to this dynamic site, so I would have to make more directs from the dynamic site to my static site - is this okay to do?
I'm really at a loss, a couple of years ago, I ranked 1-3 (on Page 1) on Google for all my keywords, (all White Hat work), and now I'm into great abyss of no mans land of the internet (ranked on Page 3+)
Thank you for any and all help from everyone!
~Sandra
-
-
Thank you to everyone for all of your help and suggestions. I guess this will be on the top of my 'to do list' switching from dynamic to static. I already have some 301's in place from my site had a .php extension to the new extension now with ./?... etc. Is it okay to re redirect them? How many redirects are too many?
Thank you so much!
Sandra
-
Thank you to everyone for all of your help and suggestions. I guess this will be on the top of my 'to do list' switching from dynamic to static. I already have some 301's in place from my site had a .php extension to the new extension now with ./?... etc. Is it okay to re redirect them? How many redirects are too many?
Thank you so much!
Sandra
-
Thank you Hutch42. I guess I have alot of work ahead of me with switching to static and making sure I get all the redirects pointed correctly.
-
Sandra, be very careful with the statement you just made. One of the most dangerous things you can start doing is putting yourself in as a stand in for your customers. Google has seen correlation between search relevance and clean URLs, and when looking at web pages a clean url reinforces a persons want to click on it (page trustworthiness), while a large alpha-numeric string looks worse and is viewed as less trustworthy by the average person.
-
Thank you for the article. I just read it. Some great information. I would love an update to it, since it's from 2008, unless an update is not necessary, if it is still relevant.
So is the consensus, switch to static? (so much work - uugh).
-
I look at the URL. I don't know if it is because I am trained to, or because I copy and paste a lot. Using Dynamic URLs means setting parameters in GWT, it means constantly watching for 404 errors. In my opinion it isn't worth the time and effort where a static URL is implemented once, and you move on with the rest of your page.
-
- Yeah, but do visitors really even look at what is in the URL? I personally don't care (from a shopper's point of view) what URLs say. Am I alone on this thought?
-
Yeah, but do visitors really even look at what is in the URL? I personally don't care (from a shopper's point of view) what URLs say. Am I alone on this thought?
-
Hutch has the best answer here, it needs to be readable by the users. To add to what he said, it is also important to know that the dynamic URLs can and will be crawled, This can lead to errors, specifically overly dynamic URLs and 404 errors. It is good if you can keep them clean, but that is difficult. I prefer to use static URLs because I can control them and optimize my pages better.
-
Hi there,
Rand did write an article on this very topic a few years ago. While the content is a bit dated, it is still relevant. Take a look here:
http://moz.com/blog/dynamic-urls-vs-static-urls-the-best-practice-for-seo-is-still-clear
Hope this helps!
-
The question is not dynamic v. static, it should be what is most readable for your visitors. If you can simplify your urls for visitors then you should as it makes the experience better, which in turn is what Google wants websites to do.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Old url is still indexed
A couple of months ago we requested a change of address in Search console. The new, correct url is already indexed. Yet when we search the old url (with site:www.) we find that the old url is still indexed. in Google Webmaster Tools the amount of indexed pages is reduced to 1. Is there another way to remove old urls?
Technical SEO | | conversal0 -
Canonical URL Change
Hi, I have a Product Page, say www.example.com/product-title/.
Technical SEO | | viatrading1
Canonical URL is www.example.com/product-title/ I want to change its URL to www.example.com/product-title-2/
Canonical URL is www.example.com/product-title-2/
Can't do 301 Redirect. Is SEO Juice passed from www.example.com/product-title/ to www.example.com/product-title-2/ ? Thanks,0 -
URL Structure
Hi, Hope you are all well. On our website we have a 'blog' and a 'news' section. The blog is located on "/blog" - but when you click on a post the url structure changes to /name-of-article and the blog subdomain isn't included. Would it be better to have "blog/name-of-article as this would then make the blog perform better in search results? Also, if our news page is under /news - but when you click on an article it changes to /news-article/name-of-article Wouldn't it be better to have /news/name-of-article Thanks a lot!! 🙂
Technical SEO | | National-Homebuyers0 -
Question about creating friendly URLs
I am working on creating new SEO friendly URLs for my company website. The products are the items with the highest search volume and each is very geo-specific
Technical SEO | | theLotter
There is not a high search volume for the geo-location associated with the product, but the searches we do get convert well. Do you think it is preferable to leave the location out of the URL or include it?0 -
Can you 404 any forms of URL?
Hi seomozzers, <colgroup><col width="548"></colgroup>
Technical SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art
| http://ex.com/user/login?destination=comment%2Freply%2F256%23comment-form |
| http://ex.com/user/login?destination=comment%2Freply%2F258%23comment-form |
| http://ex.com/user/login?destination=comment%2Freply%2F242%23comment-form |
| http://ex.com/user/login?destination=comment%2Freply%2F257%23comment-form |
| http://ex.com/user/login?destination=comment%2Freply%2F260%23comment-form |
| http://ex.com/user/login?destination=comment%2Freply%2F225%23comment-form |
| http://ex.com/user/login?destination=comment%2Freply%2F251%23comment-form |
| http://ex.com/user/login?destination=comment%2Freply%2F176%23comment-form | These are duplicate content and the canonical version is: http://www.ex.com/user (login and pass page of the website) Since there were multiple other duplicates which mostly have been resolved by 301s, I figured that all "LOGIN" URLs (above) should be 404d since they don't carry any authority and 301 those wouldn't be the best solution since "too many 301s" can slow down the website speed. But a member of the dev team said: "Looks like all the urls requested to '404 redirect' are actually the same page http://ex.com/user/login. The only part of the url that changes is the variables after the "?" . I don't think you can (or highly not recommended) make 404 pages display for variables in a url. " So my question is: I am not sure what he means by that? and Is it really better to not 404 these? Thanks0 -
Canonical Tag Pointing To The Same URL
Does it matter if a canonical tag points to the URL in which the tag is on? Example Page: http://www.domain.com Canonical tag: rel="canonical" href="http://www.domain.com" /> I only ask because a client of mine has a CMS that automatically does that to every page on the site and there's no way to remove it. Will this have a negative impact or does it not matter at all? Any insights would be great because I can't find a clear answer anywhere online. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | MichaelWeisbaum0 -
Duplicate canonical URLs in WordPress
Hi everyone, I'm driving myself insane trying to figure this one out and am hoping someone has more technical chops than I do. Here's the situation... I'm getting duplicate canonical tags on my pages and posts, one is inside of the WordPress SEO (plugin) commented section, and the other is elsewhere in the header. I am running the latest version of WordPress 3.1.3 and the Genesis framework. After doing some testing and adding the following filters to my functions.php: <code>remove_action('wp_head', 'genesis_canonical'); remove_action('wp_head', 'rel_canonical');</code> ... what I get is this: With the plugin active + NO "remove action" - duplicate canonical tags
Technical SEO | | robertdempsey
With the plugin disabled + NO "remove action" - a single canonical tag
With the plugin disabled + A "remove action" - no canonical tag I have tried using only one of these remove_actions at a time, and then combining them both. Regardless, as long as I have the plugin active I get duplicate canonical tags. Is this a bug in the plugin, perhaps somehow enabling the canonical functionality of WordPress? Thanks for your help everyone. Robert Dempsey0 -
URLs: To Change or Not to Change
Hello, We recently launched a redesigned site in Drupal in December of last year. We are an eco-travel company. My current URL's look like this: /africa-and-middle-east/kenya-tanzania /central-south-america/galapagos-islands My pages have good term targeting grades, and the rankings for the terms we are targeting - "kenya and tanzania safaris" and "galapagos islands cruises" are decent, but not great - most are on page 2 or 3. The one URL where I targeted our most important term, "amazon river cruises," I am still on page 2. /central-south-america/amazon-river-cruises My questions are: Did I miss an opportunity with the rest of the URL's, and should I consider changing the rest to more targeted terms with 301s? Since the new site launched in January, perhaps I have not given enough time for my new URL's to index and mature. Would it be easier to set up landing pages with unique article content that targets terms such as "galapagos islands cruises" and "kenya and tanzania safaris"? If so, how can I do it in such a way as to not "compete" with the pages I want to drive them to? This also raises the question of redirecting the same URL twice i.e. I would have 2 redirects in place for the same url e.g. from the former site to the new site, and yet another redirect to the most-recent URL. Is that a problem? Sorry if I've asked too many questions in one post. 😉 Any advice appreciated.
Technical SEO | | csmithal0