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
-
URL Indexing with Keyword
Hi, My webpage url is indexed in Google but don't show when searching the Main Keyword. How can i index it with keyword. It should show on any SERP when the keyword is searched. Any suggestions.
Technical SEO | | green.h1 -
Special characters in URL
Will registered trademark symbol within a URL be bad? I know some special characters are unsafe (#, >, etc.) but can not find anything that mentions registered trademark. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | bonnierSEO0 -
Squidoo vs Personal Site
Hey guys I'm Nikolas a newb, just signed up to the pro membership trial after alot of digging on the seomoz blog for months . First off let me tell you alittle about my story and seo knowledge. I started off online on the well known squidoo site with revenue sharing, because of my day job I had alot of time to work on my articles and build up to a nice monthly salary of just over 1k in less than 5 months which doubled and trippled in the last few months. Seo is like a 6th sense to me , onpage offpage and the lots. Most of what I read here is not new to me or something I didn't already know about, but its good to freshen up and remember things, as theres alot to search engine optimization. I have built up to over 500k unique visitors in less than a year and have decided to move on to my own site 4 months ago. The niche is the exact same one I have targeted on squidoo. My site had alot of issues at the start the classic 301 redirection ht_access fix I had to do,content management system building low quality content pages via tags that i have fixed(noindex) and removed with 404s, build up original unique valuable posts, interlink ,onpage and offpage seo the basics I did for squidoo. The problem here is that I can't seem to get any traction from google where as my squidoo search engine traffic is 80% , my sites google traffic is 5-10%. I have the same number of articles on both sites, similar topics , similar onpage offpage optimisation basically identical but have alot better content on my new site. My bing, yahoo and referral traffic is rising everyday but as I know google is 85% of the market share I am leaving alot of money on the table. I hope that most of you more dedicated seo's can give me a tip or two and explain exactly what is going on with my situation and if possible take a look at my site hardwarepal .
Technical SEO | | NikolasNikolaou0 -
Basic URL Structure Question
Hi, Putting together a URL for a product we are selling. We sell IT Training courses and the structure is normally Top Folder=Main Courses section Sub Folder=Vendor Page Specific=Course Name + Term An example is courses/microsoft/mcse-training However I have a product where the vendor and course name are the same. How should I best organise the URL - double mention or single mention So a) courses/togaf/togaf-foundation-training or b) courses/togaf/foundation-training
Technical SEO | | RobertChapman0 -
Negative url name?
I have a new client who has the letters "BB" at the start of his url name, bbzautorepair.com. He was told by someone at Google Adwords that the letters "BB" in his url name could hurt him with Google rankings. Reason being that Google red flags anything or website to do with firearms, guns and ammunition. He was told that the letters "BB" could be mistaken or red flagged for "BB Gun". Seems a bit far fetched. Has anyone every heard of such a thing? Thanks
Technical SEO | | fun52dig
Gary Downey0 -
Hyphen in URL
Hi, I would like to know if the following statement holds true today or it doesn't matter whether we use hyphens or underscore If you have a URL like keyword1_keyword2, Google will only return that page if the user searches for keyword1_keyword2 ( highly unlikely ) . But If you have a URL like keyword1-keyword2, that page can be returned for the searches - keyword1,keyword2 and even “keyword1keyword2” Thanks
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050 -
URL parameter reduction plug in
Anyone know of a good plug-in that reduces the amount parameters used in URLs? I need one for an ASP based system and a PHP based system
Technical SEO | | matmox0 -
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