The
Challenge of Dynamically-Generated Sites
Many online shopping Web sites are built with presentation and
shopping cart needs in mind. The mechanics of displaying items and allowing them
to be purchased is the primary function of the site. Coding and page design then
are done to fulfill those needs.
Many e-commerce Web sites are built on a dynamically-generated
framework which search engines do not spider very well at all. The Web pages
created are often not permanent, yet search engines prefer permanent pages that
they can assign a ranking value to (eg., Pagerank). That makes many dynamically-generated
sites unacceptable to search engines.
These sites perform very poorly compared to Web sites that have
more permanent, static Web pages. Their structure too, is highly templated and
duplicated which collectively spells bad news for search engine visibility.
If your shopping site isn't getting decent rankings and few search
engine referrals then you need an SEO solution. There is no one solution fits
all answer. The SEO Specialist has to work with your developers to find a solution.
The first part is technical and the second is strategic.
Dynamically-generated Web sites pose two problems: first, the
urls are too complex for search engines to spider so they simply avoid spidering
them, and secondly, the pages have little unique content, and sporadic linking
and therefore are difficult to optimize.
The solution is to use a search engine friendly server language
such as PHP. Unfriendly server systems that use unruly and long urls can make
optimization almost impossible. If these systems which search engines don't like
must be used, you can use a URL converter tool that creates Urls the search engine
can understand and spider successfully. Otherwise, a new framework of static pages
can be created for the search engines.
The Spider Gets Stuck
One reason search engine
can't make sense of the long URLs (e.g., http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2.cgi?SEC_IID=13861&PAGE=STORELIST&STO_ID=2)
is its use of strange symbols and field identifiers. When a search engine robot
reads one of these of these long dynamic URLs, it is programmed to either ignore
it, or to not follow the links on the page. Following the links could cause the
robot program and its server to crash. That's not good for a search engine company
that needs to visit millions of other Web sites quickly.
Dynamic urls are often
so temporary that the page linking structure they exist within doesn't have any
permanent links the search engine can rely on. Many
times their poor linking structure renders them almost useless for ranking. Much
like Flash pages, dynamic URL pages may never enjoy full acceptance by search
engines. They are too vulnerable to spam techniques by disreputable Webmasters.
You need a site with
genuine content and real value to get that high Google
rank, now. Yes, your product pages are valuable, but don't expect the search
engines to value them unless they are converted into a form the search engine
like Google will recognize into its database and therefore rank.
Your product
pages need to be converted into a static type of Web page with a
static page name. The links on the page need to be converted to
static format as well. Then the search engine robot will follow
the links and the pages will support each others meaning.
With this
completed, the search engine will "understand" your pages
and they will have a chance to rank well.
So, do you still need
an SEO consultant to handle this task? Yes, you do. After converting to a static
format, the real needs of search engine optimization
still apply. Bay Street SEO serves companies in Fort Myers, Ocala, Orlando and
Miami, Florida. |
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Traditionally, e-commerce sites
created Web pages dynamically on the fly often collecting information from visitors
to create the next page. Search engine robots can't respond to requests for information
on web forms, so the spider stops at that first page.
Today search engines have improved their spidering
techniques and can pick up more of their pages, if they are linked properly. It's
not perfect however, and search engines are still confused by what they find on
these sites.
A well-planned optimization that includes search
engine friendly urls along with the optimization of individual pages can make
a shopping site highly visible and with rankings on popular keywords.
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Matt Cutts Videos, Chief Search Engineer, Google, on:
Dynamic url pages.
Site Architecture/Themes
SEO vs End Users
supplemental results (and money keyword phrases) Many ecommerce sites have pages stuck in a secondary index called the supplemental index. Pages relegated to the supplemental index may get there via poor linking, duplicate content, or lack of the right links pointing to the site.
Sitemaps tool
Isapi Rewrite
is a new product designed to make unruly dynamic urls easy for SEs
to index.
It's an
important solution for e-tail and e-commerce
sites although it is specifically for .asp servers. Unix servers
can still use the Apache mod rewrite to convert dynamic urls.
How
To Optimize Dynamic URLs
SEO
consultants
Spark Internet Marketing provides Internet Marketing Services Toronto including web design, and Pay per Click Campaigns.
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