Dynamic sites can be search engine friendly

If your website plan starts to grow over 100 pages, you may want to consider some form of content management.  But some Search Engine Optimizers will warn you that the search engines don't link dynamic sites.  This is simply not true, but there are some rules you need to be aware of to make your dynamic site successful in the search engines.

• Keep the query strings short.  What's a query string?  It's the stuff that follows the ? in the URL.  This article is ?newsID=42.  The 42 is the part that the application looks at to decide what content to display. 
  
  The search engines are generally fine with one or two of these tacked onto the end of your URL, but they frown on many more than that. The reason for that is because as more parameters are added the possibility of repeated content increases.
  
  
• Avoid duplicate content with different combinations of query strings.  Duplicate content junks up search results and generally gets filtered out.  This can also negatively effect your entire site's ranking.
  
  
• Be selective in what sections of your site need to be dynamic.  Not every page requires robust content management.  One down side of many complete content management solutions is that the entire site is served up from just one page.  This can make it difficult for your Search Engine Optimizer to properly determine which pages are being the most effective for you.

With a little forethought, you can insure that your web developer creates just the right content management system for your site.

March 03, 2005