Dynamic URLs vs. Static URLs

Websites that utilize databases which can insert content into a web page by way of a dynamic script like PHP or JavaScript are increasingly popular. This type of site is considered dynamic. Many websites choose dynamic content over Static content. This is because if a website has thousands of products or pages, writing or updating each static by hand is a Huge task.

There are two types of URLs: Dynamic & Static

Dynamic URLs:

A dynamic URL is a page address that results from the search of a Database-Driven Website or the URL of a web site that runs a script. In contrast to static URLs, in which the contents of the web page stay the same unless the changes are hard-coded into the HTML, Dynamic URLs are generated from specific queries to a site's database. The Dynamic page is basically only a template in which to display the results of the database query. Instead of changing information in the HTML code, the data is changed in the database.

Disadvantages of using Dynamic URLs:

Search Engines don't like Dynamic URLs. For those at most risk of losing search engine positioning due to dynamic URLs are e-commerce stores, forums, sites utilizing content management systems and blogs like Mambo or WordPress, or any other database-driven website.

Many times the URL that is generated for the content in a Dynamic site looks something like this:

http://www.seo.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=12345&sort=date

A Static URL on the other hand, is a URL that doesn't change, and doesn't have variable strings. It looks like this:

http://www.seo.com/forums/the-challenges-of-dynamic-urls.htm

Static URLs are typically ranked better in search engine results pages, and they are indexed more quickly than dynamic URLs, if dynamic URLs get indexed at all. Static URLs are also easier for the end-user to view and understand what the page is about. If a user sees a URL in a search engine query that matches the title and description, they are more likely to click on that URL than one that doesn't make sense to them.

A search engine wants to only list pages its index that are unique. Search engines decide to combat this issue by cutting off the URLs after a specific number of variable strings (e.g.: ? & =).

For example, let's look at three URLs:

http://www.seo.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=12345&sort=date
http://www.seo.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=67890&sort=date
http://www.seo.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=13579&sort=date

All three of these URLs point to three different pages. But if the search engine purges the information after the first offending character, the question mark (?), now all three pages look the same:

http://www.seo.com/forums/thread.php
http://www.seo.com/forums/thread.php
http://www.seo.com/forums/thread.php

Now, you don't have unique pages, and consequently, the duplicate URLs won't be indexed.

Another issue is that dynamic pages generally do not have any keywords in the URL. It is very important to have keyword rich URLs. Highly relevant keywords should appear in the domain name or the page URL. This became clear in a recent study on how the top three search engines, Google, Yahoo, and MSN, rank websites.

The study involved taking hundreds of highly competitive keyword queries, like travel, cars, and computer software, and comparing factors involving the top ten results. The statistics show that of those top ten, Google has 40-50% of those with the keyword either in the URL or the domain; Yahoo shows 60%; and MSN has an astonishing 85%! What that means is that to these search engines, having your keywords in your URL or domain name could mean the difference between a top ten ranking, and a ranking far down in the results pages.

The Solution

So what can you do about this difficult problem? You certainly don't want to have to go back and recode every single dynamic URL into a static URL. This would be too much work for any website owner.

If you are hosted on a Linux server, then you will want to make the most of the Apache Mod Rewrite Rule, which is gives you the ability to inconspicuously redirect one URL to another, without the user's (or a search engine's) knowledge. You will need to have this module installed in Apache; for more information, you can view the documentation for this module here. This module saves you from having to rewrite your static URLs manually.

How does this module work? When a request comes in to a server for the new static URL, the Apache module redirects the URL internally to the old, dynamic URL, while still looking like the new static URL. The web server compares the URL requested by the client with the search pattern in the individual rules.

For example, when someone requests this URL:

http://www.seo.com/forums/the-challenges-of-dynamic-urls.html

The server looks for and compares this static-looking URL to what information is listed in the .htaccess file, such as:

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule thread-threadid-(.*)\.htm$ thread.php?threadid=$1

It then converts the static URL to the old dynamic URL that looks like this, with no one the wiser:

http://www.seo.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=12345

You now have a URL that only will rank better in the search engines, but your end-users can definitely understand by glancing at the URL what the page will be about, while allowing Apache's Mod Rewrite Rule to handle to conversion for you, and still keeping the dynamic URL.

If you are not particularly technical, you may not wish to attempt to figure out the complex Mod Rewrite code and how to use it, or you simply may not have the time to embark upon a new learning curve. Therefore, it would be extremely beneficial to have something to do it for you. This URL Rewriting Tool can definitely help you. What this tool does is implement the Mod Rewrite Rule in your .htaccess file to secretly convert a URL to another, such as with dynamic and static ones.

With the URL Rewriting Tool, you can opt to rewrite single pages or entire directories. Simply enter the URL into the box, press submit, and copy and paste the generated code into your .htaccess file on the root of your website. You must remember to place any additional rewrite commands in your .htaccess file for each dynamic URL you want Apache to rewrite. Now, you can give out the static URL links on your website without having to alter all of your dynamic URLs manually because you are letting the Mod Rewrite Rule do the conversion for you, without JavaScript, cloaking, or any sneaky tactics.

Another thing you must remember to do is to change all of your links in your website to the static URLs in order to avoid penalties by search engines due to having duplicate URLs. You could even add your dynamic URLs to your Robots Exclusion Standard File (robots.txt) to keep the search engines from spidering the duplicate URLs. Regardless of your methods, after using the URL Rewrite Tool, you should ideally have no links pointing to any of your old dynamic URLs.

You have multiple reasons to utilize static URLs in your website whenever possible. When it's not possible, and you need to keep your database-driven content as those old dynamic URLs, you can still give end-users and search engine a static URL to navigate, and all the while, they are still your dynamic URLs in disguise. When a search engine engineer was asked if this method was considered "cloaking", he responded that it indeed was not, and that in fact, search engines prefer you do it this way. The URL Rewrite Tool not only saves you time and energy by helping you use static URLs by converting them transparently to your dynamic URLs, but it will also save your rankings in the search engines.

SEO 5 Minute Guide

This is a 5 minute SEO (Search Engine Optimization) guide to help your site get indexed and listed in the major search engines.

We will only discuss the most importance areas to get your website properly indexed by the search engines. The areas that we are going through are the :

1. Title Tag

2. Meta (Description and Keywords) Tags

3. Body Tag

A brief description of what you should write in the body text of your main (index) page.

This is just a very brief description, but it will however be very useful to the beginner web designer to get a better understanding of the basics on how to get your website indexed and listed at the search engines.

Title Tag:

The first thing you need to do is identify the keyword phrases that are relevant to your company, products and services, when you have decided on your "Keyword Phrases" you need to put then in tour page's title tag.

The title tag is definitely the most important tag in the header section of your web page. The title tag is displayed in the blue bar at the top of your browser (SEO - Basic search engine tips - How to get indexed and listed at search engines). The title tag is a one-line describing your business, and it includes the most keywords. The search engines place a lot of relevance on the words contained within the tag, so be sure to include your targeted keyword phrases.

Tip: - The title tag should not exceed 60 characters.

Description Tag:

The description tag is used to describe your web page/ Business. Some search engines will use this information to summarize your website in their search listings. It is again of utmost importance that you also include your keyword phrases in the description tag.

Tip: - The description tag should provide a 25-30 word description of your website.

Keyword Tag:

The keyword tag should of course include the "Keyword Parses "That you are targeting in order of importance. Start with the most important and then proceed to less important but still relevant keywords. Do not include keywords that are not relevant to them of your site.

Tip: -Don't repeat any word more then 3 times within the keyword tag

Body Tag

In the body tag section of your website, you should describe and explain the nature of your business, products, scope of the website, etc.

You should generally include around 500-600 words in this area.

Make Sure to repeat your "keyword phrases" a few times so that search engines will consider these to be very important and relevant to your website. For nearly all search engines content is still king, and having lots of quality content will help you to increase your ranking with the major search engines.

Submitting To The Search Engines:

Once your web page is fully optimized, it is time to submit it to the major search engines. Although there are hundreds of search engines on the Internet, only a handful are truly important.

The top three search engines are:

Google.com
Yahoo.com
MSN.com

Note:

It's recommended that you submit your website to the search engines manually instead of using any automated submission tool, because some search engines regard (View) those as spam, and won't list your site. Keep in mind that it can take months before you get listed, so be patient.

Submitting To Directories:

Search engines need a starting point. That's why human edited directories are important to be listed in. There are 3 major web directories at this moment:

DMOZ - Free listings.
The Yahoo directory - Free listings for non-commercial sites.
Look smart (Zeal directory) - Free listings for non-commercial sites.

Social Networking

Social networking is obviously very popular online today.

Unlike general networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, there are a number of smaller networks that focus on professionals and businesses. These sites can be an excellent place to gain some exposure and to communicate with other entrepreneurs.

Here is a quick look at 10 networking sites that should be considered by Entrepreneurs.

LinkedIn.com

LinkedIn has quickly become the leading social network that specializes in professionals. Many users have their resume posted on their profile and a growing number of employers are using LinkedIn as a recruiting tool. Entrepreneurs who are not looking for jobs can still use LinkedIn as a great resource for meeting other professionals and gaining some exposure for their own work.

PartnerUp.com

PartnerUp is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs find joint venture partners, co-founders, executives, and board members. You can either post your opportunity or search the listings placed by other entrepreneurs. There are networking capabilities through forums and an Ask a Question feature.

Konnects.com

Konnects focuses on professional networking by giving each member their own profile page. You can join communities, get to know other members, and just generally network with other like-minded professionals.

Ryze.com

Ryze has been around for a while but isn’t as well known as some other networking sites. On Ryze you’ll get your own profile page that can be customized, you can add friends, leave messages for others, and join groups.

Biznik's.com

Biznik’s tagline is “Business networking that doesn’t suck.” Their approach is aimed more at entrepreneurs and business owners than employees looking for a job. There are a number of different communities for major cities in the U.S.

Cofoundr.com

Cofoundr is a private community for entrepreneurs. It obviously intends to help members find co-founders, as well as to build teams and network with other entrepreneurs.

StartupNation.com

StartupNation is a community site for entrepreneurs that includes networking aspects. The forums are very active with a wide range of topics being discussed. StartupNation also includes a number of articles relevant to entrepreneurs.

Upspring.com

Upspring aims to provide businesses with an opportunity to increase exposure and attract more customers. Members can register for free to get a profile page, join groups, and network with others. There are also premium options for a monthly fee.

FastPitch.com

Fast Pitch claims to be the fastest growing social network for professionals. You can set up your own profile page and network with other professionals.

Xing.com

Xing has a large and active community of professionals. You can network in many of the same ways as you can with the other sites listed here.

Improve Link Popularity

Link popularity is the total number of Websites that link to your site. Good link popularity can dramatically increase your Website traffic. Well-placed links are an excellent source of consistent and targeted traffic. And due to recent developments, they can even generate additional search engine traffic to your site.

Most of the major search engines now factor link popularity into their relevancy algorithms. As a result, increasing the number of quality, relevant sites which link to your site can actually improve your search engine rankings. You cannot get high link popularity by submitting your Website to thousands of FFA (Free For All) link pages. Improve link popularity of your website by adding links from important Websites. This have a greater effect on your link popularity and your search engine rankings.

Successful link exchange tips:

1. Search engines value links to and from sites that offer quality information on pages that are not overloaded with advertisements and pop-ups. If you link to a high-traffic volume site that is poor on relevant content, it is unlikely you will see an improvement in your search engine ranking.
2. Link to sites that compliment the topic or category of your site, thereby offering the web visitor more information on a relevant topic. This is sure to boost your search engine ranking and pull in more qualified visitors to your site from those that link to you.
3. The more quality links to relevant sites that you have, then the better your search engine ranking and traffic volume will be.
4. A consistent ongoing campaign of link exchanging is vital to your success. Not only should you look to build link volume, but you should also look to constantly review the links you have in place to keep them fresh and up to date.
5. Use keyword phrases in the link text. Links to your site with 'click here', 'please visit our sponsor', 'check this out' or similar phrases can lower your ranking.
6. Do not get links from link exchange sites and link farms. Link farms are networks of heavily cross-linked pages on one or more sites, with the sole intention of improving the link popularity of those pages and sites. All of the major search engines consider such links as Spam, so stay clear of these types of links.
7. Before approving a link exchange partner, consider where your link will be posted on their site. If it's posted on some obscure page that no human could possibly ever find, then you may want to reconsider accepting his or her link.
8. You should not go overboard in the quest of getting more and more links. Quality should not be sacrificed at the cost of quantity.

Why is SEO Important?

The Internet has provided WAYS to revolutionize how we live our daily lives. It has crawled into the different dimensions of human lives- business, communication, information dissemination, personal relationships. People have made a paradigm shift towards using the Internet to aid them in their daily activities.

With this context in mind, many people are continuously struggling to get noticed in the world of the Internet. Websites are growing like mushrooms everywhere, every time. How can one's website get past the millions of other websites and eventually be noticed by its target audience?

Search engine optimization aims to achieve the goal of getting more visitors to a website by helping it get higher rankings in the search engines. This simply means that search engine optimization's goal is to make a website appear on the first pages, if not the first page of a search done through the search engine.

There are two ways to be able to get noticed by search engines. One is through pay-per-click-advertisements. A good example of a pay-per-click system that is employed by search engines is the Google Adwords system. It has created a hype and has given Google around 5 billion dollars in terms of revenue per year. Webmasters can place their bids to be shown when a keyword is searched by a surfer. The highest bidders will get their sites to appear first when the search is being done.

The second way of GETTING high rankings from search engines is through organic searches. Search engines evaluate websites by using what they call "spiders." These programs scan the websites and collects information about them. They then collate the information and pass it on to the search engine. This area is primarily the main arena of search engine optimization. It utilizes a set of methods to be able to get search engines to list the website on high ranks.

Traffic:

The main purpose of search engine optimization is to increase the traffic generated by a website. Websites are built to be seen by Internet surfers and search engines can help it achieve this goal. The power of the search engine should not be underestimated. It is one of the building blocks of the foundation of the Internet. A survey showed that 90% of all Internet users employ search engines to aid them in their Internet-related activities. Google, the dominant player in the search engine industry, generates 70% of all search-related Internet activity.

People and Search Engines are alike:

Search engines behave like people. They like websites which contain substantive information about a certain topic. The best sites usually appear first in search engines because people like them as well as the search engines.

Search engine optimization does not only generate traffic, it helps maintain the traffic. The behavior of the search engine is indicative to the behavior of the people who visit the website. Search engine optimization leads to the optimization of a webpage or a website. It will lead to a website which is more organized and a website which contains substantive information.

The use of the Search Engine to be able to target one's target audience is one of the most effective Internet marketing strategies. It is not like other on-line marketing techniques (such as email marketing) which can lead to a lot of leakages in terms of targeting the right audience.

Search engines segment the market and connect the right people together. People search for topics which they are interested in and this is the main strength of search engines in connecting markets together.

Cost Effectiveness:

One can do search engine optimization under the ASSUMPTION that he knows what he is doing. Search engine optimization is a full-time job and has a very long learning curve. This is why most people would resort to out-sourcing the job to experts who are good at what they do. One should be cautious, however, in hiring a search engine optimization company or consultant. Factors such as pricing and service should carefully be assessed before signing a deal. If done properly, search engine optimization is a very cost effective way of getting more people to know about one's products or to know about a certain issue or event that a website is disseminating.

SEO is very important for websites since it determines the position of the website in comparison with its competitors. It does not only generate traffic from the targeted audience but is also a cost-effective way of optimizing the website.

How Search Engines Rank Web Pages

Search for anything using your favorite crawler-based search engine. Nearly instantly, the search engine will sort through the millions of pages it knows about and present you with ones that match your topic. The matches will even be ranked, so that the most relevant ones come first.

Of course, the search engines don't always get it right. Non-relevant pages make it through, and sometimes it may take a little more digging to find what you are looking for. But, by and large, search engines do an amazing job.

As WebCrawler founder Brian Pinkerton puts it, "Imagine walking up to a librarian and saying, 'travel.' They’re going to look at you with a blank face."

OK -- a librarian's not really going to stare at you with a vacant expression. Instead, they're going to ask you questions to better understand what you are looking for.

Unfortunately, search engines don't have the ability to ask a few questions to focus your search, as a librarian can. They also can't rely on judgment and past experience to rank web pages, in the way humans can.

So, how do crawler-based search engines go about determining relevancy, when confronted with hundreds of millions of web pages to sort through? They follow a set of rules, known as an algorithm. Exactly how a particular search engine's algorithm works is a closely-kept trade secret. However, all major search engines follow the general rules below.

Location, Location, Location...and Frequency

One of the main rules in a ranking algorithm involves the location and frequency of keywords on a web page. Call it the location/frequency method, for short.

Remember the librarian mentioned above? They need to find books to match your request of "travel," so it makes sense that they first look at books with travel in the title. Search engines operate the same way. Pages with the search terms appearing in the HTML title tag are often assumed to be more relevant than others to the topic.

Search engines will also check to see if the search keywords appear near the top of a web page, such as in the headline or in the first few paragraphs of text. They assume that any page relevant to the topic will mention those words right from the beginning.

Frequency is the other major factor in how search engines determine relevancy. A search engine will analyze how often keywords appear in relation to other words in a web page. Those with a higher frequency are often deemed more relevant than other web pages.

Spice in the Recipe:

Now it's time to qualify the location/frequency method described above. All the major search engines follow it to some degree, in the same way cooks may follow a standard chili recipe. But cooks like to add their own secret ingredients. In the same way, search engines add spice to the location/frequency method. Nobody does it exactly the same, which is one reason why the same search on different search engines produces different results.

To begin with, some search engines index more web pages than others. Some search engines also index web pages more often than others. The result is that no search engine has the exact same collection of web pages to search through. That naturally produces differences, when comparing their results.

Search engines may also penalize pages or exclude them from the index, if they detect search engine "spamming." An example is when a word is repeated hundreds of times on a page, to increase the frequency and propel the page higher in the listings. Search engines watch for common spamming methods in a variety of ways, including following up on complaints from their users.

Off The Page Factors:

Crawler-based search engines have plenty of experience now with webmasters who constantly rewrite their web pages in an attempt to gain better rankings. Some sophisticated webmasters may even go to great lengths to "reverse engineer" the location/frequency systems used by a particular search engine. Because of this, all major search engines now also make use of "off the page" ranking criteria.

Off the page factors are those that a webmasters cannot easily influence. Chief among these is link analysis. By analyzing how pages link to each other, a search engine can both determine what a page is about and whether that page is deemed to be "important" and thus deserving of a ranking boost. In addition, sophisticated techniques are used to screen out attempts by webmasters to build "artificial" links designed to boost their rankings.

Another off the page factor is click through measurement. In short, this means that a search engine may watch what results someone selects for a particular search, then eventually drop high-ranking pages that aren't attracting clicks, while promoting lower-ranking pages that do pull in visitors. As with link analysis, systems are used to compensate for artificial links generated by eager webmasters.

How Search Engines Work

The term "Search Engine" is often used generically to describe both crawler-based search engines and human-powered directories. These two types of search engines gather their listings in radically different ways.

Crawler-Based Search Engines:

Crawler-based search engines, such as Google, create their listings automatically. They "crawl" or "spider" the web, then people search through what they have found.

If you change your web pages, crawler-based search engines eventually find these changes, and that can affect how you are listed. Page titles, body copy and other elements all play a role.

Human-Powered Directories:

A human-powered directory, such as the Open Directory, depends on humans for its listings. You submit a short description to the directory for your entire site, or editors write one for sites they review. A search looks for matches only in the descriptions submitted.

Changing your web pages has no effect on your listing. Things that are useful for improving a listing with a search engine have nothing to do with improving a listing in a directory. The only exception is that a good site, with good content, might be more likely to get reviewed for free than a poor site.

Hybrid Search Engines Or Mixed Results:

In the web's early days, it used to be that a search engine either presented crawler-based results or human-powered listings. Today, it extremely common for both types of results to be presented. Usually, a hybrid search engine will favor one type of listings over another. For example, MSN Search is more likely to present human-powered listings from LookSmart. However, it does also present crawler-based results (as provided by Inktomi), especially for more obscure queries.

The Parts Of A Crawler-Based Search Engine:

Crawler-based search engines have three major elements. First is the spider, also called the crawler. The spider visits a web page, reads it, and then follows links to other pages within the site. This is what it means when someone refers to a site being "spidered" or "crawled." The spider returns to the site on a regular basis, such as every month or two, to look for changes.

Everything the spider finds goes into the second part of the search engine, the index. The index, sometimes called the catalog, is like a giant book containing a copy of every web page that the spider finds. If a web page changes, then this book is updated with new information.

Sometimes it can take a while for new pages or changes that the spider finds to be added to the index. Thus, a web page may have been "spidered" but not yet "indexed." Until it is indexed -- added to the index -- it is not available to those searching with the search engine.

Search engine software is the third part of a search engine. This is the program that sifts through the millions of pages recorded in the index to find matches to a search and rank them in order of what it believes is most relevant.

Major Search Engines: The Same, But Different:

All crawler-based search engines have the basic parts described above, but there are differences in how these parts are tuned. That is why the same search on different search engines often produces different results. Information on this page has been drawn from the help pages of each search engine, along with knowledge gained from articles, reviews, books, independent research, tips from others and additional information received directly from the various search engines.

Now let's look more about how crawler-based search engine rank the listings that they gather.

Introduction to SEO

Search Engines are one of the primary ways that internet users find on web sites. That's why a web site with good Search Engine Listings may see a dramatic increase in traffic.

Everyone wants those good listings. Unfortunately, many web sites appear poorly in search engine rankings or may not be listed at all because they fail to consider how search engines work.

In particular, submitting to search engines is only part of the challenge of getting good search engine positioning. It's also important to prepare a web site through "Search Engine Optimization."

Search Engine Optimization means ensuring that your web pages are accessible to search engines and focused in ways that help improve the chances they will be found.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) changes your web pages so search engines can index and rank them better. You do this by modifying the HTML (the code) so search engines can easily navigate the page and identify significant words. You also add content (pages of text) so the search engines have something to index and rank. Thus your target audience will be able to find you when they are researching their interests. The goal is not just to get #1 ranking. The goal is sales. You measure success by showing an increase in leads, conversions, or sales.

Unpaid Links in Google: When a user searches in Google, she sees two types of links: unpaid links and paid links. The unpaid links are the result of Google's search technology. They scan the web and rank the links. The links at the top of the page get the most clicks, so every merchant's question is how to get his link to the top of the search engine. (The paid links, which are paid advertising, are on the right side of the page. This is covered in the chapter on PPC.) This chapter shows you how to improve your web page so they show up higher in the unpaid listings.

At Google, the links on the left are unpaid. These are indexed and ranked by Google's search engine. The paid listings are ads ranked by bids. Unpaid links are also called natural search results or organic search results. These names are misleading because there's nothing natural about it. Google uses complex rules to evaluate these results and SEO Companies put sophisticated efforts into getting the best possible ranking.

Let's go forward and explore first the two major ways search engines get their listings, then see how search engine optimization can especially help with crawler-based search engines.