Great! That's a cool web site
you have got! Nice design, layout and features, I must say!
Wow, that's a nice database feature you have incorporated
into your site! Lots of good products too. So you have your
web site all ready and ready to go! But one small question,
have you thought of the Search Engines?
Well, what about it you may ask. You will
most probably do the same thing that you do with other non-database
sites. You will just submit the site to the search engines
and expect that people start coming in looking for your products.
Well, keep looking! Good luck!
Surprised not having any significant people
coming in through search engines for specific products? Don't
be! Don't say I had not warned you before! Let me try and
explain the problem here.
As you know, Search engines send out their
spiders to index the pages of a site. Most of these spiders
index most of the content like static HTML pages, images and
other content. But when indexing deep inside, when they encounter
a question mark sign (?), which is the most obvious element
in a database driven page, they just stop indexing there and
then. Oops, too bad! So, is that end of the road for you?
Is all the effort that you put into the page and the database,
all of no use for you to attract the search engines?
Not really! There are some backdoors and
tips to get your dynamic page into the search engines too.
Did I hear a sigh of relief from you?! Well, let me explain
to you the five most popular ways of getting dynamic database
driven pages into the search engines:
Exception Digital Enterprise Solutions offers
a fix called XQASP that will remove the "?" in the Query String
and replace it with a "/". But this is a bit costly option.
It is priced at around $250, but it is worth the last cent
that you pay for it, as it is used successfully by many leading
websites like ……… to let search engines index their dynamic
content.
If you are using Coldfusion to develop
your websites, you'll need to reconfigure ColdFusion on your
server so that the "?" in a query string is replaced with
a '/' and pass the value to the URL. So when the search engine
spider comes to index the page, it will not encounter the
"?", and go ahead and index the complete dynamic page.
Apache server has a rewrite module that
enables you to turn URL's containing query strings into URL's
that search engines can index. The module, which is known
as "mod_rewrite", isn't installed with Apache software by
default, so you should check with your web hosting company
and see if it's available for your server.
If you are using CGI or Perl, there
is a solution for you too: Path_Info or Script_Name is a variable
in a dynamic application that contains the complete URL address
(including the query string information). To fix this, you'll
need to write a script that pulls all the information before
the query string and set the rest of the information equal
to a variable. You can then use that variable in your URL
address.
Put links to your Dynamic pages on your
static pages and submit these static pages to the search engines.
The easiest way to do this is to have a Table of Contents
with links to dynamic pages. The search engine spider of course
cannot index the entire dynamic page, but will index most
of the content from it, because of this link on a static page.
Wait, wait, wait! Don't just jump onto your
machine and start incorporating these changes. A small word
of caution before your try to implement these methods. The
first four methods make your dynamic page appear to have its
own sub-directory, so the browser will look for images and
links there. You can completely avoid broken links and pages
by using all absolute URL addresses on your page, but that
will make maintenance more difficult later. Alternatively,
use URL addresses that are relative to the root directory
of your site, not the document. Use /homepage.htm instead
of ../homepage.htm and you'll be just doing fine!
By the way, don't feel dejected about all
search engines being the same. Some Search Engines have the
courage to stand up and say, "We Accept Dynamic Pages into
our directory!" Two of the most popular search engines which
accept Dynamic pages are Infoseek and Hotbot. But still here,
you cannot just submit your homepage and be happy. Here you
have to submit individually each dynamic page's URL with all
the parameters in it. But this is much better than not having
your dynamic page indexed in search engines.
So what are you waiting for?? Charge up
your brain, get geared with these tools and take off! Don't
be a part of the almost worthless Invisible Web by having
Dynamic Database driven web pages. Get noticed through the
search engines before your competitor does! Act fast, the
count down has begun… 10, 9, 8,………… Suggested
related articles:
- Good Article on search engine optimization here:
http://spider-food.net/dynamic-page-optimization.html
- More information about XQASP:
http://www.xde.net/products/product_xqasp.htm
- More information on the Rewrite module for Apache Server:
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_rewrite.html
- Instructions for Coldfusion from the official Allaire
Website:
http://www.macromedia.com/software/coldfusion/
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