On Wed, 2008-10-15 at 11:22 +0100, Nathan Rixham wrote: > Jochem Maas wrote: > > Ashley Sheridan schreef: > >> On Wed, 2008-10-15 at 00:58 +0100, Nathan Rixham wrote: > >>> Ashley Sheridan wrote: > >>>> On Wed, 2008-10-15 at 01:17 +0200, Jochem Maas wrote: > >>>>> Nathan Rixham schreef: > >>>>>> Ashley Sheridan wrote: > >>>>>>> On Tue, 2008-10-14 at 14:54 -0700, Ryan S wrote: > >>>>>>>> quite a few sites seem to have a very neat way of implementing this > >>>>>>>> with (url rewriting?) something like > >>>>>>>> http://sitename/blog/tags/tag-comes-here/ > >>>>>>> As for getting those search terms, well a link in a page can contain GET > >>>>>>> values, such as http://www.somedomain.com/blog?tag=search_term . > >>>>>>> Alternatively, you could use mod-rewrite to rewrite the URL and turn the > >>>>>>> path into tag variables. This is the same as the above but with the > >>>>>>> added benefit that users can type in tags directly more easily, and > >>>>>>> there are apparently benefits for SEO with this method as well (but I'm > >>>>>>> not sure how true that is) > >>>>>> it's very true; from the google webmaster guidelines: > >>>>>> > >>>>>> If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" > >>>>>> character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic > >>>>>> pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and > >>>>>> the number of them few. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> previously it was text along the lines of "google doesn't index all > >>>>>> pages with query parameters, so avoid them where possible" > >>>>>> > >>>>>> additionally one of the weightier points in categorising pages within > >>>>>> the SERPS is the text in the url (especially if the page is actually > >>>>>> about /the_tag_in_the_url : see http://www.google.com/search?q=tags) > >>>>> ^-- some what ironic :-) > >>>>> > >>>> Yeah I saw that too... > >>>> > >>>> What always gets me is that forums always feature really high on search > >>>> results, and I've yet to see one of these forums use URL rewriting! I > >>>> really think this belief about query-less URLs being more search engine > >>>> friendly is outdated. > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> Ash > >>>> www.ashleysheridan.co.uk > >>>> > >>> a search engines main job is to send people to what they are looking > >>> for, not what an seo has determined they should be seeing, as such > >>> "content is king". > >>> > >>> Forums, lists and newsgroups tend to hold more specific content on > >>> exactly what the user is searching for, hence why google shows it high > >>> (as it's one of the few documents on the net which relate most directly > >>> to what was searched for [long tail search terms]); additionally all the > >>> aforementioned often have a trail of replies; sometimes this is a bonus > >>> as the replies repeat the keyword terms; however sometimes it's to the > >>> detriment, particularly when they wander off topic. > >>> > >>> It's also worth noting that sites which update frequently, especially > >>> those who update sitemaps and send out pings get crawled more frequently > >>> and thus indexed faster. On hot-topics this has a knock on effect, the > >>> posts get crawled by scrapers and content harvesters and re-published > >>> (often with a link back) - and this helps as the vote count for the > >>> original forum post goes up due to the link backs + the original source > >>> is detected as such and given prominence over the copies (most of the time). > >>> > >>> Further people take care to title their posts/messages correctly in > >>> order to attract answers quickly, this text is then repeated on the > >>> forum page in all the prominent places (title, permalink, heading > >>> tags..) and further still, the post/message is normally perfectly > >>> matched to the user specified title - so it's natural seo at it's best. > >>> (Worth having a read up on contextual and semantic analysis as well) > >>> > >>> Next up, the sites weight, as forums often have thousands (or hundreds > >>> of thousands) of pages/posts, and high volume traffic, the site is > >>> deemed more important and thus higher ranking, which brings in more > >>> traffic and so it spirals. On this note it's also worth considering that > >>> google track what you click on so if searchers continually click item 3 > >>> in the search results, over time they'll move it up as it's been classed > >>> as most accurate for that search (more.. obviously due to wide use of > >>> analytics and checking when a user comes back to the results to click > >>> another they can also harvest accuracy data by comparing bounce rates > >>> etc and adjust accordingly). > >>> > >>> so much more on this subject but that's about the top and bottom of it > >>> in this scenario. > >>> > >>> *yawn* getting late > >>> > >> You're preaching to the converted on this topic, I've already put > >> together a couple of articles on my site about it in the past. What I > >> was saying was that the sites that seem to feature so prominently on > >> listings were in fact using querystring URLs; the very thing that SEO > >> guides tell us not to use. I think it's just an outdated belief that URL > >> rewriting is better, as clearly it doesn't ever seem to be. > > > > obviously the converted weren't listening. > > > > indeed, the point being (perhaps I didn't make it clear) is that the > forum posts you are talking about are listed highly due to several other > major factors, the difference between using dynamic (querystring) and > static urls only comes in to play when all other factors are pretty much > equal; in this scenario the static urls with keywords in will *always* > out rank the dynamic urls. (fact: a keyword in a static url is +1 to the > weight of the page, without it you can't get that +1). > > Additionally (feel free to test this) a site with 3000 unique pages all > using static urls will invariably get fully indexed - whereas the same > site with 3000 dynamic urls generally will not. > > -- > nathan ( nathan@xxxxxxxxxxx ) > { > Senior Web Developer > php + java + flex + xmpp + xml + ecmascript > web development edinburgh | http://kraya.co.uk/ > } > The point I'm trying to make is that a lot of SEO 'guides' out there say that URLs with querystrings DO NOT GET INDEXED. Clearly that's rubbish, as they feature highly on the listings. Also, if you'd have read one of my previous posts, you'll note that I did concede that different parts of the URL may have different weightings, which is the only reason to use URL re-writing over querystring URLs. I'd like to see what data you're basing you facts on, as I've looked pretty extensively over the past few years, and have not yet once seen such evidence that can give hard figures. Also, you bandy the 3000 pages figure about. Have you tested this properly? A proper test would involve 3000 unique (and by unique I mean not at all similar) searches, across several search engines, and tally all the results from the first pages of each search to determine the ratio of querystring URLs to static URLs. Sorry, but until you can offer *actual evidence* for your supposed facts, then I'm inclined to go on what I have tested to be true so far. In fact, I've just recently completed SEO work on a site with about 75,000 pages, most of which are querystring URLs, and the client has remarked how better the traffic has been. I doubt I'd get much improvement if I went for static URLs on the site, but I don't have any evidence for that, and I'm willing to admit it. Ash www.ashleysheridan.co.uk -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
