Optimization of the dynamic web pages and/or websites is always one of the major concern for the optimizers. This post puts some focus about the optimization of the dynamic webpages. First, let us know what is meant by dynamic website.
Dynamic Website
A Dynamic Website is a database driven website in which part of the content is generated by Server Side Programs. Unlike a static page, a dynamic page does not exists as a file on a hosting server, until the request comes for a page.
Dynamic Website & Search Engines
These days dynamic web pages are created "on the fly" with various technologies such as ASP (Active Server Pages), ASP.NET, Cold Fusion technology, JSP (Java Server Pages), PERL and PHP. These pages are user friendly and works very will for real users actually visiting the web site, but they usually create a mess with most search engine spiders.
A Dynamic page is generated by the request of the user, and as such it consists of a Session ID, something like
http://tusharvickkie.blogspot.com?Name=Value&BalahBalah%BlahBlah%BlahBlah@Session_ID=@@@@@1473653&BalahBalah%BlahBlah%Blah=79
As the dynamic page does not exist and is being created by the request for user, so search engine bots cannot index them while crawling the pages, and further more search engine bots cannot read characters such as "?", "%", "$" "#", "&", "*", "!". So as such it becomes difficult for the search engine bots to know the page.
Furthermore, search engine consider Dynamic URL's as a set of infinite links, because each time a page is generated a new session ID is incorporated to the page. As session IDs of the particular page changes, search engine bots need to index the infinite number of copies of the same page, which is almost impossible. Doing this may lead to overloading of information in the web servers, and therefore search engines may not be able to provide the relevant information in the fastest time.
How to Optimize Dynamic Websites?
Now the question is how to optimize the dynamic website. Even though it's difficult but not impossible. Here we are
Creating a Static Page
This is an easy solution for big problem. If you do have small website (dynamic page) and enough time you can do it. Just right click on page by page of you site, copy the source code and create new static page with .htm or .html extension.
URL Re-writing
URL re-writing is a process to convert the dynamic URL to the static one. There are a lot of software tools to re-write the dynamic content to the static one.
Link to Dynamic URL's from Static Pages
Linking Dynamic URL's from Static Page(s) is another good technique to get the dynamic content indexed by the search engines. This is particularly better if you can’t convert your dynamic URLs into static URLs.
Use CGI/Perl Scripts
Writing CGI/Perl scripts is the easiest way to get the dynamic websites indexed by the search engines. The CGI/Perl srcipts take all the information prior to the query string and put the rest equal to a variable.
Re-configuring the Web Servers
Re-configure the servers to convert your URLs that contain query strings into ones that the search engines can index.
For Apache Server - Apache has a rewrite module that enables you to turn URLs containing query strings into URLs that search engines can index. This module however, isn't installed with Apache software by default, so you need to check with your web hosting company for installation.
For ColdFusion - It is needed to reconfigure ColdFusion on your server so that the "?" in a query string is replaced with a '/' and pass the value to the URL.
In the end, it's just not difficult to optimize the dynamic webpage, it requires certain tuning for the pages to get indexed by the search engine bots.
Some Useful Links
Dynamic Website
A Dynamic Website is a database driven website in which part of the content is generated by Server Side Programs. Unlike a static page, a dynamic page does not exists as a file on a hosting server, until the request comes for a page.
Dynamic Website & Search Engines
These days dynamic web pages are created "on the fly" with various technologies such as ASP (Active Server Pages), ASP.NET, Cold Fusion technology, JSP (Java Server Pages), PERL and PHP. These pages are user friendly and works very will for real users actually visiting the web site, but they usually create a mess with most search engine spiders.
A Dynamic page is generated by the request of the user, and as such it consists of a Session ID, something like
http://tusharvickkie.blogspot.com?Name=Value&BalahBalah%BlahBlah%BlahBlah@Session_ID=@@@@@1473653&BalahBalah%BlahBlah%Blah=79
As the dynamic page does not exist and is being created by the request for user, so search engine bots cannot index them while crawling the pages, and further more search engine bots cannot read characters such as "?", "%", "$" "#", "&", "*", "!". So as such it becomes difficult for the search engine bots to know the page.
Furthermore, search engine consider Dynamic URL's as a set of infinite links, because each time a page is generated a new session ID is incorporated to the page. As session IDs of the particular page changes, search engine bots need to index the infinite number of copies of the same page, which is almost impossible. Doing this may lead to overloading of information in the web servers, and therefore search engines may not be able to provide the relevant information in the fastest time.
How to Optimize Dynamic Websites?
Now the question is how to optimize the dynamic website. Even though it's difficult but not impossible. Here we are
Creating a Static Page
This is an easy solution for big problem. If you do have small website (dynamic page) and enough time you can do it. Just right click on page by page of you site, copy the source code and create new static page with .htm or .html extension.
URL Re-writing
URL re-writing is a process to convert the dynamic URL to the static one. There are a lot of software tools to re-write the dynamic content to the static one.
Link to Dynamic URL's from Static Pages
Linking Dynamic URL's from Static Page(s) is another good technique to get the dynamic content indexed by the search engines. This is particularly better if you can’t convert your dynamic URLs into static URLs.
Use CGI/Perl Scripts
Writing CGI/Perl scripts is the easiest way to get the dynamic websites indexed by the search engines. The CGI/Perl srcipts take all the information prior to the query string and put the rest equal to a variable.
Re-configuring the Web Servers
Re-configure the servers to convert your URLs that contain query strings into ones that the search engines can index.
For Apache Server - Apache has a rewrite module that enables you to turn URLs containing query strings into URLs that search engines can index. This module however, isn't installed with Apache software by default, so you need to check with your web hosting company for installation.
For ColdFusion - It is needed to reconfigure ColdFusion on your server so that the "?" in a query string is replaced with a '/' and pass the value to the URL.
In the end, it's just not difficult to optimize the dynamic webpage, it requires certain tuning for the pages to get indexed by the search engine bots.
Some Useful Links
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