does the team think this link

will actually be followed by the engines?

http://www.foo.co.uk/document.aspx?id=yada.htm

I'm thinking that big bad session id is going to upset them.

But I'd like some input in case there's some dumb thing I'm
overlooking.

BB

--
www.kruse.co.uk SEO (AT) kruse (DOT) demon.co.uk
home of SEO that's shiny!
--

Big Bill wrote:

will actually be followed by the engines?

http://www.foo.co.uk/document.aspx?id=yada.htm

I'm thinking that big bad session id is going to upset them.

But I'd like some input in case there's some dumb thing I'm
overlooking.

Try searching on these in Google:
allinurl:id=123
allinurl:id=yada

I see pages indexed with both ?id=123 and ?id=yada in them, so I would say
yes, they will be followed.

--
Chris Hope - The Electric Toolbox - http://www.electrictoolbox.com/

Big Bill wrote:

will actually be followed by the engines?

http://www.foo.co.uk/document.aspx?id=yada.htm

Yes, they will be followed.

However, some search engines can "see" URLs (similar?) to the above as
being a dynamic page, and hence will spider it less frequently.

see also:
<http://johnbokma.com/mexit/2004/04/12/rewritingurlsforgoogle.html>

--
John -> http://johnbokma.com/ MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
Perl & Google/WWW: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
Experienced programmer and SEO available: PR7 http://castleamber.com/
Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html

Big Bill wrote:

will actually be followed by the engines?

http://www.foo.co.uk/document.aspx?id=yada.htm

I'm thinking that big bad session id is going to upset them.

But I'd like some input in case there's some dumb thing I'm
overlooking.

http://tinyurl.com/62ts5 tests for .asp?id= (27m+ results)

also

http://www.google.com/webmasters/facts.html

<quote>
Fiction: Sites are not included in Google's index if they use ASP (or
some other non-html file-type.)

Fact: At Google, we are able to index most types of pages and files with
very few exceptions. File types we are able to index include: pdf, asp,
jsp, hdml, shtml, xml, cfm, doc, xls, ppt, rtf, wks, lwp, wri, swf.
</quote>


So yes.

However, from an optimisation p.o.v. you might want to restrict the
number of variables to two or less.

i.e.

..asp?id=yada&qid=159

rather than

..asp?id=yada&qid=159&goto=abcde


The best approach, would be to use mod rewrite on Apache or search for
iis rewrite for the equiv on windows

i.e. http://www.isapirewrite.com/

That way, the url could become .asp/yada.html or .asp/penguin/page.html

or even

..foo/penguin/cute-penguin-chicks.html



--
Tony

On 17 Nov 2004 21:20:44 GMT, John Bokma <postmaster (AT) castleamber (DOT) com>
wrote:

Big Bill wrote:

will actually be followed by the engines?

http://www.foo.co.uk/document.aspx?id=yada.htm

Yes, they will be followed.

However, some search engines can "see" URLs (similar?) to the above as
being a dynamic page, and hence will spider it less frequently.

Suppose you had breadcrumb links like that then, how deep would an
engine go?

BB

--
www.kruse.co.uk SEO (AT) kruse (DOT) demon.co.uk
home of SEO that's shiny!
--

Big Bill wrote:

On 17 Nov 2004 21:20:44 GMT, John Bokma <postmaster (AT) castleamber (DOT) com
wrote:

Big Bill wrote:

will actually be followed by the engines?

http://www.foo.co.uk/document.aspx?id=yada.htm

Yes, they will be followed.

However, some search engines can "see" URLs (similar?) to the above as
being a dynamic page, and hence will spider it less frequently.

Suppose you had breadcrumb links like that then, how deep would an
engine go?

You mean is something like:

a/b/c/d/e/f/g/h/i.asp&id=xxxx spidered?

Sure. What I understand from what I read some time ago on Google is that
what Googlebot sees as a dynamic page (or pages) is just spidered a bit
slower since it can upset a site (database connections without pooling,
a site that uses some heavy algorithm to create the pages, etc).

Since there is no way that Google can see if a page is dynamic or not,
they go for a few simple rules, and one is id=somenumber afaik/iirc.

So the webmaster has some control over the spiderspeed. If you want it
not too fast, use URLs that triggers one of Googles "this is a dynamic
page" rule. Otherwise use mod_rewite, and hide the fact :-)

Or at least, that is how I explain things, they might be wrong.

--
John -> http://johnbokma.com/ MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
Perl & Google/WWW: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
Experienced programmer and SEO available: PR7 http://castleamber.com/
Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 22:07:06 GMT, Tony <spamkill (AT) nospam (DOT) net> wrote:

Big Bill wrote:
will actually be followed by the engines?

http://www.foo.co.uk/document.aspx?id=yada.htm

I'm thinking that big bad session id is going to upset them.

But I'd like some input in case there's some dumb thing I'm
overlooking.



http://tinyurl.com/62ts5 tests for .asp?id= (27m+ results)

also

http://www.google.com/webmasters/facts.html

quote
Fiction: Sites are not included in Google's index if they use ASP (or
some other non-html file-type.)

Fact: At Google, we are able to index most types of pages and files with
very few exceptions. File types we are able to index include: pdf, asp,
jsp, hdml, shtml, xml, cfm, doc, xls, ppt, rtf, wks, lwp, wri, swf.
/quote


So yes.

However, from an optimisation p.o.v. you might want to restrict the
number of variables to two or less.

i.e.

.asp?id=yada&qid=159

rather than

.asp?id=yada&qid=159&goto=abcde


The best approach, would be to use mod rewrite on Apache or search for
iis rewrite for the equiv on windows

i.e. http://www.isapirewrite.com/

That way, the url could become .asp/yada.html or .asp/penguin/page.html

or even

.foo/penguin/cute-penguin-chicks.html

Much of which I knew, actually, but I don't think the web hosts I'm
dealing with know about any of this stuff. Client is entirely
bewildered and I'm trying to do best by all parties. There's a follow
up to this post II'd like you to keep an eye out for please. I also
understand from various sources that Google will only go one deep into
a dynamic layer of links (think, won't go past second breadcrumb) any
comments there please?
It's nice to see some new people coming out of the woodwork because a
lot of the knowledgable people in here seem to have got pissed off
with the likes of Stoma and small mouse trumpeting their ignorance and
gone off to forums. I've not found one I'm comfortable in yet so,
still here.

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk SEO (AT) kruse (DOT) demon.co.uk
home of SEO that's shiny!
--

On 17 Nov 2004 22:40:36 GMT, John Bokma <postmaster (AT) castleamber (DOT) com>
wrote:

Big Bill wrote:

On 17 Nov 2004 21:20:44 GMT, John Bokma <postmaster (AT) castleamber (DOT) com
wrote:

Big Bill wrote:

will actually be followed by the engines?

http://www.foo.co.uk/document.aspx?id=yada.htm

Yes, they will be followed.

However, some search engines can "see" URLs (similar?) to the above as
being a dynamic page, and hence will spider it less frequently.

Suppose you had breadcrumb links like that then, how deep would an
engine go?

You mean is something like:

a/b/c/d/e/f/g/h/i.asp&id=xxxx spidered?

Sure. What I understand from what I read some time ago on Google is that
what Googlebot sees as a dynamic page (or pages) is just spidered a bit
slower since it can upset a site (database connections without pooling,
a site that uses some heavy algorithm to create the pages, etc).

Since there is no way that Google can see if a page is dynamic or not,
they go for a few simple rules, and one is id=somenumber afaik/iirc.

So the webmaster has some control over the spiderspeed. If you want it
not too fast, use URLs that triggers one of Googles "this is a dynamic
page" rule. Otherwise use mod_rewite, and hide the fact :-)

Or at least, that is how I explain things, they might be wrong.

and if you explain things wrong, who does know? Anywhere? Who do I
believe? I'm for sticking to static pages linking in to a series of
dynamic links for product exhbition. It cuts all the imponderables
out.

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk SEO (AT) kruse (DOT) demon.co.uk
home of SEO that's shiny!
--

Big Bill wrote:

will actually be followed by the engines?

http://www.foo.co.uk/document.aspx?id=yada.htm

I'm thinking that big bad session id is going to upset them.

Depends where id comes from. If it is obtained by filling in a form or
by URL rewriting robots won't do it. If it is picked up from an OBL on
another page, no problem, at least in theory.

Session ids are usually used to refer to information obtained by logging
into a site or to information stored in the URL (vie URL rewriting) or a
cookie to track a user around a site. Spiders won't save these pieces of
data for subsequent requests.

Big Bill <kruse (AT) cityscape (DOT) co.uk> wrote in
news:5uenp0dllts9nfu56m7fmn1q8bt48edt9v (AT) 4ax (DOT) com:

will actually be followed by the engines?

http://www.foo.co.uk/document.aspx?id=yada.htm

I'm thinking that big bad session id is going to upset them.

But I'd like some input in case there's some dumb thing I'm
overlooking.

Um, what session id?

I can see a ? and something that probably calls a particular document into
a template, but nothing that looks likely to change by session in that URL.

Or do you mean that this page is setting a cookie, and uses a session ID if
the cookie is denied?

Usually a URL with a session on it looks more like this:

http://www.foo.co.uk/document.aspx?i...=1232454129879

and the SID is often only visible if you turn off cookies.

URL in the style of http://www.foo.co.uk/document.aspx?id=yada.htm should
be fine in Google if that's all it is. Yahoo and MSN usually OK too,
though they are a bit more picky - I would not rely on them to spider a
dynamic doc from another dynamic doc, though Google will.

Oh, I did once have a dynamic site where changing id=bla to something like
page=bla solved a spidering problem - there was some idea about at the time
that spiders disliked particular variable names - but I didn't test it
extensively as the first thing I tried worked ;-)

Victoria
--
Clare Associates Ltd
http://www.clareassoc.co.uk/
--