Search Engines and Dynamic Database-Driven Websites

Query Strings

Query strings are the characters such as: ?, &, =, $, +, or % that are part of the URLs created by dynamic database-driven websites.

Search engine spiders are created in such a way not to follow certain URLs with complex query strings.  Although Google’s index includes hundreds of URLs that include query strings, the more query strings in a URL – and the more complex the URL in terms of the query strings, the less likely it is that a search engine will follow the link and spider the subsequent pages.

There are several solutions available to website owners that will enable them to get their database-driven websites spidered and indexed by the major search engines.

Reproducing static HTML pages is one option, but this can be time consuming, and defeat the whole purpose of what you are trying to achieve from your dynamic database-driven site.  There are other methods, but again they are similar in the way they attempt to ‘paper over the cracks’ rather than provide a comprehensive, working  solution.