The debate
regarding dynamic vs. static links
continues to rage amongst webmasters,
who each have their own perspective
on which type of link is best for SEO
However, before we
weight into that debate
let's have quick look on what exactly dynamic
and static links are:
A static link is a webpage that has a permanent
URL which doesn't change
For instance, your homepage
URL is most likely a static link,
such as this one.
Any other common system of URL naming
for other permanent webpages of your sites
are likely to be static,
such as the page to the “About Us” section.
Your portfolio you name it
By contrast, if your website
uses a script that can create
custom web pages through a database query,
then you have the ability to
generate pages with dynamic links.
Generally speaking dynamic pages
are the results of a database search
driven by a user
looking for specific information.
The script takes the variables that the user
typed in or checked for
and searches a database to create a
custom web page from a template,
Then insert whatever the specific information
the user requested.
For instance, a dynamic page link
may look like this on your site:
In this example,
the user is looking for the pair of shoe
from your online shop
and they want them in a certain color
In search of database,
and your database locates that particular item
then creates the unique page
using “productid” of 12345
and a “colorid” of 5.
after the dynamic result of a search
or query can be helpful to many users.
Also very often this “dynamic link” is
rewritten via the .htaccess file
to look like a static URL,
so that search engines can more readily
understand and contextualize it
and so that users can more readily view
and pass along the link to others
so a site may choose to rewrite the
generated dynamic url into something like this:
obviously written this way
it seem like it might pack a little more
punch in terms of SEO than previous version
that only uses the database entry number
because this rewriting process is not always easy,
and in fact in some cases may not be all that necessary
the first question you need to ask yourself is
Is It Really Worth the Trouble?
Is your static looking dynamic URL
really going to be all that effective for SEO
how does it compare to actual static links
Let's Explore this
Static links are by far more
helpful in SEO for many reasons.
First a static link is permanent,
and therefore, easier
and more likely to be crawled
and indexed by a search bot.
Secondly, the “html” format of static links
can be easier to index with keywords.
Take for instance the fact that you can create
a webpage file name with hyphens,
such as Chicago-condo-realestate-listings.htm.
Google or other major search engines can read
hyphens as a separator
and thus “Chicago,” “condo,” “realestate,” and “listings”
would all act as separate keywords to help identify and index that page
Third, the static keyword-rich link has a better
likelihood of users engaging in higher click through rate
because those user can also easily see whether the
keywords in the link are relevant to their search.
And lastly these static links usually easier to remember
or to copy and paste by users.
The permanency of this static link gives confidence
to users if they wish to forward the link or save it in a file.
Now all that said
Even though static links links are generally more
“advisable” for SEO purposes,
advancements in the bots have allowed major search engines
to scan, to rank, and to index dynamic web pages.
And this advancement are always begin improved upon.
The biggest advantage of dynamic links
is that you can create custom web page content
with a template,
with some CSS,
and a virtually unlimited amount of variables
pulled from and posted on the webpage
This has great benefits to users who are
looking for particular information.
As noted by Google,
dynamic pages are scanned by search engines
and can be ranked and indexed.
Google’s algorithmic Googlebot is now able
to scan and index a dynamic URL by
ignoring separators
such as equals dashes and question marks
and focusing on the keywords themselves.
so if you're already in a situation
where you website is built to
automatically generate dynamic links
you may want to consider leaving them dynamic,
instead of going through all the trouble to
convert them into static URL's.
And as I said,
Rewriting dynamic links into static looking URLs
may not always be straightforward
and of-course they can even produce site-errors if not done correctly
Google itself provides the following recommendation:
“…avoid reformatting a dynamic URL to make it look static.
It's always advisable to use static content
with static URLs as much as possible,
but in cases where you decide to use dynamic content,
you should give us the possibility to analyze your URL structure
and not remove information by hiding parameters
and making them look static.”
so admittedly i didn't really get down and dirty
into all the finer points of the debate here
but hopefully this gives you a general overview of the situation
static links are still considered to be more effective
Since for instance they are more friendly for users to interpret
although that said the use of dynamic links
is no longer consider as detrimental as it used to be.
So this advice is not set in stone
but generally speaking it's
probably not worth the blood sweat and tears
to completely restructure the way your site handles these links
and obviously you should avoid doing so
if you're not confident that you can do it correctly
but if you do have a large site
that pulls from a database and generates dynamic urls
and you're struggling in your seo efforts
or are in a highly competitive industry
and are looking for every little trick of the trade
to help give you a boost in the search engines
then this issue could be worth looking into
and in that case before you jump into the deep end
one of the best resources to investigate this subject further
is the googlebot webmasters article
so you can immerse yourself in the details
straight from the horse's mouth