Dynamic URLs vs Static URLs

Sep-30th-2008

By admin in Google, SEO, Web Pages

Google recently announced their views on the argument of Dynamic URLs vs Static URLs. Lets start with what they both are, incase you don’t already know.

Static URLs are Web Pages that are static HTML or PHP. You edit the pages manually and then you upload it, and the page is displayed from that file. Static URLs are good because it means it doesn’t rely on anything else, just the file. However, it means it takes longer to edit the pages.

Dynamic URLs are Web Pages that grabs the content from a MySQL Database. The HTML file is like a template, none of the main content is stored in it. Dynamic URLs are good because it means you can edit your content very easily and quickly. However, one negative of it is that users can link to the pages with different parameters but the same content, for example, your main one could be called index.php?post=353&id=1 but people can link to index.php?post=353 and it would be a different URL but the same content.

Now this debate isn’t about which one you should use. The debate is about whether users should use rewrites to rewrite their URLs from dynamic URLs to look like static ones. For example, using simple coding in a .htaccess file, users could change index.php?post=353 into post-353.html to make it look static.

Google themselves have said that they have made significant improvements in reading Dynamic URLs anyway. According to them, you shouldn’t need to rewrite the URLs for them because it can cause them to mis-interpret information. Infact, they even said that you should avoid rewriting URLs completely because it can cause more problems than gains. The final say they did have was that if you want to make use of Static Pages, you should make an alternative for people to use for Static Pages as well as the Dynamic Pages.

So that is what Google’s opinion is. It seems to be quite surprising to a lot of people because it was previously a well-known fact for SEO that Google prefers Search Engine Friendly URLs and not dynamic URLs.

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