In yet, another advancement, over at Google it has became official on their blog that users should in most cases avoid using URL rewrites. URL rewrites are used to make dynamic URL’s look and feel like the more traditional static URL.

Meaning make this:

http://www.mysite.com/search.php?q=keyword

look like:

http://www.mysite.com/search/keyword

For years now webmasters had to perform these rewrites in hopes of getting indexed into the search engine Google (and all the other ones) without error. They also seemed more user friendly as a viewer could get an idea about a page by looking at the URL name and not seeing the page ID ? codes.

So why change after years of having to do the rewrites? JohnMu explained:

“One of the reasons for that is that we can use the information provided through the parameters to better understand what your site is doing with those parameters. For instance, the URL http://www.mysite.com/search.php?q=keyword can give us information about what is happening, it could even allow us to recognize that this is a search form and perhaps let us attempt other keywords that might lead us to content that we haven’t seen for your site. On the other hand, a URL like http://www.mysite.com/search/keyword does not give us any information at all about what the “file name” is used for.”

Ok, so I see a few problems with this new outlook, don’t get me wrong it is awesome that they can index dynamic inks now but…..

1) If you have a rather large database therefore many dynamic links that are all rewritten then it would not be wise to undo these rewrites because who knows how long it will take to transfer all that link juice, page rank, url reindexing, etc…

2) What if you do not want Google cutting URL’s to see where they go or replacing words on query strings to see where they may lead?

3) Even though Google may be advanced enough to read dynamic links without error every time we have to also cater to a couple others who haven’t advanced that far such as Yahoo and Live.com (MSN). Having a few dynamic links is fine but most search engines leave after being confused with endless dynamic link structures.

Google’s staff has been on the move with trying to grow Google search into the next generation. So I am sure there will be a lot more information released as time goes by just like one of the last things they released about no penalty duplicate content, but that is another story and you can read that HERE.

I am sure Search engine optimization experts the world over will be going through as much information on these subjects as they can in hopes to gain some insight into what Google’s next move will be.

Jim Trivolette

“THE SEO Doctor”

Blackwood Productions