While SEO basics state that your dynamic URLs should be search engine friendly, Google’s latest announcement states that they prefer you not use rewrites to change your dynamic URLs to static-looking URLS.

This change comes from Google due to the fact that they can better understand the purpose of a page based on its URL structure now. John Mu of the Google team had this to say: “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.”

The question now is do you need to undo all of the dynamic URL rewrites you already have. While there is not a punishment for switching your URL formats it may take a bit of time. So, essentially changing your URL rewrites really depends on how many rewrites you have and how well those pages currently rank. One suggestion is to start with your lower performing URLs and see the effects of switching them.

Otherwise you may find that you lose ranking popularity and lots of time making a switch. And what’s most important is making sure your site doesn’t suffer in search engine optimization.

No related posts.