URL Rewriting – Is it really necessary?

In the past, Search Engines including major ones like Google, Yahoo and MSN had hard time understanding and indexing pages that are dynamically generated. In such dynamic pages, a single page can deliver multiple page contents depending upon what the user has input. For example, the dynamic url http://www.xyz.com/abc/def.asp?x=12&y=adf&z=45 delivers one page content while http://www.xyz.com/abc/def.asp?x=2&y=adf&z=34 delivers completely different content even though both of these links are using the same file ‘def.asp’. Search Engines in the past were not smart enough and thus would consider both these links as one file and indexes just one. However, SEs now can understand and parse all these types of links regardless of their complex structure with querystrings. It is considered that all major Search Engines can now handle dynamic urls up to 3-4 querystrings. So, you will be okay and be assured that your site will be indexed properly even if your site is dynamic. However, static pages are always good over the dynamic pages. So, why not take the advantage of static pages by URL rewriting? URL Rewriting, Mod-Rewrite in Apache server, is the process to convert dynamic urls to static urls. By having static urls, you will make the urls friendlier and easier for end users, In addition, static urls I think rank better in search engines than dynamic ones.

Why linking is important?

Linking is important for any website to succeed. It generally helps in two ways:

1. Linking creates path to your website from other sites in the internet. As people follow links to get from one page to another in the net, there is a great chance that people will get to your site if a link to your site is present in the page that they are viewing. This way, the more links there are on other sites, the more your site will be visited.
   
   
2. Linking adds value to your site and thus makes a good impression for Search Engines. If a search engine finds more links for a site from other sites, it perceives that the site must be more interesting and has valuable content in it. Therefore, it prioritizes the site by increasing its ‘Page Rank’ and providing a good placement in SERP (Search Engine Result Page).