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.

Getting Your Website Indexed in Google

You do a search for something in Google and Google displays millions of different pages, which are stored in servers all around the world. Do you know how Google does the actual search and how it displays so many sites in its result pages? Do you know how Google actually finds those pages? In fact, this is what indexing is called. Before a site appears in search result, search engine must index it. Once a search engine indexes a site, the search engine robot analyses it with relevant information and saves it in search engine database and thus it can deliver that information in its result page when searched for certain key phrases that are used present in that site pages. If a site is not indexed, search engine can not display that site in its result pages regardless of how relevant the page or site is.

Most of the sites do get indexed by search engines including Google. It is just that some do get indexed early while others take some time. There are certain factors that determine how a site is going to be indexed. Actually, there are basically two ways to allow search engines to find a new site.

The first way is by manually submitting an address of the site using a submission form of related search engine. This is generally called site suggestion. You can suggest a site or inform about the site to search engine by providing the site url and some description. Then the suggested site will be on queue for indexing. Other pages of the sites are interlinked with the main homepage so the search engine robot or crawler will automatically find those pages and index them as well.

Another way is to let the search engine robot find the site on its own. You just have to make one other site that is already indexed link to yours. This means, if you just make sure of at least one inbound link to your site from an indexed site, the search engine robot will index your site as well when its crawler crawls the next time. This is probably the better or the desired way of indexing rather than directly suggesting a site. This method can also be quicker than manually suggesting.

Things to consider when creating a site

There are certain things that you and your developer must consider while developing a new site. Based on my experience, here are some points I think should not be ignored:

1. Make it load fast
   The site should load fast enough. I have heard that people don’t wait more than 15-25 seconds on a page if they don’t find anything that interests them. If your page doesn’t even load within this time frame, what good is it for you even if your site looks incredibly elegant and contains wonderful content? Therefore, you should make sure that it doesn’t take much time to load your site page. To insure this, make sure your site is going to be hosted in a good and fast server. Don’t use too much of big graphics, applets, animation or flash movies. Rule of thumb should be minimizing the use of things that are not really needed.
   
   
2. Target the Market
   You should know about the audience of your site. Will they be teenagers? Will they be business executives? Or will they be IT experts? Once you know about your audience, you can offer and cater better service and your audience will also prefer your site over others. For instance, if your audience is mostly teenagers and your site is full of entertaining and flashy stuffs, and has informal looks, your site will perform well.
   
   
3. Focus
   Make sure your site is focused on its objective and on the product or services. You can surely do up-selling and cross-selling for different products or services as they can be essential for your business but do it deviously. If you have to offer many different kinds of products, categorize them and display them in different pages.
   
   
4. Build Trust
   Will you buy a product if you think the product is not going to work after 24 hours? Will you buy from someone who you think is a fraud? I won’t. I am sure you won’t either. No one will if there is no trust. Therefore, it is extremely important to build trust first before convincing your visitors to purchase from your site or use your service. Make sure you clearly write out your privacy policy about visitors and your site users, your contact information including your email address, mailing address and phone number.
   
   
5. Easy and Secure Payment Method
   The various options you offer for payment method, the more ways people can purchase from your site. You can really make your client’s and customer’s life simple if you adapt easy and many payment options. Set up merchant account and start Credit Card payment processing. In addition, set up for e-checks. Accept Bank Drafts, money orders and regular checks and provide your address to send it to. In addition, make your payment processing pages secured by installing SSL.
   
   
6. Easy Navigation and Consistent Look and Feel
   Make your site easier to navigate for users. It doesn’t worth it if the site is too complex and confusing. If you maintain inconsistent look and feel for different pages within your site, it may be confusing to users and they might leave from your site without knowing your site is valuable for them. A good navigation structure will let users find what they want very easily and quickly and thus can convert them into your happy customers more effectively.
   
   
7. Search Engines Indexing
   More than 80% of your new site traffic comes to your site from major search engines like Google, MSN, Yahoo and so on. Therefore, you can really tap into your intended market if your site pages are well indexed in all search engines and if the placement is good in Search Engine Result Pages. Therefore, spend some time doing research in effectively creating meta-tags for keywords and descriptions. In addition, make sure to create a Sitemap page. All these extra concerns help in indexing your site to all major search engines.
   
   
8. Content
   Content of your website is the major factor in driving traffic to your site and converting that traffic to customers. A good content in your website positively impresses all major search engines, thus your site can be better ranked in SERPs. In addition, a good content makes your site users understand well about your products and services and compels them to purchase. Therefore, your focus in developing a new website should be for creating a good and persuasive content.