Are my asp pages search engine friendly?

[John Garvey]

I have converted my website from static .htm pages to a data-driven site
(using an access database and the database results wizard). My concern now
is whether search engines will crawl my pages. I understand that search
engines don't like crawling pages with "?"s in the name for fear of winding
up in an unending trail of links. Is there any way to create well-named
pages (pages with static names) for my site instead of the dynamic names that
result with .asp pages? I use FrontPage 2003.

 

[Mike Mueller]

"I understand that search engines don't like crawling pages with "?"s in the
name for fear of winding up in an unending trail of links"
--That may have once been, but it is no longer.
--Example:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=allinurl:muskiesinc.com/default.asp+site:www.muskiesinc.com+

"Is there any way to create well-named pages (pages with static names) for
my site instead of the dynamic names that result with .asp pages?"
--You do not need to use query strings at all, and they are not the result
of using asp pages.

I haven't used FP2003, but when I worked in FP2000 I never had query strings
on my asp pages. Now I do all my db work by hand now so I cannot really help
you

 

[Ronx]

I use querystrings in my links and they have not stopped Google, Yahoo
or Live Search from crawling the pages, complete with querystrings.

As Mike said, using asp does not force the use of querystrings.

Your biggest problem is getting the 301 redirects from your .htm pages

 

[John Garvey]

Good to know that the "?" won't throw the web crawlers off now.

I'm new to this, and I don't know exactly what you mean by "You do not need
to use query strings at all, and they are not the result of using asp pages."


Previously, I had about 85 different agencies listed on my site, each with
its own .htm page. Now I have a much longer list of agencies on my database,
but I only need 5 search pages, which will result in an .asp page with the
info for that agency. There's no link directly to any of the agencies shown
on any of the search pages; the link is generated when the user selects the
type of services they need.

The resulting pages have names like this:
http://www.sharingweb.org/orgdetail.asp?OrgName=Bay+State+Community+Services.
Is that a query string? And since that page is not actually listed on my
site, I wasn't sure how a web crawler would find it. Do I need to create
pages that actually display all the resulting links, or am I OK with the
search page format I have now?

--
Thank you,

John Garvey

"I understand that search engines don't like crawling pages with "?"s in the
name for fear of winding up in an unending trail of links"
--That may have once been, but it is no longer.
--Example:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=allinurl:muskiesinc.com/default.asp+site:www.muskiesinc.com+

"Is there any way to create well-named pages (pages with static names) for
my site instead of the dynamic names that result with .asp pages?"
--You do not need to use query strings at all, and they are not the result
of using asp pages.

I haven't used FP2003, but when I worked in FP2000 I never had query strings
on my asp pages. Now I do all my db work by hand now so I cannot really help
you

 

[John Garvey]

OK, so I should go back to each of the original .htm pages and put the
redirect in? I've done it with one page so far and it seems to be working by
putting the following in the head section: <META http-equiv="refresh"
content="0;URL=http://www.sharingweb.org/sharingweb/orgdetail.asp?OrgName=Norwell+Food+Pantry+&+Closet">

I have to update about 100 pages so it will be a grind, but I guess there's
no shortcut for that.

As I said in my reply to Mike, I'm not exaclty sure what "asp does not force
the use of querystrings" means.
--
Thank you,

John Garvey

I use querystrings in my links and they have not stopped Google, Yahoo
or Live Search from crawling the pages, complete with querystrings.

As Mike said, using asp does not force the use of querystrings.

Your biggest problem is getting the 301 redirects from your .htm pages
--
Ron Symonds - Microsoft MVP (Expression)
Reply only to group - emails will be deleted unread.

http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp

 

[Ronx]

That kind of redirect is not a 301 redirect, and could lose ranking in
search engines.

A 301 redirect in IIS can only be implemented in three ways:

1) A server redirect where you need access to the server (or a good
host) to redirect the individual pages. See
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum47/1570.htm and
http://www.highposition.net/301-redirect-tutorial-iis/

2) (For asp, asp.Net or PHP pages) some server side code to implement
the redirect.

3) If your host allows custom error pages set up an asp page to handle
404 errors, the page can redirect to asp equivalent pages and issue the
301 redirect.

For my conversions from .htm/.pl to asp, and from asp to aspx I use a
custom 404 error page which redirects .htm pages to their .aspx version
and adds the 301 http header. Yahoo is still checking for the Perl
pages that went over 3 years ago.

--
Ron Symonds - Microsoft MVP (Expression)
Reply only to group - emails will be deleted unread.

http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp

OK, so I should go back to each of the original .htm pages and put the
redirect in? I've done it with one page so far and it seems to be working by
putting the following in the head section: <META http-equiv="refresh"
content="0;URL=http://www.sharingweb.org/sharingweb/orgdetail.asp?OrgName=Norwell+Food+Pantry+&+Closet">

I have to update about 100 pages so it will be a grind, but I guess there's
no shortcut for that.

As I said in my reply to Mike, I'm not exaclty sure what "asp does not force
the use of querystrings" means.

 

[John Garvey]

Thanks. Most of that is new to me/over my head so i'll spend some time
trying to get up to speed. I will start with my host and see if they can
facilitate. I appreciate the assistance on this.

 

[Murray]

I use an application called "ISAPI_Rewrite" to do that. It works great!

I just used it to redirect all of my old *.html and *.asp pages to *.php
pages on my own website recently rebuilt.