Should You Use Dynamic URLs?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

On this blog we’ve recommended in the past that webmasters seek to use static URLs instead of dynamic URLs on their websites. But in a blog post in September last year Google appears to be saying (if you’re not careful in the interpretation) that this advice is wrong.

Specifically, here’s what the Google Webmaster Central Blog had to say about the subject:

It’s quite hard to correctly create and maintain rewrites that change dynamic URLs to static-looking URLs.

It’s much safer to serve us the original dynamic URL and let us handle the problem of detecting and avoiding problematic parameters.

If you want to rewrite your URL, please remove unnecessary parameters while maintaining a dynamic-looking URL.

If you want to serve a static URL instead of a dynamic URL you should create a static equivalent of your content.

That snippet is copied/pasted right from the Google Webmaster Central Blog, but there really is more to it than these four points. Additionally, Google had this to say:

• While static URLs might have a slight advantage in terms of clickthrough rates because users can easily read the urls, the decision to use database-driven websites does not imply a significant disadvantage in terms of indexing and ranking.
• Myth: “Dynamic URLs cannot be crawled.”
• There is no limit on the number of parameters, but a good rule of thumb would be to keep your URLs short (this applies to all URLs, whether static or dynamic).
• However, if you’re using URL rewriting (rather than making a copy of the content) to produce static-looking URLs from a dynamic site, you could be doing harm rather than good.

Again, each of these points are copied/pasted directly from the Google Webmaster Central Blog. But what I’m reading here is a lot of gray, no black and white. In other words, while Google recommends that you keep your dynamic URLs, they aren’t saying this as an absolute.

I love the beautiful example they provide on their blog, showing that rewriting your dynamic URLs to static URLs while including the elements of the dynamic URL in such a way that they appear to be static elements can be even more disastrous than keeping the dynamic URLs in the first place. On the other hand, if you just rewrite the dynamic URL to take out those unnecessary parameters altogether then you are much safer. According to Google.

Here’s where I think webmasters can get confused: It is still preferable to use your keywords in your URLs and it is really difficult to do that with dynamic URLs. It is best to not have to rewrite your URLs at all. If you can arrange all of your URLs so that they are written as static URLs to begin with then this shouldn’t be an issue for you. If you allow your URLs to be published as dynamic URLs then you are better off just keeping the dynamic URLs. Otherwise, as Google says, you could run into bigger problems in the long run. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land appears to have the same opinion. Note:

Postscript: I spoke with Danny about this and he and I are in agreement. You shouldn’t start changing what works for you now. Just because Google says things are fine when using dynamic URLs, it may not be fine in your case. When I told two of my developers about this Google post, they asked me what they should do. I said, keep developing using rewrites on pages you want Google think are static. If you want Google to know that certain pages are dynamic, like filtering products based on colors or size, then maybe in those cases I would leave the dynamic URLs. Again, it really depends on your situation and the site at hand.

You should understand that there is a difference between rewriting an URL and publishing the URL in the format that you prefer to start with. While static URLs are best – remember, Google says your CTR will likely be higher – if you are currently publishing in dynamic URLs then it is best that you stick with what you are doing as long as it is working.