Dynamic Sites for Fun and Profit Jake Baillie SES Chicago 2006

Dynamic Sites for Fun and Profit Jake Baillie, President SES New York 2006 Thanks to Mikkel deMib Svendsen for some content for this

Basics of Optimizing a Dynamic Site

SEO Basics What it all comes down to is IRTA: Indexing –Getting your pages in the engines –Problems: Dynamic websites usually creates a lot of indexing barrier Ranking –Getting them to rank for relevant search terms Trafic –Get people to actually click through to your site Actions –Get the visitors to take the desired actions

What is NOT a problem? It is not a problem to store content in a database Search engines just need a “safe” way to access it Search engines will not query your database A ?-mark is not a problem it’s just an easy way to identify a template based dynamic web page SSI (Server Side Include) is not a problem Extension names are not a problem Use.asp,.jsp,.cfm,.html – or whatever you want

Duplicate Content and Other Stupid Things People Do With Dynamic Sites According to Dr. Phil

Disclaimer: I don’t think Dr. Phil knows a thing about dynamic websites, so he obviously didn’t endorse this. I don’t even like Dr. Phil. I would like to thank Google Images for their contribution to this section.

Dr. Phil Says… To take CONTROL of your duplicate content problems, you have to KNOW why they happen! The Top 6 Duplicate Content Mistakes Circular Navigation Print-Friendly Pages Inconsistent Linking Product Only Pages Transparent Serving Bad Cloaking

Circular Navigation Circular Navigation is no party! Cause: Multiple paths through a website. Brand>Category>P roduct Category>Brand>P roduct Brand>Color>Prod uct … whatever. Fix: Define a consistent way method of addressing a page of content, irrespective of navigation path. Track paths through cookies.

Print-Friendly Pages Print-friendly pages aren’t so friendly! Cause: Think about it. All print-friendly pages are differently designed pages than their original source with the same content (duh!). Fixes: 1.Block search engines from print friendly pages. 2.Use CSS/JS to restyle a page on the fly to make it print friendly.

Inconsistent Linking Your link isn’t working for you anymore. Cause: Calling directory index pages (including the homepage) in an inconsistent manner. /directory /directory/ /directory/index.asp Fixes: 1.Make sure you reference your pages consistently. 2.To avoid problems from external links, pick a canonical form and 301 redirect all others to the canonical version.

Product Only Pages Looks don’t count. Cause: Product pages with nothing differentiating them from any other product page except a lone SKU. Fixes: Add content. (Duh!) Search engines could care less about looks.

Transparent Serving It’s not always good to be transparent. Cause: Badly implemented mod_rewrite code, DNS errors with multiple domains, poorly implemented cloaking/session ID removal code. Fixes: 1.Domains should be redirected (301!) to the main site, not DNS aliased. 2.Pick a canonical form to access content and stay with it.

Bad Cloaking If the suit doesn’t fit, don’t wear it. Cause: Poorly written (or implemented) cloaking scripts serve the same doorway page over and over again. Fixes: 1.Don’t use cloaking scripts you didn’t write. 2.Make sure your cloaking script is returning separate content for each URL being cloaked.

Remember! The “duplicate content avoidance” golden rule will change your life! The same content should NOT be accessible from different URLs…ever!

Mikkel’s favorite fix: The One- Parameter Website “Normal” dynamic URLs contain all the necessary information in variables pe_id=3&channel_id=32 The one parameter version ?id=35 Back-end database table: Record_id35 Page_id12 Cat_id2 Sort_order2 pageType_id3 channel_id32 indexing0 If (indexing=0) Then End If

Build the Bridge Enterprise CMS Systems often have plugins to drop session IDs / engine details to a cookie (see whitepapers) Hardware solutions Separate external/internal content Why do you need an enterprise CMS anyways (let’s have a discussion!)

Rewrite Rules for Dummies

What are URL rewrite rules? Regular expression based statement that tells a webserver to do something Most common use: Maps a virtual URL to physical resource Essentially, provides a fast and consistent way to address URL issues of any type

Installing Rewrite Rules Global configuration –Httpd.conf (apache) –Global configuration files (ISAPI based solutions) Site/Directory specific configuration –.htaccess (apache) –Site configuration files (ISAPI based solutions) Language Specific Directives

Tasty Recipes

Serving Content Transparently Rule: RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/(.+)$ /file.php?Dir=$1&file=$2 [L] Common Use: Shortening URLs for search engines.

Folder Move (Redirect) Rule: RewriteRule ^olddir/(.*)$ /newdir/$1 [R=301,L] Common Use: Moving a folder from an old location to a new one

Deny Access to an IP Rule: RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^123\.45\.67\.[9]$ RewriteRule ^/.* - [F] Common Use: Prevents serving to a particular IP.

Serve Different Content to a UA/IP Rule: RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Jakebot RewriteRule ^\page1.html$ /special-page.html [F] Common Use: Self explanatory.

Serve Image Based Upon Referrer Rule: RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !.*/valid-page\.htm RewriteCond %{REQUESTED_FILENAME} ^specific-image-name.jpg$ RewriteRule.*\.(gif|png|jpe?g) Common Use: Preventing image theft.

Serve Different Content Based Upon Time of Day Rule: RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{TIME_HOUR}%{TIME_MIN} >0700 RewriteCond %{TIME_HOUR}%{TIME_MIN} <1900 RewriteRule ^foo\.html$ foo.day.html RewriteRule ^foo\.html$ foo.night.html Common Use: Self explanatory.

Drop Down Navigation – Pretty, But Deadly

Dropdowns can be a downer Guess what! Search engines can read, but not parse, JavaScript (in most cases, read the fine print, YMMV) Search engines will not post forms Search engines can’t deal with any sort of dynamic interactivity when it comes to usual elements

CSS styled plain HTML links are the way to go!

Remember The Basics! Most search engines are actually good at indexing Most errors are silly If all else fails: –Validate your code – 90% of errors are validation related –Check robots.txt –Check that links are well formed –Check for disallowed characters

Nosey Competitors

Don’t Worry, Be Happy Serve them a 403 Access Forbidden Serve them a different page than everyone else Serve them fun pictures to get them in trouble at work Serve them their own website Serve them annoying MIDIs and WAV files Serve them those annoying infinite JavaScript popups Serve them the same thing as everyone else and just silently track them

Resources WebmasterWorld: forum92 (Apache) httpd.apache.org –Official Documentation –URL Rewriting Guide

Thank you!