I Want To Change My Dynamic Site To Static So Search Engines Can Find Me

Changing dynamic pages to appear static is not necessary anymore in most cases.

Do a google search for adjustable baby slings and you’ll see plenty of sites with dynamically generated URLs.

If you’re wanting to optimize your site, you’re better off focusing on your keyword phrases, content and backlinks. Once you’ve done that, you can help the search engines spider more of your site by adding a sitemap.

Considering Google, Yahoo and MSN together have a corner on more than 80% of US searches, I wouldn’t waste my time worrying about anyone else.

And those three SEs are perfectly capable of indexing a dynamically generated site.

There are a couple of caveats. If your URL (website address) contains more than one or two non-alphanumeric characters, like an ampersand or a question mark, there is a very good chance that the search engine bots won’t index the site beyond the home page.

Also, it is important that you include the main keyword phrase for each page in your filename. If you are generating dynamic URLs that don’t contain the keyword phrase, you could be missing out on better search engine rankings.

My advice: Find a shopping cart that either creates URLs with only one non-alphanumeric character — or a cart that will create static pages on the fly. In either case, make sure that your file names contain the keyword phrase for each page.

UPDATE: Version 2.6 of Shop Kit Plus now contains the ability to create static pages with the keyword phrase using mod_rewrite. (This means you don’t have two sets of pages. The server is programmed to rename the pages for you.)