Renaming Dynamic Pages

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4mmmms

Joined: Jun 26, 2008

# Posts: 3

Posted: 06/26/2008 01:33 pm

Before I begin I should explain that background is not in IT. I run a Toyota dealership and our main use of the web is for displaying used cars. The database contains dynamic pages of 300 cars and the exact content varies each day. I would really appreciate if someone could tell me is there a way to rename these pages on a ongoing basis to reflect their description e.g. from ID =39 to something like Toyota_Corolla1234? Ideally I would like these pages indexed by search engines.

I've found some references to rewriting URLs but I'm not sure that this is suitable for a database that changes daily?

Suggestions/information warmly welcomed!
Margaret

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g1smd

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Joined: Jul 28, 2002

# Posts: 10152

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Posted: 06/26/2008 03:09 pm

One thing you need to take account of is whether stuff actually gets indexed by Google etc, before it gets changed again. There is often a delay of a day or two before they find new content and another day before they list it.

Another thing, is that if you do have "wordy" URLs, that they are globally unique, each page will have a new URL, there is no way to have the same URL again in the future. That is difficult to set up.

Now, do old pages stay on the site forever, with "sold" on them, or does the information get deleted? If deleted, what do you do with traffic looking for that old page (remember, it will stay listed in google for several weeks after you delete it)? Do you have a custom 404 page with links to similar products and/or a site search feature?

If you want "wordy" URLs then those URLs have to be in the links on the pages of your site, in the site navigation and in the sitemap. The rewrite connects the "wordy" URL to the internal dynamic filepath. The script will then need to do a lookup of which article to return (from a database that you set up on the site). If you use an internal rewrite (as opposed to an external redirect) then the user will never see the dynamic URL in their browser.

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4mmmms

Joined: Jun 26, 2008

# Posts: 3

Posted: 06/30/2008 02:47 am

Thanks for that, it has given me some things to think about.

I think the next step is to talk to our web designers and host

Margaret

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mj1256

Joined: Jun 05, 2006

# Posts: 783

Posted: 06/30/2008 07:08 am

you have other issues to deal with to optimize your website.

you have no content
your site uses frames
your websites developers are using the best onpage locations to promote themselves.

good news
I do this for a local used car dealer using a cms that has a component that dynamically creates the url, titles, and metatags from page content.They update their site themselves.

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4mmmms

Joined: Jun 26, 2008

# Posts: 3

Posted: 07/02/2008 08:32 am

We are very restricted by the Toyota distributor on what we can add to our home page. I've tried to optimise the used cars page as we have more flexibility there.
When you say our site uses frames, without sounding totally dim, can you explain why this is a problem for optimizing the site?
I need to look at the location of the website developers links.

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g1smd

Moderator

Joined: Jul 28, 2002

# Posts: 10152

Website

Posted: 07/02/2008 11:23 am

Google can't always navigate a framed site very well, and may well not be able to index the content properly.

Also, when visitors visit a framed site from a search result, they don't get the page content in context with the navigational links, unless the site has extra coding to jump the page back into a frameset. The whole thing with frames is so messy, and so very 1998.

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mj1256

Joined: Jun 05, 2006

# Posts: 783

Posted: 07/02/2008 12:42 pm

there should be no links to the developers site, thats so 1998

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