SEO for Dynamic Websites

A dynamic/database-driven architecture is essential for large e-commerce websites (unless of course, you plan on manually editing hundreds if not hundreds of thousands of files every time there's a price change or a new part to load). A dynamic website allows a webmaster to simply load and/or change products within a database structure as opposed to having to manually change files. But what you gain in added speed you lose in on-the-fly customizability. This affects your ability to quickly implement page-specific SEO tactics.

Generic and Duplicate content and Pages

One of the main SEO-oriented drawbacks for dynamic websites is the inability to simply open a page and change the content or meta/title tags. Your website's overall layout will likely exist as a template and even your unique content will be generated from a database. Even this database content will likely be populated with content from a manufacturer who also provided this content to your competitors for their e-commerce sites (if this is an e-commerce website). In this case chances are this content exists on other e-commerce websites, meaning your pages are duplicate content of your competitors, and will have a disadvantage in the search engine rankings.

When this happens, you'll want to modify whatever content is being duplicated. Changing the database fields where this content is being pulled from will be necessary. Depending on your situation, this may entail importing a spreadsheet into the database, or managing it through a CMS of some sort.

SEO-unfriendly Query Strings

Databases know one thing: logic. Pulling information from them means specifying records for them to pull from. Because of this, database-driven pages, by default, generally end with query strings that look like "aspx?pid=67" or "php?sid=23." This is great for your dynamic website since the database knows to display information pertaining to PID "67" or SID "23." Unfortunately, this is not the most SEO-friendly way to name your URLs.

Thankfully, URL rewrites make it possible for dynamic websites to display more SEO-friendly URLs. By implementing SEO-friendly URL rewrites, both human visitors and search engines will 'see' URLs with targeted keywords within them. This is the ideal format for your URLs. Not only is this better for search engine spiders, but these these words will show up in bold in your search engine results pages if a user's search contained the word. This makes your listing stand out more and increases your chances of a visit.

ALT and Link Title Tags

ALT and Link title tags are easy enough to add on static websites. But how about dynamic websites where the image is being dynamically called from a database field? This is when it's time to be inventive. The image being dynamically pulled is likely representing a certain product (or some other object relevant to your website). If this is the case, simply call the name of the product as an ALT tag. This will ensure that your ALT tags are unique, relevant to your content, and SEO-friendly. You can use this process with link title tags as well.

301 Redirects and Canonical Link Rel Element

As you make changes to your website, make sure to 'clean' up old URLs. There may be links pointing to old pages that no longer exist (for example, if you get rid of or remap a product line). You'll want to 301 redirect these old pages to the new ones so as not to lose the link juice being passed onto it. If for whatever reason you can't implement a 301 redirect (for example, if you are using classic ASP and have no access to the server), make sure and use the canonical link rel element on the old pages. The canonical link rel element is the next best thing to a 301 redirect when it comes to passing on link juice and is the best way for handing necessary duplicate content (for example, printer-friendly pages that have the same exact content as their less printer-friendly counterparts).

Dynamic Websites and ongoing SEO

SEO is an ongoing process. And this rule also (if not especially) applies to dynamic websites, As you upload new products, change prices, move products around, etc always be aware of what potential SEO value you can be adding. Remember, SEO itself dynamic.

Chris Casarez was born and raised in Southern California. He has a Bachelor's degree in Corporate Communication and provides Google Analytics implementation and consulting. His blog, SEOracle.com contains numerous posts on both static and dynamic content SEO. He also offers full-service SEO in Los Angeles and Orange County, CA.