"?" mark/symbol: What is mtyh and what's real

[Ricardo Zea]

Hello everyone,

I tried searching first but I couldn't find anything related to this in the forums (although I'm sure someone has posted something about it), so here's my subject.

I just heard from someone that if your URL address uses a "?" Google will place your address in a 'indexing queue'. In other words, it will delay the indexing of your page(s).

Not like with a static page which Google will place a higher indexing priority on because is just, well... static, no "?" in the URL.

Is this true?

Thanks.

[wige]

Not completely true. There is a bit of a grey area when it comes to talking about how the search engines handle query strings (everything after the ? in a URL) because for the most part this is considered proprietary information. That being said...

In general, a URI, or the portion of the url starting with the first forward slash after the domain name, is treated as a string when the page is "discovered". Actually, this is easier to look at another way...

When the search engines are crawling the web, every time they find a new URL, that new URL gets put in a crawl queue. Items can move up in the queue, according to Google, if enough links are found pointing to the page, because Google wants to index the content that is popular and attracting incoming links.

When a URL is added to the queue, it is split into two parts, the domain, and the URI, which is the part of the URL following the domain name, and including the query string. Now the URI is treated like a text string, and is not processed any further, except possibly to note any keywords contained therein.

When you have query strings, however, there are a few gotchas you need to be aware of. First, if you have two links to the same page, but the parameters of the query string are in a different order, search engines may see that as two pages with the same content. They are getting better at detecting this, but it is not perfect yet. Also, session ids and other parameters that change on every visit may cause the search engines to get confused and reindex multiple versions of the same page with different URIs.

[flhu]

Originally Posted by wige

Also, session ids and other parameters that change on every visit may cause the search engines to get confused and reindex multiple versions of the same page with different URIs.

Yes, it is wonderful when Google spiders a URL that includes a session id assignment and then suddenly EVERYONE who visits your site is on that ID.

But getting back to the "?" question... I really don't think it, by itself, matters one whit. Other factors might, however.

[imvain2]

I agree with WIGE.

The only thing I would like to add, is clarifying a little terminology that is kind of outdated.

Static vs. Dynamic:
Just because a page doesn't have a querystring, that doesn't mean it is static. There is a very common and accepted practice of utilizing htaccess to create querystring less dynamic pages. Sometimes, this is referred to as SE friendly URLs.

[Orion]

Straight from Google...

If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.

Webmaster guidelines - Webmasters/Site owners Help

Google can crawl most dynamic pages but why use them????? Simple .htaccess file or creative coding and all your dynamic URLs appear static / are easier to remember for visitors / and crawlable by pretty much anything with the word bot in it....

[Ricardo Zea]

Conclusions:

1. It's not entirely true that having a "?" in you URL will delay the indexing of your pages.

2. It does, though, help to to have 'simple' (static) URL's so as to be more search engine friendly... although still having the "?" in your URL doesn't make your page(s) have an indexing problem.

3. There sure is a indexing queue but the way to move up in the queue is when Google finds more and more pages linking to that page. In other words, just because your page(s) have a "?" symbol in the URL, that doesn't mean they will be 'pushed down' the indexing queue.

Please correct me if I may be wrong in any point.

Thank you everyone!

[Orion]

Originally Posted by Ricardo Zea

Conclusions:

1. It's not entirely true that having a "?" in you URL will delay the indexing of your pages.

2. It does, though, help to to have 'simple' (static) URL's so as to be more search engine friendly... although still having the "?" in your URL doesn't make your page(s) have an indexing problem.

3. There sure is a indexing queue but the way to move up in the queue is when Google finds more and more pages linking to that page. In other words, just because your page(s) have a "?" symbol in the URL, that doesn't mean they will be 'pushed down' the indexing queue.

Please correct me if I may be wrong in any point.

Thank you everyone!

The only mis-point would be on issues indexing... granted most search engines will be able to index a dynamic URL.. but there are some engines that still aren't up to the task.

[Ricardo Zea]

Orion, thanks for your answer.

As a TOTAL offtopic >_<, would you mind telling us examples of search engines that aren't up to the task of indexing dynamic URL's?

Thanks again.

[full house]

never heard of that. Whats so special about "?" and they give weigh on it.

[shakir]

ALl the dynamic site may contains ?.. do not thing this effecting in G crawling or ranking in SERP... If its like all the web server side script will be fail and no one will use

So its completely wrong.. g never consider the parameter, static, dynamic... all are same to G