Links on Dynamic Pages

[TheWebDoctor(tm)]

Having a link to your site from a site using dynamic URL's does not benefit the recipient of the link. The objective is to have the links on a page that is indexable by ALL search engines - not just Google.

So, those with dynamic URLs should consider the value of what is sought compared to what is given.

[MNorton]

Can you do me a favor and elaborate on this point?

What is the definition of a dynamic page; DHTML, ASP, PHP?

[flood6]

Having a link to your site from a site using dynamic URL's does not benefit the recipient of the link. The objective is to have the links on a page that is indexable by ALL search engines - not just Google.

So, those with dynamic URLs should consider the value of what is sought compared to what is given.

I've got to disagree. If you are exchanging links for SEO reasons then most dynamic pages will provide that boost. Only the major SE's use link popularity as a guage of a site's importance; and those SE's can index dynamic pages.

The minor SE's (for the most part) don't use link popularity (they are using meta tags and keyword density in the text to guage importance and relevance), so the fact that they can't index the dynamic pages doesn't matter to the link exchange agreement.

...unless you are talking about this issue (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=6368).

[TheWebDoctor(tm)]

I love dancing, thank you for the invitation. I think I'll take the lead on this dance and you can have it next time.

Links from sites that have the question mark in the URL to their dynamic list of links procludes many search engines from traversing those links.

Additionally, a links.php?id=15 is a poor way of trading links if the search engines can't get to the links and navigate to the site a link is traded with.

When you say minor search engine, would you like to point one out that you consider minor?

Would you like to explain which search engines are able to navigate beyond the question mark in the URL?

[flood6]

Some SE's that can index dynamic pages include google, yahoo, MSN, and lycos (and, I assume a few more). This is evidenced by the fact that you can go to any of these SE's, search for an obscure phrase and see several dynamic URL's come up in the results; and more proof here (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=5192).

When I said minor SE's, I am talking about the so-called second and third "tier" SE's. Like exactseek, surfgopher, jayde, searchhippo, scrubtheweb, and countless more. Some of these may be actually be considered directories, but most actually will spider your site. As the good Doctor mentioned, most of these smaller sites will have problems with indexing dynamic links. Few, if any, of these SE's use link popularity to gauge a site's relevance, rank, or popularity. So if they can, or cannot find your link on a partner's site is irrelevant.

Sites run through Apache can use mod_rewrite to clean up dynamic URL's to make them appear static to SE's and visitors. I used mod_rewrite on most of www.divergentlines.com; some of the less used links are still dynamic.

I'm not trying to turn this into an argument, but I have seen for myself that the majors can index dynamic url's, as documented in the link in the first paragraph. And most of the "minor" SE's mentioned above don't use PageRank-type popularity. You can find how a minor SE's position a site by digging around their site or searching at www.webmasterworld.com.