If your site has any e-commerce functions, dynamic content management systems or user-specific presentation, you will be familiar with dynamic content. Dynamic content was once an issue that many SEO companies were reluctant to touch. These days, things are better, but dynamic sites still need to watch their step.

There are some aspects of dynamic pages that can still get in the way of your site being indexed properly. Here are some of the things to keep in mind when considering the more dynamic angles of your site:

1. Clean URLs are still important for dynamic content. If your dynamic content is not sitting at a regular HTML link, both users and search engine spiders can trip up. Clear URLs that are understandable to users have several benefits. They help with your SEO strategy by providing more places for your keywords. They provide clear paths for search engine spiders to crawl on. They also provide easy-to-remember links for your users and are easy to bookmark.

2. All pages should be directly accessible in some way. This may seem completely against the point of dynamic content, but search engine spiders cannot always access pages generated by forms. For example, a fan website might allow users to select a favourite character and generate a home page based on that character. Because the information was accessed through a form, a search engine spider cannot get to it. This problem is easily solvable by listing all pages within the site map.

3. Eliminate stub pages. Occasionally, you’ll come across retail sites that show stubs in a search. These are pages that have zero independent content on them, sometimes including zero content at all if there are no products available in the category. This is annoying to both search engines and users alike, and it’s best to prevent these pages from being indexed.

4. Don’t make search results pages indexable. A lot of dynamic content, particularly on retail sites, is produced in search results. Understandably, the search engines don’t like to list a ’search results’ page on their search results pages. Users aren’t interested in them, either. These pages provide no value for the disinterested user, so make sure the search engine spiders don’t index them.

5. If you can’t make your URLs look non-dynamic, keep them simple. It’s best if your URLs stick to the usual format, featuring words and clear link paths. Users are less likely to click on a link that’s all symbols and numbers. If your URLs can’t be formatted in this way, try to limit the number of parameters in the URL. The general advice is to limit it to two parameters, but keeping the number of URLs with ‘?’ as low as possible is best.

As with anything to do with search engine optimisation the guideline is value for your user. The search engines are suspicious of any format of site that’s likely to produce pages of little value because the search engines aim to please users. Dynamic sites can be tricky to optimise. As most dynamic sites sit within highly competitive industries, the effort to achieve a high ranking is worth it. Talk to us at SEO Consult about the best approach for your site.

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