Dynamic content can prove a knotty problem for some sites when they SEO. The fact that not everything can be accessed at once opens up the idea that not everything will be indexed. There are strategies for dealing with this.

The term dynamic content, and the related term of dynamic URL, relate to the content that is only displayed in reaction to a viewer’s requests. For instance, Google itself is full of dynamic content. Dynamic content is pulled from the server, usually from a database. A dynamic URL is the address of the dynamic content, usually marked by a question mark in the URL.

Dynamic content once presented a lot of problems with the search engines and was a nightmare for search engine optimisation. The trouble was, either the same content was at a number of URLs, or a lot of basic content was featured on the one URL. Both of these created difficulties. In the first case, a huge number of URLs are presenting what is basically the same content. Search engine spiders ended up crawling through hundreds of addresses with identical content, creating duplicate content issues. In the latter case, content was skipped by the search engine spiders.

These days, the way search engines interact with dynamic content sites is much more sophisticated. This doesn’t mean that dynamic content ceased to produce problems. Google has tried to reassure webmasters that dynamic URLs are being dealt with, but this is not a guarantee that they no longer present a problem for the search engine.

There are a couple of problems you can run into if your site features dynamic content. The first is still the duplicate content issue. If your site features the same content on different URLs, this can be interpreted as a deliberate attempt to boost your SEO through illegitimate means.

E-commerce sites frequently run into this problem. For instance, an e-commerce site featuring apparel might have its content listed in various ways. A simple t-shirt might be listed under ’summer’, ‘casual wear’, ‘mens’, and so on, and be available for on-site searches with those options. The structure of the site can list the one item for each search result, for example ‘www.clothestown.com/summer/shirts/tshirt’, ‘www.clothestown.com/casual/shirts/tshirt’ etc. This means the content is duplicated. Another option is to create a master page for that product to which every search can link, for example ‘www.clothestown.com/yellowtshirt’ can be the end page to which each of the above searches ultimately links.

Other duplicate content issues dynamic sites run into include issues with secure pages and individual session IDs. If your site relies on these, there is no easy fix, and you may need to compromise.

Dynamic content can also create problems like broken links and overcomplicated addresses. With the former, constant vigilance is the only answer. Broken links will happen if you update your content constantly, and you need to frequently check your links. The latter is a slightly more delicate problem, as a long, complicated URL generated by dynamic content is unattractive to your viewers and can slow search engine spiders down. Dynamic systems can be tweaked to produce much cleaner addresses with a little work.

An SEO professional may be a huge help when dealing with a dynamic site. Eliminating the possibility of duplicate content causing a problem with your site is something your SEO consultant will habitually do. If you have dynamic content, talk to us at SEO Consult about the best way to approach search engine optimisation.

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