Urgent HELP! How to get my ASP Dynamic Pages Indexed in Google??

[Chloe Brooks]

Hi Warriors,
I have a big problem getting my ASP dynamic pages indexed in Google.

For example here is one example of a URL that is not indexed along many others. Dont click this as I have replaced the domain name with "mywebsite".

http://www.mywebsite/MedicalService/...ceId=226&lid=1

Can anyone let me know what is the best solution to fix this problem but using what Google recommends is the best solution to it?


thanks
Chloe

[Chloe Brooks]

I noticed that WF made a three dots ... so make sure to click on the link and you can see the ASP structure in the browser...

Many Thanks
Chloe

[Chloe Brooks]

Is it possible to do that on ASP websites?

what about duplication of the urls?

[thegamecat]

Firstly, using ASP is ridiculous and made even worse if you don't know what you're doing.

Secondly - use ISAPI rewriter to rewrite the urls to be human readable/seo friendly. You have to set it up in IIS.

I still can't believe people use .net for anything. MS sure did a number on the world with it and I am actually pro ms.

[seobear]

The best way will be to rewrite the URLs into "static" ones, just like oca101 suggests.

In addition to it, I would:
- re-create and re-submit XMS sitemap once all changes are done to make sure I notified Google about new pages
- update my common HTML sitemap
- update my internal links structure to exclude all old urls from the website

This should be enough for Google to forget about old URLs quite quickly.

If you are worried about current rankings/traffic, you can also set up 301 redirects from old urls to new static ones.

[Chloe Brooks]

Thanks guys,
I hear different opinions. When checking around some people say do not rewrite because that will create issues for google and others say rewrite..

so who is right...does anyone have a true answer from google as I cant seem to find it?

thanks a million
Chloe

[pons_saravanan]

Hi

I am writing this based on the URL you have shared in the OP. I can see that you are using ASP.Net. I think with few modifications you can improve the URL for Search engines but i am not sure whether changing the structure of the url can help in crawling, and then indexing.

For Indexing

Remember for indexing you need to have unique content in the home page first. From my bad experience I advice you not to redirect from the root domain on page load. I made this mistake and it took very long for my website to get indexed in the beginning.

So have some content in the home page first and get it indexed

1. Get the domain indexed first using some good content in the homepage.
   
2. Build some links(dofollow) from good resources probably a high PR article directory.
   
3. Place some links (dofollow signature link will help) in frequently crawled forums.
   
4. Get some social bookmarks.
   
5. For the inner pages to index create a site map or RSS Feed( if you don’t know how to do let me know I can help you out with some sample codes in Asp.Net)

Note: Most of the search engines can use the RSS Feed as replacement for sitemap. I have already started using my rss feed than sitemap.

For Improving the URL structure for better SEO

The following may not help you in indexing but will help in search engine optimization.

1) Create a default page right under the wwwroot folder
2) Move/copy the functions in MedServiceShortDetail.aspx to default.aspx

3) Currently you are using three keys to locate the record MedServiceId=133, SubMedServiceId=226,lid=1. Instead form a unique key from this combination like PageId or even simple id. if you are using SQL server you can have an identity column to get the sequence number for the record.

For e.g.

MedServiceId=133, SubMedServiceId=226,lid=1.==>1

MedServiceId=132, SubMedServiceId=226,lid=1.==>2

MedServiceId=133, SubMedServiceId=227,lid=2.==>3
MedServiceId=133, SubMedServiceId=227,lid=2.==>4

4)[optional]I guess you will be having some kind of title for that record/page.If you have one bring them into the url with desc=[titlehere]. This palces the keywords in URL which is good for SEO.

After the above changes your url will be like

_http://www.mywebsite/?id=1&desc=ASpecialMedicine

OR

Create an HTTPModule to rewrite the url

[dburk]

Hi Chloe,

First let me say that Google has no problems indexing dynamic URLs provided that they are not excessively long. Looking at your URL structure I would say they are not long enough to cause a problem for Google, but they do seem needlessly long.

Another issue you may have when using multiple parameters in your dynamic URLs is consistency in order. When using multiple parameters in URL strings you will have canonicalization issues if your scripts do not build the URL string exactly the same way, parameters always in the same exact order.

When developing scripts that use dynamic URLs you should take the time to write your scripts in a fashion that excludes all unnecessary parameters and, if you must use parameters, keep them short and/or human readable. URLs are for humans and you can easily hide the technology.

Your current URL:
http:/ /www. mywebsite/MedicalService/Center/MedServiceShortDetail.aspx?MedServiceId=133&SubMed ServiceId=226&lid=1

Could be constructed like this:
http:/ /www. mywebsite/MedicalCenter/Heart-Institute/

The actual script parameters that aren't useful to the user do not need to be included in the URL. You script should be able to reference the medical service center name, in this case "Heart Institute" and programmatically retrieve all needed parameters in your server side scripts.

To not hide the technology is just being lazy or sloppy, in my opinion. Take some pride in your work and learn to write scripts that hide the technology from the user. It's all about the user after all, isn't it?.

[bgmacaw]

If you're talking ASP.NET and not classic ASP, check out these links...

Developing SEO friendly websites with ASP NET 2.0

ASP.NET 4 SEO Improvements (VS 2010 and .NET 4.0 Series) - ScottGu's Blog

SEO For ASP.NET Web Site

They'll tell you how to setup the proper SEO friendly redirects and url structures in ASP.NET.

[Mr Big]

Hey Warriors; let me know if your feedback / recommendations changes with respect to classic asp in this case. I basically have the same issue here, but I run a classic asp site.

My URL structure is probably too long and there are variables like "?" and "ID" in there which SE aren't too fond of.

What can I do?

Thanks!

[cagliostro]

Originally Posted by thegamecat

Firstly, using ASP is ridiculous and made even worse if you don't know what you're doing.

Secondly - use ISAPI rewriter to rewrite the urls to be human readable/seo friendly. You have to set it up in IIS.

I still can't believe people use .net for anything. MS sure did a number on the world with it and I am actually pro ms.

What ? ASP is excellent and Google index asp pages very-very well.

[Mr Big]

Well, its not working well for me. Google is not indexing any of my product pages. Out of the 3,000 URL submitted in my sitemap only 65 pages are indexed e.g. the home page, landing pages, and main category templates. But, no products.

E.g. here is an example of my product URL:

mydomain.com/store/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=250&idproduct=4749996&dd=1[/url]

If I google, "INFO:" along with any of my product URLS immediately following, there is no CACHE info.

My developer suggested the 404 error handler technique. He says that once we do this and submit a new sitemap with the shorter, clearer URLs, that have the proper naming convention, then my product pages will be indexed.

However, we encounter another issue with our Build to Order process if we do this. Currently, my users can select one product in the first step and combine it with another product in the second step. (This has nothing to do with the original shopping cart. Everything was customized).

For example, in step one the user may choose a door style, material, color, size and in the second step combine it with a knob and frame, etc. (obviously not my business).

So if we rewrite the first product page URL as following: mydomain/brass-door-knob/ then system will not have the proper ID required to insert this product into the BTO process. Meaning, my session needs to combine the Product IDs for it to create the final product. Even if we manage to place the product ID in the end somewhere, we still get an error when the products are combined.

In summary, the re-write seems pretty easy to tackle, both for category URLs and product URLS, however, we are not sure how to work around the BTO session issue.

If you have any advise on the URLS technique we're thinking about (404 redirect handler), and/or BTO session problem, let me know.

Remember, we're talking about classic asp on a dedicated server running IIS 5.0.

Many Thanks to the Warriors!

[cagliostro]

If you have or submit a sitemap, that doesn't mean that google will index all of it. It can index whatever google wants or simply it takes time.

I have an ASP websites with some 7000 asp pages and Google is indexing from 3000 to 4000 (it fluctuates). Some of my asp urls are long and hidden deeply but google bot doesn't seem to have problem with that.

I think you only need TIME. Continue to work as usual and you will be indexed....

[Mr Big]

How much time?? We have a clean 3 + years online and our page rank is still poor. Our competitors who are inferior in sales then us seem to have much higher SEO rankings then we do. We dappled in blogs, forums, article writing, directory submissions, and now approaching it internally with Meta-Tags and URL rewriting. What else can we missing here, more TIME?

[dburk]

Hi Mr Big,

It sounds as if you URL building method is flawed. Querystring parameters should not be injected directly into scripts. They can be used to send signals, or compare to known data, but they should not be used to transfer data. That will open up a number of unnecessary security risks. It sounds like a poorly conceived parameter building scheme.

There are many ways to approach parameter building and nearly all of them are superior to your described method. I'm sorry to say that you need to find a better programmer or insist that your current programmer gets up to speed on best practices for dynamic URL methods.

When it comes to SEO it is very important that a web document use only one URL. If you can build multiple URLs to the same web document you have not built a SEO friendly web application and should have no expectations for ranking well in search engines.

Using the 404 error handling technique is a risky approach as well. You must insure that an invalid page always return a 404 response code or you will be in violation of Google's guidelines and at risk of being removed from there index or having very limited indexing.

[webdevelopmentcompany]

Have you check for 404 and 301 error? May be this reason behind not getting Indexed or check for canonical URL.