Q and A: Is it better to use a database or build individual web pages for each product?
Dear Kalena...I was thinking of starting an e-commerce site and wanted to ask for your opinion regarding information of the individual products. Is it better to simply build a separate web page for each product rather than storing them in a database? This way search engines should be able to crawl them and I may get more visitors.
Thank You,
Daniel
Kalena's Answer:
Dear Daniel
It's difficult to answer this question without knowing your range of products. Assuming your product range doesn't extend into the hundreds and the specs for your products won't change regularly, I would create a dedicated web page for each product that has it's own URL e.g. www.site.com/catalog/product74855.htm rather than having a single catalog page with dynamically generated product pages like www.site.com/catalog.asp?productid=74855 and www.site.com/catalog.asp?productid=74856 etc.
When a database is used to generate content, some search engines will only ever index a single page. For example, in the situation above, the URL www.site.com/catalog.asp would be indexed but the product pages wouldn't be viewed as pages in their own right. Having flat product pages also gives you the opportunity to optimize each one for unique target keywords relating specifically to their content.
With the increasing uptake of the sitemaps protocol, search engines are getting better at indexing dynamic content, but why take the risk? You might as well make your site as findable as possible right? With large e-commerce sites, you've rarely got any choice but to use a database. The solution here is to use one in conjunction with mod_rewrite to ensure each page has it's own "static" URL.
If your product information changes on a regular basis, another solution that a colleague of mine uses is to have a database that generates a dynamic main page for each product, but to manually create a flat product description page that appears when persons click on a "more information" link within the main page. This description page can have a product image on it and optimized descriptive text that can be edited whenever the product is updated. As long as you provide a way for search engines to easily find it, this type of content makes juicy spider food.
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Labels: dynamic pages, search engine optimization (seo), web site design
2 Comments:
An interesting question indeed
The search engines are already occupied with indexing billions of web pages,that they cannot keep up.
Be aware that for some, it may take up to 6 months if ever to be indexed.
What happens if you had hundreds of products?
I still do not know if there is definitive answer, and what the benefits are.
But there is one suggestion, is to be sure your home page gets indexed.
visit
http://www.eConsumersearch.com
"Is it better to simply build a separate web page for each product rather than storing them in a database?"
As a developer, I'm not sure I understand that question. You can have a database *and* also display your products on separate pages, polling from the database. You just need code (e.g. PHP & MySQL) that will generate dynamic pages (with the right naming scheme, which will probably require some mod_rewrites).
If you have a lot of products, a database is the way to go. Having a static site is just too cumbersome.
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