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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Q and A: How do I make value shipping and real-time shipping work together on a dynamic site?

Dear Kalena...

I have been searching the web for technical data for my dynamic website. I need to know if there is a way to make value shipping and real-time shipping work together on a dynamic site? I have some product with zero weights and some with numbered weights to go through shipping, and they will not work together. Do you have any information or links to that info?

Gabriel

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Gabriel

Yours is not a search engine related question and dynamic programming is not my bag, so you have me stumped! But I'm confident that a reader will chip in with an answer for you. If you have an answer for Gabriel, please post a comment.

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Q and A: If dynamically generated pages don't technically exist, how do they get indexed?

Dear Kalena...

I am puzzled about dynamically generated pages. Since they don't actually 'exist', how do they get indexed? (I know you can mod_rewrite their urls, but they still don't 'exist' anywhere, right?)

AP

Kalena's Answer:

Dear AP

Well technically, no they don't exist until the page is "called". But from what I understand, a search robot, when indexing a site, can create them on the fly, just like a browser can. That's how they get indexed and links between them are followed.

Most search spiders/robots won't index more than a few pages of a dynamic site because of the unknown number of pages they represent. That's why services such as Google Sitemaps and Yahoo Site Explorer have developed - so you can "tell" a search engine how many URLs your site has - dynamic or otherwise. You should create an XML sitemap and submit it to both services.

Mod_rewrite is good, but prob not necessary now that engines have better technical ability to process dynamically generated content.

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