getting my database content indexed 1

[slickwillyslim]

well, not directly, but is it possible to have most spiders crawl a mostly dynamic site? i know that google and such wants you to have a monster site with loads of pages that all contain backlinks. the only problem i have is that i'm using a dropship wholesaler. they supply me with a database full of product descriptions and image links etc. in total it's almost 2500 products. each product has its own thumbnail/shortdescription and large pic/longdescription, price, etc. it would be so easy to simply pull these to one generated page. this would make it so much easier to maintain when the supplier drops or adds products to their database. but i know that if i rely strictly on dynamic pages then i can't optimize the pages. so is there a middle ground, or am i going to have to create 2500 description pages just to get them optimized? back to reality, say i've got several category pages that are accessible by real links. each page pulls one stack of products from the DB based on category. at this point how can i create a link for each product to a dynamic page that pulls the large product image and full description, without turning away the spider? i've seen several high ranking websites that are getting away with this or at least appear to be doing so. guess i'd like to know their secret. any suggestions would be most appreciated, thanks fellas.......

 

[ChrisHirst]

Well you shouldn't need to create 2500 pages, just the one will do

so long as it pulls out the data for the one product and displays it, no problem
however many crawlers aren't very quick to index 2^nd generation dynamic pages so a little persuasion in the shape of category pages linked off the home without a querystring helps (hardcode the cat IDs). There are several other ways of creating SE friendly URLs, one of which I'm in the process of testing for a shopping cart I'm developing.

keep the URL parameters 3 or less though and there should be no problem.


Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

http://www.candsdesign.co.uk

A website that proves the cobblers kids adage.

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Nightclub counting systems

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[slickwillyslim]

thanks Chris for the quick response. i've been sweatin over this issue for a while. gonna take your advice as it will save me a ton of time. one more question, do you know of any way to optimize a generated page? i mean, i don't know of a way to create page specific meta tags on a generated page other than using whats in the database. the only thing i really would have to rely on is the product description itself. i'm probably asking to have my cake and eat it too. just wanna have some kind of an edge out there ya know. maybe i could try inserting the product short description in the keyword meta tag, just an idea. anyway, thanks a bunch chris.....

 

[ChrisHirst]

I make sure that I can pull some info out of the db for a page title (most important) and page heading, your short description should be okay for that and the meta description.

don't worry too much about meta keywords, a method I use is to have several sets of related KW in a table then use the description to decide which to use, bit like;

if instr(objRS.fields("descript"),"thisword") > 0 then
      meta_id = 1
elseif instr(objRS.fields("descript"),"otherword") > 0 then
      meta_id = 2
.... etc
end if

then get the meta KW list with that ID from the table.

keep your title below 80 chars in length where possible. Depending on whether you are on PHP or ASP I have some code to extract snippets of text of a fixed length, then truncate back to the end of a word.

ASP version in this thread thread333-882989

great for article snippets and titles etc.


Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

http://www.candsdesign.co.uk

A website that proves the cobblers kids adage.

http://www.cram-system.com

Nightclub counting systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.