"?" in URL what is it?

[Ryan Ward]

Does a "?" in a url have any bearing on indexing? like this one:

ryanwardrealestate.com/details.php?mid=16

[Saodavi]

My site has VERY similar URL generation. It's dynamically generated in MYSQL/PHP.

I've heard that search engines ignore everything past the "?" for purposes of SEO. There's an apache module called ModReWrite which can change those to links that look more static. I haven't gotten it to work right yet. :-/

I'd like to hear other opinions on this.

[REW Reed]

The question mark starts the variable declarations in the URI. Another piece of syntax is the use of '&' to separate different declarations. This allows the page being viewed to change content and settings based on what the link contains. A good example is how you can link to a specific map in Google Maps:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&z=4&om=1

If you click on this link, the page knows that you want the variable ie to be 'UTF8', z to be 2 and om to be equal to 1.

It is worth noting that this differs from internal data passing (post). Passing variables in the URI is often called a 'get' and is used for determining the state of the page (settings and such), whereas the 'post' method is often used when you want to enact a change, like to a database. This is why when you refresh a page you might see the pop-up confirmation 'This page uses POSTDATA. By refreshing this page you are resubmitting it'. The browser doesn't necessarily want you to delete your last blog twice or something more dire.

I hope this clears things up.

[REW Reed]

In terms of SEO, because everything after the '?' is just for the page to use, and is not really a different page, it is VERY likely ignored by the search engines.

[Ryan Ward]

Ok. Thanks that clarifies it. I will move my next question down to the work orders...

[webmaster]

This is why REW programmers should not answer SEO questions lol

The question mark starts the variable declarations in the URI. Another piece of syntax is the use of '&' to separate different declarations. This allows the page being viewed to change content and settings based on what the link contains. A good example is how you can link to a specific map in Google Maps:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&z=4&om=1

If you click on this link, the page knows that you want the variable ie to be 'UTF8', z to be 2 and om to be equal to 1.

It is worth noting that this differs from internal data passing (post). Passing variables in the URI is often called a 'get' and is used for determining the state of the page (settings and such), whereas the 'post' method is often used when you want to enact a change, like to a database. This is why when you refresh a page you might see the pop-up confirmation 'This page uses POSTDATA. By refreshing this page you are resubmitting it'. The browser doesn't necessarily want you to delete your last blog twice or something more dire.

I hope this clears things up.

[webmaster]

And to answer your question appropriately, yes variables in the URL can effect indexing - that is why we mod_rewrite everything we can at REW as output from the CMS.

Basically variables can cause (Not always) bots to choke because they are not sure whether the variable represents new content or is a session / affiliate ID. There are many other reasons to get into, but the short answer is for absolute certainty in indexing it is best to parse out all variables.

[Ryan Ward]

Ha! That was a great answer. I had to read it twice, but, I got it.

I actually posted a work order to have this changed. These are the only pages of my website that are supplemental and if I can get them to rank (which is a new goal of mine for seller representation) I really would like them to.

[REW Reed]

My bad!

At least I got the first part right! I'll leave SEO to the Master.

[webmaster]

You were just trying to help Reed, and it is always appreciated, you just likely didn't understand that "indexing" meant proper search engine indexing, not "indexing" in the programmer sense that you are used to as a computer science grad Your answer was still a great answer