Google Guidelines Spy vs Google Webmaster Central Spy
Update: Listen to me discuss this issue on Webmaster.fm
I was reading Janes blogpost over at SEOMOz about the advice given by Google on dynamic urls. There was some drama about this throughout the web as we all know. As I read Janes post I thought I could provide the explanation of why the advice given by Google could seem confusing.
My take on this issue is that Google is providing contradicting advice in their official documentation and that hopefully it can be clarified so that people who are trying to learn from and follow the advice given by Google can do so.
The Contradictions…
(I have put in bold the things that contradict each other.)
1) First contradiction
Official Google webmaster central blog….
“We’ve come across many webmasters who, like our friend, believed that static or static-looking URLs were an advantage for indexing and ranking their sites. This is based on the presumption that search engines have issues with crawling and analyzing URLs that include session IDs or source trackers.”
vs..
Official Google webmaster guidelines…
“If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a “?” character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.”
The above two items seem to disagree with each other.
2) Second contradiction
“While static URLs might have a slight advantage in terms of clickthrough rates because users can easily read the urls, the decision to use database-driven websites does not imply a significant disadvantage in terms of indexing and ranking. Providing search engines with dynamic URLs should be favored over hiding parameters to make them look static.”
vs…
“Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.”
These two statements directly contradict each other. I am not saying this for drama, I am saying this because the advice given on the Google webmaster central post is stating clearly that one should ignore the value given to the user by static, trustable URLs. It is advising that “Providing search engines with dynamic URLs should be favored over hiding parameters to make them look static” even though they have highlighted the value to users that static looking URLs provide.
This is the first time I have seen Google give such advice.
3) Third contradiction
“Fact: We can crawl dynamic URLs and interpret the different parameters. We might have problems crawling and ranking your dynamic URLs if you try to make your urls look static and in the process hide parameters which offer the Googlebot valuable information. One recommendation is to avoid reformatting a dynamic URL to make it look static.”
“If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a “?” character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.”
The above two statements seem to contradict each other.
These are the main contradictions I see. I believe they are valid and are worth consideration by the the Google teams involved.
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September 25th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
[...] Google Guidelines Spy vs Google Webmaster Central Spy, SEOish [...]
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:19 am
Nice simple outline of the contradictions. No personal agenda, just to the point display of what they are now saying and have said on the issue.
I don’t think the third contradiction is apples to apples, but it isn’t worth arguing over.
The most disconcerting point for me came from the second contradiction where Google stated, “Providing search engines with dynamic URLs should be favored over hiding parameters to make them look static.” The use of “hiding” in reference to URL rewriting implies some nefarious act when the end result benefits users and presumably prior to this post, search engines themselves.
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:38 am
Nicely done, I love Spy vs. Spy.
As for contradiction number one, I would add from the blog “However, as a matter of fact, we at Google have made some progress in both areas.”. Notice the “some progress”, which adds to the confusion.
Could this all just be a matter of the guidelines won’t change until that “some progress” is complete? Also it seems Google is saying webmasters are botching the rewrites so don’t do it.
November 25th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Good spot! I hope someone at G HQ is getting a spanking for that one! I hate the way G has us jumping through hoops in an attempt to improve their own business.