Search Engine Friendly URLs using URL Rewrite
What is URL Rewriting?
URL rewriting is a term used for the process of changing the appearance of a URL.
There are two types of pages you have for your website, either a static HTM/HTML page or a dynamic page URL.
A static page may look like:
www.example.com/descriptive_page_name.htm
But a dynamic page could look like:
www.example.com/products.cgi?gm=catlist&pid=121
The reason that dynamic pages look so ugly is either because data is being pulled from a database or there is some kind of programming language involved throwing values around to different pages.
So, why shouldn’t we use dynamic URL’s?
- Google and other search engines do seem to take longer indexing dynamic URL’s.
- Dynamic URL’s are hard for users to remember and it’s not very user friendly.
- By using dynamic URL’s, you have lost the opportunity to provide a descriptive page name which would help your search engine rankings and help your website users.
Dynamic pages are often found in online shops or sites that use a CMS (Content Management System) software, but as more and more people become aware of the negative aspects involved with dynamic URL’s, they are starting to address the issue and make changes.
So, back to the original question, what is URL rewriting?
URL rewriting takes a dynamic page name such as www.example.com/products.cgi?gm=catlist&pid=121 and changes it into something like www.example.com/products-gm-catlist-pid-121.htm. This simple URL rewrite has turned that ugly dynamic URL into a static HTM page.
How to do URL Rewriting
To change a URL from:
www.example.com/products.cgi?gm=catlist&pid=121
To:
www.example.com/products-gm-catlist-pid-121.htm
You will need to write some instructions to your web server, this might sound complicated but it’s actually rather easy. You will need to login to your websites FTP area and go to the root directory. There you should find a file called .htaccess, if there isn’t a file there by that name, just open up notepad, save as .htaccess, then upload to your root directory.
We will need to put some instructions into this htaccess file. Don’t worry, you wont have to learn any complicated programming languages; there is a URL rewrite tool that does all the work for you at linkvendor.com.
If you go to that website, input your dynamic URL and then give a page extension you would prefer such as .htm, it will generate the code needed to be put into your .htaccess file. This tool also gives you three different options for your static URL; I would just choose the option which use .htm.
Once you have copied and pasted the code into your htaccess file, save it and upload to your root directory then go back to the URL rewrite tool and copy and paste the generated URL example to test in your browser. If the page loads, you have just completed a URL rewrite!
All that is left for you to do is change the links on your website to point to the new URL’s and you’re done!
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