News And Events

URL REWRITING TOOL – DO YOU NEED IT?

To understand the function of a URL rewriting tool and when do SEOs and webmasters use it; it’s necessary to know in which URL type this handy tool is required. If you are a website owner who has had a website developed and hosted; you probably don’t have any idea of the ‘type’ of the website you have.

Two types of sites exist on the internet and are known as ‘static’ and ‘dynamic’ websites. Let’s discuss this further and try and understand what the differences between static and dynamic websites are, and where do you need a URL rewriting tool.

STATIC AND DYNAMIC WEBSITES

There are some static sites on the internet. If a website is delivering information without any bells or whistles; it’s most probably a static site. Small businesses and companies have static websites. The business or company just wants to show their presence on the internet. They don’t want anyone else stealing their business name and setting up a website. They don’t do any business over the web.

Static websites are cheaper to develop and easier to host. Finding someone with HTML knowledge to update is the main drawback.

ADVANTAGES OF STATIC WEBSITES

Cheaper to develop

Quick to develop

More Affordable to host

Disadvantages of Static Websites

Provides basic information only

Content can stagnate

Requires web expertise to update

Dynamic sites, on the other hand, have various advantages. They will cost more to develop initially but are easier for the website owner to manage and update. Dynamic websites can be updated with ease. For example, news and events and posts can be easily uploaded through a simple user interface. E-commerce systems, bulletin boards, the ability for website masters and viewers to update are very easy tasks to perform on dynamic websites.

ADVANTAGES OF DYNAMIC WEBSITES

Website provides more functionality

Easier to update

Allows users and visitors to interact easily

Permits exchange of information between users and site owner

DISADVANTAGES OF DYNAMIC WEBSITES

Costly to develop

Costly to host

Asides from these differences between static and dynamic websites there are some benefits of static websites. It is where the use of good URL rewriting tool becomes useful.

All SEOs, webmasters, and web owners share one common dream, and that is that their website ranks among the top sites in search engines. Static URLs rank better than dynamic URLs. The reason for this is that:

Static URLs tend to rank better than dynamic URLs

Static pages contain useful content and may be sprinkled with a few keywords

They are easier to index

Static URLs are user-friendly.

SHOULD A DYNAMIC WEBSITE BE MADE TO LOOK STATIC

It is a question that plays on the minds of SEOs and webmasters. They want their websites to be better indexed, ranked and generated more traffic. But should they go through the exercise of making their dynamic websites look static just to gain these advantages perhaps?

A static website will have a simple URL and can be found by typing filetype: him in the search field. A dynamic address will look like:

http://code.google.com/p/google-checkout-php-sample-code/issues/detail?id=31

Note that a dynamic address has special characters in it.

Google Webmaster Central Blog on dynamic Vs Static URLs has to say on rewriting dynamic websites to static:

1. "It's quite hard to correctly create and maintain rewrites that change dynamic URLs to static-looking URLs.

2. It's much safer to serve us the original dynamic URL and let us handle the problem of detecting and avoiding problematic parameters.

3. If you want to rewrite your URL, please remove optional parameters while maintaining a dynamic-looking URL.

4. If you want to serve a static URL instead of a dynamic URL you should create a static equivalent of your content.”

Creating a static equivalent is not as easy as it sounds. If you search for URL rewriting tool on your browser you will get some sites that provide this service. You will need to create a .htaccess code and paste it in your site’s code.

Remember the .htaccess code will be different for an Apache server and a Linux server. Therefore you must know the server type on which your website is hosted.

On the internet you will find access SEO friendly URL generator, URL rewriting for dynamic pages PHP, HTaccess rewrite generator, and many similar tools. The question is should you use them or not. Google say that their crawler or robot has a bit more difficulty in crawling and indexing dynamic sites, but does that eventually.

But do you as the site master or owner want to be patient and let Google do its work. Or do you want to use a URL rewriting tool? Be warned that you must know how to use it. If you are not an SEO, don’t use it. Since you won’t know your website’s host server platform and where to paste the .htaccess code you could cause your site to crash.

URL REWRITING TOOL

On your search engine browser enter searchenginereports.net and hit enter. Scroll down the list in free SEO tools. You will see the URL rewriting tool icon. Click on it and enter the dynamic URL. The tool will display the rewritten code which you can then paste into your website’s code.

This tool is quite simple to use and quite helpful if you want to convert from dynamic to static. Yes, static addresses are easier to remember and share. But if you have designed and built your system to allow people to make purchases or register or fill out forms, in that case, it won’t, be advisable to rewrite your site. Also if you do a rewrite, your regular viewers or customers may stop visiting your site.

SUMMARY

Both static and dynamic websites have their advantages and disadvantages. If you are getting the traffic you want, then there’s no point in changing your site from one type to another. You should only seriously consider a switch if it's impacting your website’s performance.