Does A Question Mark In Your URL Affect Ranking?
By Jon Ricerca
http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com

Long ago, it was the SEO consensus that dynamic URLs
(those with a question mark in them) weren't indexed By
the major search engines.  Later, the SEO consensus was
that Goggle indexed some URLs with question marks, but
ranked them lower.  Currently it seems like the SEO
consensus is that Goggle indexes dynamic URLs just fine
and ranks them right along with other URLs unless there is
a long number after the question mark or an "id=" in it
which might indicate a session ID.

That a lot of SEO theories.  It's probably time to get the
facts. The methodology used to find this answer is very
simple. I gathered the results of the queries naturally
performed last month By myself and four associates using
Yahoo and Goggle. I then tallied the URLs that contained a
question mark for each ranking.

Those results were further refined By converting them into
a percentage of the total pages found.  Here is the graph
showing Goggle and Yahoo results:

http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com/graphs/dg04.gif

(Note to Webmasters: Feel free to hot link or even copy
the above graph to your own site.  Also feel free to
remove this note to webmasters.)

The X-axis shows the rankings from 1 through 8.  The Y-
axis shows the percentage of URLs found that contained a
question mark.

The first thing I note is that both Yahoo and Goggle do
contain URLs that contain a question mark.  Those major
search engines DO include some URLs with question marks.

The second thing to notice is the small percentages for
both Goggle an Yahoo.  The average percentage of URLs with
question marks is only about 5% on Goggle and 3% on Yahoo.
It isn't known what percentage of total URLs have question
marks, but it seems very likely that it is a much higher
percentage.  The difference between Yahoo and Goggle
further shows that Yahoo doesn't include as many dynamic
URLs as Goggle.

It is clear from the data that Goggle ranks dynamic URLs
(those containing a question mark) lower on average than
other URLs.  The ranking correlation is a -42 on a scale
of -100 to +100.  That same bias doesn't seem to occur on
Yahoo where the ranking correlation is a -7 on the same
scale.  If dynamic URLs make it into the Yahoo index, they
rank as well as other URLs.

Advice: Don't use dynamic URLs (URLs with question marks
in them).

Jon Ricerca is one of the leading researchers and authors
of the Search Engine Ranking Factor (SERF) reports at
SearchEngineGeek.com. For access to the other SERF
reports, please visit:
http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com
Copyright © 2003
All material on this site is
protected By the Library of Congress
and is property of 1 Ancient Won Entertainment. L.L.C.
We don't mind if you use something,
just be sure to credit the writer, this site or pay us.
1965 Ford Mustang Fastback
Lee Iaccoca
Click the image for more info
Business Network - Entertainment - Java Bomani - No Way Net Magazine -
Cyber Tiger Web Dojo - A Friend of Nikki Sunshine's - Videos - Chocolate Cherry Milk
Evolution - A Friend of Nikki Sunshine's - Over 400 Ghetto Baby Names - No Way Theatre -
Love on Fire B-Magazine
- Martial Arts Road Trips - Poetry - Links
Fighting Back Against Identity Theft - Federal Trade Commission
A friend of nikki Sunshine,inside poem,sista queen,nigga bitch poem,screenwriter,hip hop poetry,ghetto baby names,nj,1 Ancient Won entertainemnt,Java Bomani,black poetry,black love poem,philosophy,java bomani books,chocolate cherry Milk Evolution,