The QueryString
The geeneral form of a web address is URL + Querystring. Together, these values are called an Universal
Resource Identifier, or URI. The Querystring is anything in the URI that appears after the '?' sign.
So, in the below URI:
http://www.seoknowhow.com/default.aspx?ID=1234&Name=1234
the querystring is "ID=1234&Name=1234"
Crawlers and Querystrings
Crawlers have trouble with querystrings. Things have improved over the last couple of years, but
if you watch the behavior of crawlers on a regular basis, you will still see them getting it wrong
in the face of these apparently innocent creatures. If you must use querystrings (and there are lots
of reasons why you might) try to keep the number down. These days, it's generally accepted that Google,
for example, can handle a single querystring without problems. As the number increases, so does
the risk of the crawler bailing out. I should also note before I'm spammed too frequently that, yes,
I have seen the crawlers successfully handle URIs with a large number of querystring parameters. The
point is, I've also seen them fail, so why risk it?
Session Querystring Parameters
One last tip. Avoid any querystring parameters that contain the word 'session', 'sessionID', or similar.
The crawlers are nervous of sessions and we've seen them avoid URI's containing this kind of parameter
like the plague. At other times they appear completely happy. Bottom line...why take the risk? Call your
Querystring parameters something else.
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