Link <> URL design

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Link <> URL design

"/show.asp?topic=1" vs. "?topic=1"

MaxGrenk

10:36 pm on Dec 19, 2010 (gmt 0)

I am sure I have read this somewhere, but can't find it anymore...
... and I apologise if I ended up in the wrong forum...

While I understand that links like this one "/show.asp?topic=1" need some work, I'd still like to ask, which URL design to chose

1. My pages follow this pattern "/show.asp?topic=1"
2. I am getting duplicate meta / title notifications, because someone / something links to my site like this: "/?topic=1"
3. In light of the possibility of me changing to a .php extension, it might be actually a good idea to promote the shorter version "/?topic=1" which would work no matter, whether the page is driven by ASP or PHP.

Nota bene: the PHP idea is taking shape due to the limits of URL rewriting in ASP...

... still, any pointers / feedback appreciated on how to go about the two versions of URL design

topr8

8:22 am on Dec 20, 2010 (gmt 0)

>>the PHP idea is taking shape due to the limits of URL rewriting in ASP...

it's not php that allows URL rewriting it's the apache webserver which makes it easy, if you were running asp on apache then i imagine you'd have the same rewriting capability.
it is available on IIS but is more complex and requires third party software to be installed.

the common advise today is to avoid using an 'extension' if possible at all.
so in your case
/?topic=1
but then if you are going to rewrite url's why not
/topic/1

MaxGrenk

9:54 am on Dec 20, 2010 (gmt 0)

Thanks! There are really multiple issues at play:

shared hosted server = can't install apps, etc. hence, ASP on Apache would not work either in this environment.
noticing the two URL variations, I appreciate the extension-less version is the better one... and the one I should start promoting / implementing
step two, once complete will lead to an easier migration to PHP. It has a .htaccess allowing to rewrite without any DLLs.

This leads to further, though related questions:
a) Do I simply change the URLs and leave it to time to fix it?
b) E.g. would Google simply detect the short version and drop the long URL?
c) Or do I need to redirect show.asp?topic=n to /?topic=n with a 301?

topr8

10:31 am on Dec 23, 2010 (gmt 0)

most people here would say do a 301

i'd say - how old is the site? how long have the pages been up? if it is very new and there are no incoming links to the deep pages then i don't see the point of 301's, although you must ensure in this case that the old url's are 404's

otherwise do the 301's from the old to the new

MaxGrenk

1:12 am on Jan 3, 2011 (gmt 0)

Hmm, I have changed my URL scheme from:

[sitename.net...]
to
[sitename.net...]

show.asp is still a default page to be served in IIS (its name has not changed either)

There are no redirects involved when hitting the new URL scheme...
The webserver's response code is 200

BUT

looking at my Google WebMaster Tools | Crawl Errors it says:
Redirect Error (and hence did not crawl the page)

What am I missing?

Link <> URL design

"/show.asp?topic=1" vs. "?topic=1"

MaxGrenk

topr8

MaxGrenk

topr8

MaxGrenk

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