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By Vickie J. Scanlon


Static or Dynamic, which way should you go when designing your web pages? Learn what static and dynamic pages are, their differences and their advantages and disadvantages. Are there any issues? You’ll find that out too!

Many merchants offer their affiliates dynamic rich links to place on their site. Being one of those affiliates, my questions were many.

First, what are the differences between dynamic and static web pages? Second, would dynamic pages/urls be a viable option for my website? Third, if I used dynamic pages, could the search engines easily crawl and index my pages? Fourth, if dynamic pages cannot be crawled, is there a solution to the problem? In this article I will address these questions, as well as, discuss the advantages, disadvantages, and the possible solutions to certain issues.


What are Static Web Pages?

A static page is a page that gives you exactly the same response over and over again. It is your basic HTML page. The static page consist of urls that are free of any special characters, remains in it's final form and has no server-side interaction.

An example of a static url is (xxx equals your domain name): xxxxxxx.com/index.html


Advantages of Static Web Pages 

Since static web pages are html driven, they offer the webmaster the following quick advantages. 

1) For those who have little or no experience with design, the static url allows for an easy and quick solution to getting a website up and running; 2)There are no surprises--what one person sees, is what all will see; 3)The pages are easier for the search engine spiders to crawl and index; and 4)No database downtime or uptime. 


Disadvantages to Static Web pages

The major downside to a static web site is when the site begins to grow. 10 to 20 pages is pretty manageable to update, but when it gets to 200+ static pages the daily maintenance and cost can grow exponentially -- in time and money.


What are Dynamic Pages

Dynamic pages consist of pages where the logic is maintained separately from the content. The content is stored in the database until the variable parameters of the dynamic url tells the database repository what items to pull into the page as it loads. Based on the url's parameters, the server will return different content.

Dynamic pages are usually coded in such scripting languages as CGI, ASP, PHP, Perl, Cold Fusion, JSP and others. You can usually tell if an url is dynamically generated because it will include question marks, equal signs, percentage signs, and ampersands. 

An example of a dynamic url is (xxx equal your domain name:

xxxxxxxxx.com/index.php?lang=NLD&name=home

The important element in the url above, is the portion after the ?. It is the portion after the ? that contains the query string - the part that changes.


Advantages of Dynamic Pages

A dynamic page can be customized by a response on a server to help personalize your site to meet your customer's need. All page content will come from a database connected to the Web site.

Since the dynamic template is maintained separately from the content, it means that content changes can be made when needed. In addition, the web site can be updated without major maintenance, editing and reviewing, which translates into lower maintenance costs and time.

Many webmasters of large e-commerce sites tend to favor dynamic pages because it is customer friendly, and allows them to update their pages on a regular basis by specific time and date sensitive routines. Which is understandable, if their products and offers change on a daily basis.

On the affiliate side, I'm seeing more merchant webmasters offering the option of dynamic links for their affiliates. The affiliate can put the code on their website, and let the merchant create the update. This saves the affiliate time, by eliminating the manual manipulation of the url and uploading of their web pages on a daily basis; And second, they have the reassurance of knowing that if something is made available by the merchant, the link will automatically change and be available to their customers in a timely manner. However, there are some affiliates that do not take a liking to this type of link. Why?

For the established affiliate, with more automation tools -- the merchant's dynamic links takes the control out of their hands. How? The dynamic link may provide specific links to products or services that the affiliate may or may not wish to see appear on their site. 

So far, dynamic links looks like a workable solution -- saving time and money and offering only small nuisances. But are there any disadvantages to dynamic pages?


Disadvantages of Dynamic Pages

Is there a downside to dynamic pages? Not to be wishy-washy, but -- Yes and No.

In days gone by, many of the web spiders could not read the url parameters to the right of the question mark in the dynamic url. Today, webmasters have seen some improvement.

Google and some of the other search engines can handle simple dynamic urls, but if the query parameters gets to long or complicated (having more than one ? for example) their crawler will ignore the link completely. If you need or want more information on what Google can and cannot do with dynamic links, and the possible procedures and alternatives of getting your dynamic links indexed you can check out Google Webmaster Center  for the details.

Yahoo, on the other hand, suggests that you use dynamic links only in directories that are not intended to be crawled or indexed. Nicely put, the answer is a simple "I don't think so."  Thus, whether you have a dynamic web page or website, you may find yourself having problems with getting your web pages crawled, let alone getting them indexed.

So, where do the search engines stand on the issue of dynamic links today? Some web spiders are taking the plunge and crawling websites with dynamic links, which is a positive. But on the negative side, there are still some web spiders that will not venture near a dynamically-created page for fear of getting stuck in the page and being lead through some poorly written code and thus, causing a possible major server crash.

With that being said, what can you do to get your dynamic web pages spidered? Do you have to bit the bullet and change back to static or is there other possibilities out there that will get your dynamic url indexed.


Getting Your Dynamic Links Indexed.

If you are using or wanting to use dynamic links there is a possible solution to getting them seen by the search engines, and thus, the end goal -- Indexed.

You can use a tool called RewriteRule Generator to rewrite your dynamic url. The RewriteRuleGenerator tool will take your dynamic url, change the syntax, and make your url look static and thus, readable by the search engines' spiders.

Little Background Information on Mod-Rewrite
The Mod-Rewrite tool makes use of a file called .htaccess to perform the rewrites. The .htacess file tells the server how to convert between dynamic and static urls.

If you think you want to use the Mod-Rewrite tool to convert your urls from dynamic to static, you should first make sure your web host can support mod_rewrite. That can be done in either of two ways: 1) Send an email to your server and ask; or 2)you can test for yourself by writing a small snippet of code and following the simple instructions below:

<?php

phpinfo();

?>

Save it as info.php and upload it to your server.

Type the following in the address box of your browser --

with "www.mysite" being your site name.  http://www.mysite/info.php 

Once the info is returned, look for the Heading

"Apache", then "Loaded modules" -- you should find mod_rewrite listed there -- if it is supported.