Shorten url strings in ASP?

[treeguy]

I am not a developer but my site has long URL strings that have
problem getting crawled. I understand Google now will crawl past the +
but does not like the long strings. I tried URL rewrite and it did not
work for me. Seem like there would be command in the asp to tell ti
to shorten the string here is one of mine.
http://www.landincorporated.com/Preview.aspx?pID=81e23cf6-0303-40a7-ba66-367fa393e125
at http:// www.landincorporated.com

Why cannot it not be generated by asp to like
http://www.landincorporated.com/Preview.aspx?pID=81e23cf6. That is a
long enough variable to remove any chance repeat URL. Can me
developer change my code to shorten the generated URLs string to say
10 characters?

 

[Mike Brind [MVP]]

I am not a developer but my site has long URL strings that have
problem getting crawled. I understand Google now will crawl past the +
but does not like the long strings. I tried URL rewrite and it did not
work for me. Seem like there would be command in the asp to tell ti
to shorten the string here is one of mine.
http://www.landincorporated.com/Preview.aspx?pID=81e23cf6-0303-40a7-ba66-367fa393e125
at http:// www.landincorporated.com

Why cannot it not be generated by asp to like
http://www.landincorporated.com/Preview.aspx?pID=81e23cf6. That is a
long enough variable to remove any chance repeat URL. Can me
developer change my code to shorten the generated URLs string to say
10 characters?

ASP has nothing to do with your site. It's written in ASP.NET which is
totally different (although there was no way for you to know that). The
string of letters and numbers in your URL is a reference code to individual
items in the database. That was set by the original developers, and can
probably only be changed by them. However, I suspect that the real problem
behind your lack of success in getting indexed is the fact that search
engines can't peform searches - which is the only real way to access
property details on your site. And even if they could search, the
developers have used the default paging that comes with the control in which
the properties are listed in search results pages. It generates paging
links in clientside javascript which search engine bots can't activate, so
they don't follow the links. Again, that's something that the developers
need to address on your behalf. You may also want to consider investing in
the services of a Search Engine Marketing company. You already have the
benefit of the extent of my kowledge on these things.

Google (as far as I know) has no problem with long strings in urls. It
prefers not to bother with multiple parameters in querystrings, but you only
have one in yours: pID.

 

[treeguy]

ASP has nothing to do with your site.  It's written in ASP.NET which is
totally different (although there was no way for you to know that).  The
string of letters and numbers in your URL is a reference code to individual
items in the database.  That was set by the original developers, and can
probably only be changed by them.  However, I suspect that the real problem
behind your lack of success in getting indexed is the fact that search
engines can't peform searches - which is the only real way to access
property details on your site.  And even if they could search, the
developers have used the default paging that comes with the control in which
the properties are listed in search results pages.  It generates paging
links in clientside javascript which search engine bots can't activate, so
they don't follow the links.  Again, that's something that the developers
need to address on your behalf.  You may also want to consider investing in
the services of a Search Engine Marketing company.  You already have the
benefit of the extent of my kowledge on these things.

Google (as far as I know) has no problem with long strings in urls.  It
prefers not to bother with multiple parameters in querystrings, but you only
have one in yours: pID.

OK, thanks for your knowledge. Actually my site is doing very well on
its main page being indexed. Try " search land to buy" in Google and
we are number 1 and other phrases too. Tthe problem is getting the
generated property pages indexed. I have 500 now and some day will
have thousands. I guess I will look into SEO but not sure what they
can do either. I was thinking the problem was the ? and the =
characters and did not know its pID. The odd thing is I can take one
of these urls and I have done about 50of them and manually submit
them to Google to crawl and I cannot see that do it at all. Why would
manual submit not work for Google to index as it is a url and no need
for spiderto locate it in the site with the search tools which it
cannot do as you said ?

 

[Mike Brind [MVP]]

OK, thanks for your knowledge. Actually my site is doing very well on
its main page being indexed. Try " search land to buy" in Google and
we are number 1 and other phrases too. Tthe problem is getting the
generated property pages indexed. I have 500 now and some day will
have thousands. I guess I will look into SEO but not sure what they
can do either. I was thinking the problem was the ? and the =
characters and did not know its pID. The odd thing is I can take one
of these urls and I have done about 50of them and manually submit
them to Google to crawl and I cannot see that do it at all. Why would
manual submit not work for Google to index as it is a url and no need
for spiderto locate it in the site with the search tools which it
cannot do as you said ?

I'm not an SEO expert by any means, as I already said, and SEO is miles away
from the topic of this group. That's why I suggested you talk to someone
who knows about these things. All I can tell you is that Google will
happily index urls containing querystrings (which is the stuff after ?=).
Try searching for "Classic ASP Ajax", and you will see that the first result
is one of my pages, with a querystring in the url. Beyond that, I don't
really have anything useful to add.