Search code examples
urlsearch-engine

Search engine's viewpoint of a URL

Given below two links which point to the same page with same content. I'm just trying to give this page the right URL.

I can give it one of the following URLs.

http://www.mywebsite.com/help/topic/2001

or

http://www.mywebsite.com/help?topic=2001

Now, when a search engine sees this, what's the effect on the page's caching by the engine. Do both link have the same effect or one of them can improvise the caching better.

Solution

  • That depends on the search engine. For example, Google will automatically try to guess if a URL parameter must be treated as a unique webpage, so in your scenario google will guess that the value of url parameter "topic" defines a page. Other search engines may fail on guessing this.

    I think its better to use a url with no URL parameters, so its absolutely clear that a url is pointing to a unique page, instead of relying on the guessing ability of a search engine.

    Specifically, google gives the ability to webmasters to manually set how a parameter will be treated. https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1235687?hl=en