What is a Dynamic URL?
A dynamic URL is a web page that is dynamically generated when specific data is requested from a database. This is most commonly used in online stores (eCommerce) when specific requests are made on the site through filters (product size, category etc).
You can spot dynamic URLs by looking for characters like: ?,=, & in the URL.
The Importance of Dynamic URLs
Dynamic URLs are important for database-driven websites like eCommerce online stores because they allow them to build and serve pages dynamically based on custom input parameters or filters from users.
Let’s take a look at an example dynamic URL:
- https://www.myer.com.au/p/levis-511-slim-fit-dk-stonewash?colour=Dark+Stonewash&size=30%2F30
This example of a dynamic URL is from Myer’s online store, let’s break down the product and dynamic parts of the URL:
- p/levis-511-slim-fit-dk-stonewash?colour=Dark+Stonewash&size=30%2F30
As you can see, the “p” or in this case we can assume is short for “product”, as the next part of the URL is “levis-511-slim-fit-dk-stonewash” which is the product and colour, the dynamic part of the URL comes after this:
- ?colour=Dark+Stonewash&size=30%2F30
On the product page you can choose different colours of the product, if we change the colour but keep the same size, the dynamic part of the URL changes to:
- ?colour=Native+Cali&size=30%2F30
With the dynamic URL for the sizing selected coming afterwards:
- &size=30%2F30
These dynamic URLs change on the fly as selections are made on the page. When a selection is made, a query is made with the database that this information is stored and the URL is changed accordingly.
What are the downsides of dynamic URLs?
From an SEO perspective, there are a few points related to dynamic URLs that you should be aware of.
They are not easy to read
To the untrained eye, dynamic URLs are difficult to read and tell what the page is about, it also makes it difficult to share the link if you don’t have access to a copy/paste function. This is because they are long and often full of query symbols such as “&,%,?”. When compared to a static URL such as:
- https://www.myer.com.au/c/home/kitchen-appliances
This page is clearly a page for “Kitchen Appliances”. You’ll notice that this link uses the “c” after the website URL to denote “Category” not the “p” for “product” as before.
They can cause duplicate content problems
Because of how dynamic URLs work, it’s possible for more than one identical or near-idential pages to have different URLs, which can cause issues with SEO performance. Always check with Google Search Console for issues that may come up.
That is why it is very important to have canonical tags set up on dynamic pages.
They cause problems with referring domains
Websites that link to your dynamic URLs can crop the dynamic URL parameters when pasting, which can lead to broken backlinks and 404 errors.
Will dynamic URLs be crawled and indexed by Google?
Google has no problem crawling and indexing dynamic URLs, providing everything else technically is ok with the page such as canonical tags and indexing settings etc. This can be checked through the Google Search Console tools. It is always better to make things as easy as possible for search engines, so it may be preferred to have a static URL where possible.
Should I replace the dynamic URLs with static ones?
No. But you can use tools to rewrite dynamic URLs to make it easier to read, but the work and risks far outweigh any real benefits here. Generally, websites that use dynamic URLs will have large databases of products or services, attempting to change all of these just for the benefit or readability carries with it the risk of breaking links and causing more technical issues.
