Hello,
I have a website that runs on a dynamic script, however my programmer has used the "apache mod rewrite" rule meaning all the dynamic pages actually do appear in .html format to a user and a bot.

Keeping this in mind, is it still better if I switch to static? I saw somewhere that a dynamic website that has the mod rewrite is as good as a static website but I'm still convinced the shift might be better.

Also there's another thing. My programmer tells me changing to static will mean manual updates from then on, and a friend of mine says that isn't necessarily the case. That I can still update on the same control panel and in the same way as the dynamic script except my pages will be static. Which is true?

And has anyone ever heard of "staticadvantage"? (http://www.staticadvantage.com/) I don't know if they're legit or not. Anyone had any experience with them?

Hello,
I have a website that runs on a dynamic script, however my programmer has used the "apache mod rewrite" rule meaning all the dynamic pages actually do appear in .html format to a user and a bot.

Keeping this in mind, is it still better if I switch to static? I saw somewhere that a dynamic website that has the mod rewrite is as good as a static website but I'm still convinced the shift might be better.

Also there's another thing. My programmer tells me changing to static will mean manual updates from then on, and a friend of mine says that isn't necessarily the case. That I can still update on the same control panel and in the same way as the dynamic script except my pages will be static. Which is true?

And has anyone ever heard of "staticadvantage"? (http://www.staticadvantage.com/) I don't know if they're legit or not. Anyone had any experience with them?

Listen to your programmer. In terms of SEO, there is no advantage between static and dynamic pages: none. Now that may sound misleading, but if you have a page called mypage.html and mypage.php there will be no SEO advantage given to either of them.

Now, here's why it's preferable to have a static looking url. When a dynamic page has variables passed through the url, such as mypage.php?variable1=ds89yhkj&variable2=76 etc then the search engine may not index all of your pages.

Here's a better example. Let's say on your dynamic website, all your articles are pulled from a database in a file called articles.php and that to pick the articles, it uses the variable primkey. So let's say you have 3 pages:

articles.php?primkey=12
articles.php?primkey=79
articles.php?primkey=87

Now, with mod rewrite you can make this appear to be both static pages, but also SEO friendly by taking the title of the article and making it your page name. So with our 3 examples, a good mod-rewrite could make them:

12-strategies-to-increase-your-seo.html
79-do-every-trick-in-the-book.html
87-and-youll-find-that-every-visitor-matters.html

Now the advantages to using the dynamic pages are multiple: First, search engines may start to ignore pages like this: articles.php?primkey=87 and not properly index all of them. Secondly, with mod-rewrite done well, you've added more SEO value by using your articles keywords in the URL, meaning a page like 12-strategies-to-increase-your-seo.html is more SEO'd than articles.php?primkey=12

Finally, you do not want a manual/static site unless every time you want to change your header, footer, etc, you want to open all the files in your site and change it. Of course there's CSS and SHTML, but you're going to save time, money, and effort by going with a dynamic site.

Blah, just my two cents.

I already know the deal with what kind of urls a search engine bot will cache on a dynamic script.

I'm just asking if whether a dynamic script (with an 'apache mod rewrite' rule applied to it) the same as a static page or is a static page still given more preferance by search engines? Also, my website is using excessive amounts of mysql resources and loads very slow which I think will be fixed with the shift to static.

Is it possible to update the contents of the pages from a dynamic perspective even if the they are static in form?

I already know the deal with what kind of urls a search engine bot will cache on a dynamic script.

I'm just asking if whether a dynamic script (with an 'apache mod rewrite' rule applied to it) the same as a static page or is a static page still given more preferance by search engines? Also, my website is using excessive amounts of mysql resources and loads very slow which I think will be fixed with the shift to static.

Is it possible to update the contents of the pages from a dynamic perspective even if the they are static in form?

The search engines literally cannot tell the difference between a mod-rewrite page and an actual static page, so no, no preference is given either way.

If you're getting hit that hard by MySQL usage, then it sounds like you have a lot of traffic and should move to a better server.

To answer your last question, no. If you go to a static page, expect to manually edit each and every file, no ifs/ands/or buts about it. :D

From SEO point of view you can see that WHT itself is not using mod_rewrite, here a typical URL is like showthread.php?p=4736856#post4727899 but still google and other search engine crawl it properly and the result are high on related search terms, but then this is also because its very professionally coded. Using mod_rewrite ensures that your site will be crawled & indexed properly.

And this is also for sure that if you plan on using static HTML pages, all updates will have to be done by editing those pages.

As of MySql using high resources, there are many options, optimise you coding, optimise/tune your MySql server properly and if all that has been done then up grade your server.

Also, for dynamic content, it won't help much if it's the same dynamic content that others have on their sites. Try to mix and match some static pages with some dynamic ones, or dynamic content included on static pages with your own original content.

I already know the deal with what kind of urls a search engine bot will cache on a dynamic script.

I'm just asking if whether a dynamic script (with an 'apache mod rewrite' rule applied to it) the same as a static page or is a static page still given more preferance by search engines? Also, my website is using excessive amounts of mysql resources and loads very slow which I think will be fixed with the shift to static.

Is it possible to update the contents of the pages from a dynamic perspective even if the they are static in form?

As visnar and jquindlen said, spiders won't know whether your pages are truly static or not, but slow page loads will send real visitors away, and possibly also restrict the spiders to some extent. In addition to vinsar's suggestions for speeding up your application I'd also suggest checking the database structure - properly indexed tables can make a huge difference to mysql performance.

But once you've done that, I wonder if this might be one of those rare cases where you can have your cake and eat it...

If the site doesn't have much user participation (ie. it's dynamic only for your convenience in making updates) you might benefit from a static cache - a set of "real" html files automatically-generated from the dynamic application. Given that you already have mod_rewrite redirecting the url from .html to the dynamic one this might be a rather simple addition.

SEO aside, static HTML pages will load faster than a given dynamic page. However, the functionality that you sacrifice is no longer worth the processing power that you save.

Actually i wonder if there is any advantage to mod rewrite and other seo tricks at all.

The most prominent search engines that do matter know very well to index complex urls that belong to different scripting languages. all you need to do is to contain the related keyword in page url somewhere.

like http://www.domainbusters.com/my_keyword_here.php?somecomplexcariable=someevenmorecomplexvalueandevencontainingthekeyword

Actually i wonder if there is any advantage to mod rewrite and other seo tricks at all.

mod_rewrite improves the chances of your site getting indexed. Take a look at http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=34431&topic=8522

However, mod_rewrite may not improve your ranking as the ranking mainly depends on content and inbound links.

SEO is not the only reason for using mod_rewrite. You can also improve the readability of your URLs using mod_rewrite.

There is no SEO difference between mod_rewrite generated static pages, and static html pages. However, the server can serve more number of static html pages as compared to dynamic pages. So if server resource is a constraint, this can save you some troubles.