How to create SEO friendly paging (in Digg.com style) using ASP.Net 2.0(C#)?

Question

Hi,

I have created a digg.com style pagination for my ASP.Net 2.0 (with C#) website's gridview control using this article: http://kpumuk.info/asp-net/gridview-with-custom-digg-like-pager/

In order to achieve digg.com style, the author of the above mentioned article has customized gridview control and created a C# control named as GridviewWithPager using two derived controls (gridview and link button control), which allowed to add Digg-style pagination to an application.

But this pagination is not SEO friendly as it uses link button control and javascript. I have read somewhere that for SEO pagination hyperlink should be used instead of link button control. While for javascript everyone knows, it makes the pages inaccessible to search engine.

Now I want to make this digg.com style pagination SEO friendly.

The questions I want to ask are:

1. Is this true that I should remove the link button control and use hyperlink control for linking the pages in SEO pagination?
2. Can I make this digg.com style pagination SEO friendly with some modification and addition?
3. If so, then what modifications and additions I will be required?
4. Do I have to remove this GridviewWithPager Control from my website and use the default gridview with some customized SEO friendly pagination?

Please feel free to give any other additional information or suggestion on SEO pagination.

Any help will be really appreciated. Thanks in advance.

nzahra.

Answer 1

Is this true that I should remove the link button control and use hyperlink control for linking the pages in SEO pagination?

Yes. Switching to regular hyperlinks will be necessary for search engines to follow the links. Plus you'll get the added benefit of a smaller viewstate, which can help SEO as well. As a rule of thumb, the higher the textual content-to-html ratio, the better. So reducing the size of the viewstate should be a priority if you want it to do well in the search engines.

Can I make this digg.com style pagination SEO friendly with some modification and addition?

Yes, although you may be better off starting from something else entirely. As easy as GridViews can be to use with all of the built-in functionality, there are some problems with them which makes them inefficient at times.

In actuality, for a public facing site I'd scrap GridViews entirely and go old-school. I'd use the simplest data control -- the repeater. You may be able to find a more feature-rich example somewhere else, but here's an article describing how to apply simple pagination to the repeater control: http://www.vbasic.net/detail.aspx?tid=106

Just like in this example, I'd create pagination with querystrings. That way you'll get the benefit of SEO, as well as an improved user experience when the user hits the back & forward buttons in their browser. Not to go too far off on a tangent, but one thing I hate is the "Confirm form resubmission" dialog box, especially when doing something as simple as stepping through pages of results. Using querystrings instead of form posts is one way to eliminate that.

Here's another example you might want to follow, albeit in a different language: http://www.seoegghead.com/blog/seo/stop-seo-death-by-pagination-p118.html

He has good reasons to do it the way he did. You may also notice he uses URL rewriting instead of querystrings which requires a little more work. But if you're willing to put in the effort, the structured nature of URL rewriting can make it the ultimate for SEO.

Answer 2

here is a class that you can use: http://davidpirek.com/blog.aspx?n=asp.net-mvc-paging-using-dataset