On our product pages we use fragments to create related products......

[CCT.Darren]

On our product pages we use fragments to create related products.
As we are finally getting round to revamping our SEO I was hoping someone could help explain which way of linking is the best.

With Actinic you can link in the fragment using either the static URL field or the dynamic Section field.

We are currently using the Section field but this creates script links such as /cgi-bin/ss000003.pl?SECTIONID=PAGE.html etc which then redirects to the correct html link.

Can a SearchBot follow one of these links?

We could switch to using the the URL field, however this could lead us to broken links in the long run. We have over 1500 products each with at least 3 or 4 related links. The maintenance would be an issue.

Is it worth changing our way of linking for the search engines, would it make any difference?

[leehack]

Linking through the cgi-bin should be avoided as much as possible IMO. Instead of investing the time in creating static links and then maintaining them, why not upgrade to V8 and use the new features provided.

[Duncan Rounding]

There is no solution that will be easy to maintain other than using cgi links in V7. The SEs will pick up on cgi links but not as well as relative links. You can (and should) have a link to your sitemap on all your pages so the bots can find all your pages easily.

[RuralWeb]

You can (and should) have a link to your sitemap on all your pages so the bots can find all your pages easily

A sitemap will get round the problem but SEs particularly Google are getting much better at following all types of links now.

Check to see if your pages are indexed before potentially wasting time - if they are indexed then you may not have a problem and a sitemap will do.