If you've read my previous articles, then you probably know that I encourage people to refrain from allowing session IDs to be passed through the URL. In my experience, these session IDs can wreak havoc on a search engine's 'spider', and negatively impact your search engine listings.
But what exactly is a 'session id'? Why do we need them? What do they do?
Session IDs became popular in the early 2000's, when consumers and other web surfers began to find out that websites were actually placing a little file on their computer called a 'cookie'. This cookie was used for all kinds of things, from keeping track of what pages you've visited to your login credentials. You know when you go to log into a website and it has that little check mark that asks you if you want to stay logged in? Well, it uses a 'cookie' in order to do so. When surfers became aware of these 'cookies' that were being placed on their computers (they would have been aware earlier had they read the website's conditions of use, but when was the last time anyone ever did that?) they balked a bit. Many uses actually went into their browser's internet settings and turned off the ability for a website to store cookies.
With many users having cookies turned off, that meant that website owners needed a new way to be able to keep track of important details, like what you have in your shopping cart. Without a session, after you put something in your cart, then click on another page, your shopping cart would be empty again.
And so, the ill fated idea was that the session ID could be passed, from URL to URL as a surfer goes from one page to another. This way details of a surfer's visit could be kept in the database, and the website would be able to 'remember' who you are, where you've been, and what you have in your shopping cart without having to rely on a cookie to do so. This became a fairly popular solution as websites wanted their websites to 'remember' details of visitors whether they had cookies turned off or not.
This seemed like a pretty good idea at the time. Unfortunately, search engines didn't think so, and in the long run, it may have ended up costing small business owners quite a bit in extra bandwidth fees.
Be sure to visit again, to read my next article, "Session IDs, the Spider Killer" to be published later this week.
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