How do I get Google to index two URLs that differ only in the value of a URL parameter?

Question

I have a site which has variable ID's which bring up different content

For example:

• http://example.com/university.php?id=3

• http://example.com/university.php?id=4

Technically these are two different pages which ideally I would like google to index separately (and rank for terms according to the University)

What is the best way to go about doing this?

Answer 1

You don't need to do anything special. Google treats the two example URLs that you have as separate pages by default. As long as Google can find links to both URLs, both will get indexed. So:

• Link to each of the URLs that you want indexed from some other page
• Create a sitemap that lists all your pages and submit that to Google.

Answer 2

You can also tell Google how it should use your query parameters. You need to create a Google Webmaster Tools account and register your site there.

In GWT, you can then go to Crawl / URL parameters, and then select configure, and tell Googlebot to use the id parameter to select specific content.