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POShould I use strings as primary keys for a Web site that's big on SEO?
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copied!<p>Hi.<br />I'm building a web site that's showcasing a large amount of products. I want the URL to be human-friendly and optimized for search engines, so I want the filtering of products to be reflected in the URL. For example, a possible URL path for filtering the products would be</p> <p>website.com/Type/Car/Country/Usa/Manufacturer/Ford/Year/2007</p> <p><p>So here's my question, because I'm always figuring out how to filter the database according to these strings, is this a case where it absolutely makes sense to use strings as primary keys?<br />In terms of performance that is. <p>I have read the answers given to this stackoverflow question <br /> <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/517579/strings-as-primary-keys-in-sql-database">Strings as Primary Keys in SQL Database</a> <br /> People there say it depends on the size of string and other factors but it seems to me that in this case, since I'm always gonna' be searching for the string in the different tables, it makes sense for that string to be primary. The alternative is to set up an integer as primary key but I would still be searching the non-primary string and figuring out the primary key from that. And from what I understand about databases that's a bad idea because they store data in a way where the search for the primary key is faster than the search for any other field.<br />I am using MS SQL Server 2005. Thanks.</p>

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