It’s now official. Google search indexing algorithm has been updated to index URLs containing the “&id” parameter.

Well, does this mean you should ignore using friendly URLs or permalinks?

Here’s what Google has to add:

Keep in mind, however, that dynamic URLs with a large number of parameters may be problematic for search engine crawlers in general, so rewriting dynamic URLs into user-friendly versions is always a good practice when that option is available to you. If you can, keeping the number of URL parameters to one or two may make it more likely that search engines will crawl your dynamic urls.

Personally, even with the updated search indexing policy in effect, I will still continue rewriting my URLs. Not only are friendly URLs more elegant and easier to remember, I believe the SEO benefits of friendly URLs still prevail.
Links:

• Update to Webmaster Guidelines blog post
• Google Webmaster Guidelines

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