[Wade]

If you use php & MySql and do not have much static text on the page, does this kill any chance of being ranked in Google?

[skyhawk133]

Wade. I assume by static text you mean text that is not generated from a database or programatically.

If you have an articles engine for instance, and the page index.php?articleid=123 is always the same text on the page, or mostly the same (the article is the same) then that page will be listed in google.

You can use mod_rewrite to make those pages have .html extension (instead of .php) for more static URLs. You'll notice here at dream.in.code most threads are showtopic1234.htm, this is actually translated in the background to index.php?showtopic=1234

You can see the code I use to do this here:

RewriteEngine On
Options +FollowSymLinks

RewriteRule showtopic(.*)\.htm$ /forums/index.php?showtopic=$1

You should worry more about being listed in google initially, and once you're listed you can worry about actually ranking for keywords.

Google: site:www.yourdomain.com

This will show you all the pages google has listed for your domain and you can view the Cached version to make sure it looks correct to the googlebot.

[Wade]

Thanks, Skyhawk

I don't know much about Google or other search engines, but the way you envisioned my newspaper site is accurate, for any given articleid the content or article text will be consistent.

What is the purpose and advantage of the rewrite? I am currently converting static sites to php/Mysql sites so that the customer can maintain their own pages - which translates into less busy work for me, but I would hate to shut them down to Google/Yahoo searches.

Thanks again, it does give me something to research.

[daruhshie]

Hello Wade,

The generated output remains plain text for the index bots and will have no negative influence on your visibility within google or yahoo etc.

[skyhawk133]

Wade, on 6 Oct, 2007 - 08:24 PM, said:

Thanks, Skyhawk

I don't know much about Google or other search engines, but the way you envisioned my newspaper site is accurate, for any given articleid the content or article text will be consistent.

What is the purpose and advantage of the rewrite? I am currently converting static sites to php/Mysql sites so that the customer can maintain their own pages - which translates into less busy work for me, but I would hate to shut them down to Google/Yahoo searches.

Thanks again, it does give me something to research.

The advantage (or assumed advantage) is google values "static" pages just a tad higher than dynamic pages, so giving your URLs a static look (i.e. /articles/45/your-article-title.html, where 45 is the article id) If you can also use the keywords for your article in the URL it will help those pages rank a little better.

[Wade]

Thanks guys = I feel better about the conversion effort and look forward to learning how to do it right.

Thanks Again.