SEO Tycoon

**pea** · 11-05-2007, 06:02 PM

What is this myth about search engines not indexing pages with variables in them (index.php?var=1)?

**chrishirst** · 11-05-2007, 06:10 PM

As you say it's a myth

If you have more than 3 variables ( page.ext?one=1&two=2&three=3 ) it tends to be more difficult to get pages crawled & indexed.
Also having pages that have variables that are only accessible via links with variables ( following cat.ext?cat=123 will take you to a page with links such as product.ext?prod=4567 ) are less likely to be indexed.

**pea** · 11-05-2007, 06:17 PM

Yes. Seems everyone wanting a website made SEO friendly specifically asks for links without vars.

And someone actually told me pages are more likely to get indexed if they're "pretty", so he'd like pages to be page.html instead of page.php.

**fastreplies** · 11-05-2007, 06:29 PM

What you can do is to buils *.php page and then put that page in IFRAME.
This way you will have your index.html intact. Take a look how we solved that
here: amray.com (or check sig)

fastreplies

**chrishirst** · 11-05-2007, 06:29 PM

Ah well,

stupid is as stupid does,

These are the people who believe everything they read from every self styled "expert / guru / master " around the 'net, when, if they removed their blinkers and actually looked, they would see the evidence to the contrary in front of them

**fastreplies** · 11-05-2007, 06:32 PM

Chris,

I hope you're talking about "real" SEO "experts"?

fastreplies

**pea** · 11-05-2007, 06:34 PM

If you put it in an iframe, the url won't change and you're making further problems with SEO anyway.

**Learning Newbie** · 11-05-2007, 06:42 PM

Right. Frames can cause serious problems for your ranking with search engines. Google doesn't care either way. But someone a few weeks ago was complaining they did all their site navigation in frames so they wouldn't have to copy the html code all around, and then 99 % of their internal links disappeared.

Whether a page has a php extension and whether it has a query string are two totally separate questions.

**pea** · 11-05-2007, 07:08 PM

I was wondering about that 'SEO expert' title. Is there really a lot to know? Is there a course, or do you call yourself a SEO expert?

**Learning Newbie** · 11-05-2007, 07:10 PM

Anyone who calls themself "SEO Expert" doesn't know their belly button from a hole in the ground. And that's the polite version.

**pea** · 11-05-2007, 07:28 PM

Heh. On freelance you always see people saying their "SEO experts", "PHP gurus" or "Web design gods".

**ADAM Web Design** · 11-05-2007, 07:42 PM

Yeah, and you see a bunch of idiots on freelance sites as well. A really funny thing occurs as well...they're all the same people.

Seriously, search engines will index pages with querystrings, and even with multiple parameters. But, as in most things, the more complicated you make it, the less likely the page is to be indexed.

The extension makes no difference either, just in case someone says it does.

**tripy** · 11-05-2007, 07:42 PM

I cannot find it again, but I remember one of the Google guideline saying that variables like id=, or sessionId= where ignored by the crawler.

Now, I may have dreamed...

PS:Now, I have found something related, in the adsense guidelines
https://www.google.com/adsense/suppo...35&ctx=sibling

Quote:

Your website is using session IDs in the URL.
If your webpages use session IDs, you may not receive targeted ads on those pages. Since this session ID - and therefore the URL - changes every time a different user views a page, the URL will not be in the index and will be queued to be crawled. Once the URL is crawled, however, the session will most likely have expired. This means that pages seen by the users are never in the index. You will need to remove the session IDs in order to display targeted ads.

**stOx** · 11-05-2007, 08:18 PM

Sessions cause problems because different URL's produce the same page, So ti can take longer to be indexed, If you are indexed at all. That isn't a result of parameters in PHP pages, It's a result of having the same page displayed for different URLs.

**pea** · 11-05-2007, 08:26 PM

But google knows when a page is duplicated, and indexes only one. So i don't see their problem.

**ForrestCroce** · 11-05-2007, 08:49 PM

Normally Google has two or three copies of a page to decide among ... if you're using session IDs in the url, then you've got a copy for every visitor to your site. That could be hundreds per day. Not all or even most of those will get links with the session embedded in them, but when that does happen, it's a world of hurt.

This isn't about spam or ethics or anything along those lines, it's a question of whether Google knows how to make sense of your data to index it.

I've never understood why session IDs are so common in the url in php? IIS uses cookies, view state, ip addresses, and whatever else is available to identify repeat visitors. There's an option to use query string parameters, but it's never been the default.

**stOx** · 11-06-2007, 02:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pea

But google knows when a page is duplicated, and indexes only one. So i don't see their problem.

Sending google to thousands of different URLs that show exactly the same page is a bad idea.

**chrishirst** · 11-06-2007, 09:21 AM

Quote:

but I remember one of the Google guideline saying that variables like id=, or sessionId= where ignored by the crawler.

It did say that, once upon a time, so your sanity is preserved ( at least for now

)

**tripy** · 11-06-2007, 10:47 AM

Pfew!

Thank Chris.
I really was worried
o.0

**juio** · 11-06-2007, 11:41 AM

But I think those URLs with variables look not very nice. Guess it's done only for indexing. Right?