Thread: google and dynamic sites

Go with www.foo.com/article.php?id=123

but rewrite it with mod_rewrite using something like this rule..

RewriteRule ^article([1-9][0-9]*).* article.php?$1

which would give you

www.foo.com/article123.

and u can stick any extension on the end u want ie
www.foo.com/article123.asp or
www.foo.com/article123.kewl

Soz borked up the correct rule for my example would be..

RewriteRule ^article([1-9][0-9]*).* article.php?id=$1

I am moving all my site over to mysql & php, but I also use .html

My homepage (index.html) will then link to the sections (new.php, adult.php etc). Will google follow these links correctly without any problems or is there something I should be adding considering all the data is in a database?

Example is new.php which simply lists the last 20 additions to the database via a query.....

cant see there being any problem with google frostie

Keith

The only thing that causes trouble is querys in the url ie..

new.php?Action=last20

ie the ?

so in that example changing it to somthing like

new_last20.php

would be better

as long as there is no query then there should be no problem.
So in your example Frostie ... nope not a problem.

aquanuke, thanks for your help on this - just coming back to look at it again now and your example makes good sense.

where do I use that rewrite rule though?

I just have a shared server so I don't know if that's the problem but I added that line to my .htaccess file and it just stopped my whole site working with an "Internal Server Error"

any help is greatly appreciated!

Betrm, you may need to email your host and ask them if mod_rewrite is enabled.

By default Apache comes with mod_rewrite enabled. All that means is in the config file , onf you have this entry..

LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

I know oneandone turn off mod_rewrite on their shared servers, basically cos there tight gits.

Or if mod_rewrite is turned on and your still getting a server error, check / ask how your virtual host directive is set, mines some thing like this..

<Directory /home/siteX/html/>
Allow from all
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
</Directory>


The 'AllowOverride' All bit being the important bit.

Thanks Aquanuke, some great advice.

that clears up the problem now, they don't support it and don't have any plans to....hmmm time to look around I think....

The two most stressful things in life..

1) moving house
2) moving server

lol

You might wanna consider running a server from your local pc,
In which case just go and download the windows binaries for apache, php and mysql from there relevant sites or alternativly download 'PHP Triad' (i think thats the right name) which is a simple windows installer for the above three packages.

Mod_rewrite does work fine and in the same way as apache/linux as it does apache/windows this would give your a chance to play with it , work out your rewrite rules and ultimatly work out wheather its worth moving server.

Have to say ive never run mod_rewrite on windows myself so dunno if I could help you much if you had trubles with that setup.

Just a thought anyway

Thanks once again, I'm already running apache/php/mysql locally and so I'll have a practice with that first to see if it's worth while as you suggested.

Cheers.

Excellent posts Aqua, thank you.

Thanks Carl ,

(and my spelling and grammar is getting better all the time too lol)

Is it definitely the case that using mod_rewrite to convert

foo.html?id=123

to

foo123.html

would really have a positive effect with regards google spidering? My site has a very large amount of dynamic content and it seems to spider fine, or am I missing something?

The home page has a PR of 5 and lots of dynamic pages that aren't even directly linked off the home page have a PR of 4 and are indexed fine as far as I can tell.

Am I missing something?

-Ian
www.footballanorak.com

I have 5 dynamic sites and i also find that

foo.html?id=123

works OK, but when it's

foo.html?aid=123&bid=123&cid=123&did=123

It doesn't work as well.

Most of the problems can be solved by using static links to the dynamic content, but that's not so easy on a large site. Just my observations.