7 replies to this topic

[synergytheory]

Does it make a difference to SEO if you use a .php or .html extension?

I wouldn't use the html extsion on my actual SCRIPT scripts, I would just use it for my PHP included headers and footers.

I guess another question would be, if I do change my .htaccess file to parse PHP with a .html extension...am I still able to use the .php extension? Do they both work together?

[Jill]

Nope, makes no diff. You can use either.

Jill

[synergytheory]

Thanks Jill.

I think I am still going to go ahead and config my htacess file to parse php via .html, for usability sake. I think some users get confused when they see .php extensions vs .html extensions...and it just looks cleaner IMO.

And if anyone needs to know...if you config your htacess file to:

AddType application/x-httpd-php .html

PHP will work with .html and .php extensions.

[Grumpus]

If your site is large (say over 1000 pages) then you may want to rethink that. If it's small, it's not going to make a huge difference, but if it's large, you could be doing yourself a disservice.

The reasoning for this is that spiders (the polite ones anyway) will crawl a dynamic site considerably more slowly than a dynamic one. There's very little processing overhead to send an HTML file, so the spiders will fly through it at a nice clip. A dynamic (live generated) page requires a lot more server side resources for it to be displayed. It has to execute code and process everything - plus, if it's tied into a database it's got to make a call or two to that as well. At the end of the day, there are only so many calls per second that your server can handle before it says, "I give up!" And, when it does say that, it'll take some human intervention, in most cases to get things back up.

So, if the spider thinks it's looking at a static HTML file, it's going to hit the site a lot faster (more hits per second/minute) than it would one that is obviously dynamic.

A server, as it reaches the limit of what it can do, even if it doesn't crash, it'll start working rather like a deli line. Your browser sends its request and the server says, "Take a number." It'll then process the request when it gets to it. The faster the requests keep coming, the longer the wait and it affects pageload times across the board. All of your visitors will be "taking a number" that can delay the return of their request for measurable seconds - even before the server totally gives up.

If your site is small, this won't really matter as the spider(s) will retrieve the site and be gone fairly quickly. If it's large, though, it could take the spiders days full of continuous requests to get it all. So, during those days, your response times will be considerably slowed - for everyone involved.

G.

[Jill]

ST, I doubt users even notice whether it's php or html. Why make extra work for yourself and the server?

Jill

[projectphp]

For virtual hosting, it is even more imperative this isn't done, as with many sites hosted together, one rogue site can bring the whole thing down.

[DianeV]

I've been thinking about going to SSI as I never thought that our site would get so large.

However, with this input, I'm thinking that renaming to .php or .html would be better in the long run, and one could simply use 301 Redirects to send people & spiders to the newly-named pages. Of course, some of those redirects would probably have to be there forever.

[Grumpus]

Diane - if your server can be set to parse html files (i.e. we don't need to rename them to like shtml) then redoing your current site with SSI's will be a breeze and can be done over the course of weeks or even months without anyone noticing and without anyone (including the spiders) know any differently.

Then you can put a content management system on top of the thing for new stuff. From there, there are many options depending upon what you want to do and how consistent you want everything.

I owe ya a favor or two from over the past year - drop me a line if you want some help getting started.

G.