10 replies to this topic

[Hazardpro]

Hi all, is there any reason SEO wise why I shouldnt use PHP includes on my web pages?

Thanks

Doug

[torka]

None that I can think of.

--Torka

[Darryl Payne]

Hi all, is there any reason SEO wise why I shouldnt use PHP includes on my web pages?

Thanks

Doug

Since PHP includes are resolved on the server side, the bots will never see them. They will be handed an html file, so you should be fine.

Darryl

[Hazardpro]

Since PHP includes are resolved on the server side, the bots will never see them. They will be handed an html file, so you should be fine.

Darryl

Thats great thanks.

[jehochman]

I'll go further. I love server side includes for SEO because they facility rapid website development, help reduce errors, and allow you to quickly add, remove and change links sitewide.

One of the fundamental rules of programming is "don't repeat yourself". That means you don't want to write the same chunk of code over and over again, such as the menus, headers, footers, and sidebars that appear on multiple, even all, pages on your site.

Anything that makes your website better can help SEO. Anything that makes website development easier will also tend to have a positive effect because you'll be able to spend more time on the good stuff, content, usability, and promotion, and less time hunting bugs and struggling with spaghetti code.

[maleman]

I'll go even one step further:

As jehochman allowed, includes can make short work out of a big project. Changing link menus across a site can be a lot of work and can be accomplished in short order via includes.

But...well written anchor text and img alt properties are staples of good SEO. IMHO, derived from first-hand experience, using the exact same link menu site-wide doesn't properly exploit the power of linking.

In other words, spend some time writing anchor text. Mix it up on different pages. If you have a huge site and must use includes for linking, don't use only one file for the menu.

Create several files for the menu. In the separate files, mix up the anchor text with unique phrasing that targets the keywords of the destination page.

[vicplumb]

Hello everyone,

Id like to take it a step back

What about PHP require ? It does basically the samething as includes but is there a different as far as the search engine are concerned?

[MaKa]

using the exact same link menu site-wide doesn't properly exploit the power of linking.

I don't necessarily agree with this. It could have numerous usability drawback where people get lost in your navigation. Site wide links are also thought to help with Google's site links tree structure for #1 positions.

What about PHP require ? It does basically the samething as includes but is there a different as far as the search engine are concerned?

No difference for SEs. The only difference is to what PHP does if it can't find the file. With an include a warning is displayed and processing is continued, with require processing is stopped and an error is generated.

[Lakshmi Narsimhan]

Great post! One more thing is, "that's the beauty of using global headers". I am happy as my pages are having more Code to Text ratio which means light pages for Search Engine Robots.

[Jill]

I am happy as my pages are having more Code to Text ratio which means light pages for Search Engine Robots.

That's a nice sentiment, but the search engine robots could care less....

[torka]

I am happy as my pages are having more Code to Text ratio which means light pages for Search Engine Robots.

Here's a link to the Vanessa Fox interview (back when she worked for Google) where she confirms that code-to-text ratio is irrelevant to Google...

http://videos.webpro...oogle-sitemaps/

It's a few minutes in to the interview when she hits this specific topic.

Not sure what you mean by "global headers" but if you see the code when you view source in a browser, the SE spider will see it when it comes to spider the page. If that's the case, you're not "lightening" your pages at all, sorry. Even if "lightening" the page made a difference, which it doesn't...

(Please tell me these "global headers" don't include identical title and META description tags for every page!)

--Torka

Edited by torka, 12 November 2007 - 01:54 PM.