Search Engine Ranking

[The Cheat]

I have heard that if you use a serverside scripting language, such as php, that it will give you lower search rankings than if you use static .html pages. Is this true?

Also I have heard that you will get a better search engine ranking if your webserver has a static ip address rather than a dynamic ip. Is this true?

[Conor]

For the first question it is true but you can avoid this with some mod_rewrite in the .htaccess file. This page is helpful (http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_rewrite.html)

Another way to do it is

If you have a script like
/path/script.php/some/extra/stuff/here
it will run script.php and set $_SERVER["PATH_INFO"] to /some/extra/stuff/here.

If you don't like that .php extension, you can remove it and set .htaccess to treat it like a PHP script:
AddType application/x-httpd-php scriptname

[The Cheat]

Originally posted by RefreshF5
For the first question it is true but you can avoid this with some mod_rewrite in the .htaccess file. This page is helpful (http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_rewrite.html)
Ok, well that article is huge and it seems kind of cryptic to me. I dont really understand...

Another way to do it is

If you have a script like
/path/script.php/some/extra/stuff/here
it will run script.php and set $_SERVER["PATH_INFO"] to /some/extra/stuff/here.

ok that made no sense :(

If you don't like that .php extension, you can remove it and set .htaccess to treat it like a PHP script:
AddType application/x-httpd-php scriptname
are you saying that i can use .htaccess to make .html files be processed as a .php file would? That'd be cool..

I dont understand why a search engine would give a static html page better rankings than a dynamic page though. It just doesn't make sense why they would do that..

thanks

[The Cheat]

oh yeah....... and does anyone know anything about question #2 i had...?

[pyro]

Originally posted by RefreshF5
For the first question it is trueOnly if a query string is used, and even then, only on some search engines. Simply using .php rather than .html will have no affect on your search engine ranking. mod_rewrite is good, however, if you use query strings. Not only for search engines, but also to produce user friendly URLs.

[The Cheat]

pyro,
please define 'query strings' :confused:

[pyro]

A query string would be something like this: directory/yourpage.php?foo=bar&qux=quux whereas with mod_rewrite, you'd structure it something like this: directory/foo/bar/qux/quux (or some variation, depending on what you need).

[Conor]

sorry pyro shouldve clarified that

[The Cheat]

ah, ok, thats what i thought a query string was, just makin sure we're on the same page though. hehe.

so, if i don't use query strings, it wont make a difference to search engines whether i am using a php/mysql website or a static .html website?

[shimon]

Originally posted by The Cheat
so, if i don't use query strings, it wont make a difference to search engines whether i am using a php/mysql website or a static .html website?

exactly - ive authored stacks of google-topping php sites :cool:

as for the static/dynamic ip - I never heard that before but this is an interesting question, i honestly don't know the answer. anyone?

[The Cheat]

Thanks guys, you've been a big help.
:)

But i'm still very much interested about Question #2 i had....

thanks! :)

[The Cheat]

anyone?

[Aronya1]

You might get more info if this was posted in the right forum, but what would be the reasoning for a difference in ranking for static vs dynamic IP? Doesn't make sense to me.

[shimon]

but google _is_ a complex beast...i honestly dont know the answer, but i know that if i was developing a search engine i might think about incorporating this. The reasoning?

i) Seriously, can you name one serious professional website that doesn't have a static ip? Obviously there's enormous things like hotmail and amazon that share load across numerous servers, but that's very different indeed.

ii) If your searchbot detects that a site's ip keeps changing, what's to say that that site will even exist next week? it's obviously got something wrong with it and so why rank it highly? ten times out of ten that's going to be some dude with a few pages hosted on his desktop pc over an adsl line

[Aronya1]

OK. I'll buy that. I don't know that it's a search engine's responsibility to decide whether my home-based business, hosted on my own pc, should be ranked poorly just because my IP changes, though. Maybe my product or service is the best on the market, etc. Why should I be penalized? Seems to me that would be moving the search engine in the direction of a financial analyst. Next step is to rank pages according to the company's quarterly P&L statements.

[shimon]

True, you're right that it would be a bit like being 'judged' by a search engine

To be fair though, if you would have a home-based business that was the best in its field, and had a non-trivial internet presence, would you host it on your ADSL line? I'm pretty sure you wouldn't, you would have it down at Rackspace where there are guys to look after it while you're in the pub :)

But unless an friendly engineer from Google is reading this, we'll probably never know - even if we could see stats that show that sites on dynamic IPs get low rankings, we'll never know whether that's just because they simply arent the best in their field/dont have very good uptimes/respond slowly. I'd like to know, certainly.

[gizmo]

name one serious professional website that doesn't have a static ip? This is more to do with not having to share their server with anyone else than search-engine ranking. On the IP answer do a search on the specialist forum at http://www.highrankings.com/forum

[Aronya1]

Originally posted by shimon

To be fair though, if you would have a home-based business that was the best in its field, and had a non-trivial internet presence, would you host it on your ADSL line? I'm pretty sure you wouldn't, you would have it down at Rackspace where there are guys to look after it while you're in the pub :)Agreed. I was just commenting on the idea that the search engine would "judge"a web page based on where it was hosted.
But unless an friendly engineer from Google is reading this, we'll probably never know - even if we could see stats that show that sites on dynamic IPs get low rankings, we'll never know whether that's just because they simply arent the best in their field/dont have very good uptimes/respond slowly. I'd like to know, certainly. That's probably one of those "If I told you, I'd have to kill you" kind of things. :eek: