What is the correct way to use includes

[ragrim]

Hi,

 

Im pretty much self taught when it comes to php, never read any books just picked things up as i go, and im looking for some advice on how i build my pages as i believe im not approaching it correctly.

 

Basically i build an index.php, this contains my header, footer, and any menus i may have, then for my content pages, in this case products, contact, about us i use use an include so these content pages just have content.

 

Now by doing this my address bar looks like this index.php?location=contact.php

 

for the sake of google and search results and so on, am i limiting my ability to be found by not using a differant file for each page? should i include a header, footer, menu etc within my content pages rather than the other way around?

 

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[WatsonN]

If you do it the way you are doing it, via the address bar, I would use custom names instead the file name.

If you don't someone could call a filename and load one.

 

You are not losing Google juice from doing that

 

I personally include the header and footer but you can do it either way, it won't make a difference to the user.

[requinix]

If you don't someone could call a filename and load one.

Such as

index.php?location=index.php

And boom goes the dynamite.