SEO and 'include'

[ryan.od]

I have looked around for answers to this question and have found many conflicting opinions. . .if I use PHP 'include' in my web page (i.e. for the menu), will this cause any issues with SEO?

 

The "Nope, no problems, go for it!" lead the "Yes!! That causes a problem!! Don't do it!!" by about 70% to 30%.

 

I think the answer is the latter as PHP is processed server side so everything that is 'included' would already be there before the search engine spider saw the page.

 

Does anyone know for sure what the answer is?

 

RyanOD

[bagpiperdude90]

not sure what SEO is... but I guess you're talkin about search engines?

 

I have some sites, based on this format:

 

www.domain.com/index.php?page=about

www.domain.com/index.php?page=contact

 

etc

 

Google picks up all the pages fine for me.

 

If you think about it, a lot of forums use the same type of include, but include text from databases. For instance, the format could be:

 

www.domain.com/forum/viewtopic.php?1190428&forum=3

 

Now, do a google search for a topic you might find in a forum, and then click on the result. Look at the address; 99 out of 100 times it'll be the type of format I just printed.

 

Also, PHP only sends HTML to the web browser, or the search engine. So the engine just treats it as a normal page.

[btherl]

Search engines do not know if you use include() or not, for the reason you mentioned (it's all done server side).  All they know is the url, the headers and the final page text.  They don't even know if you're using php or asp or whatever, unless you name the script "index.php", in which case they can make an educated guess.