PHP, SEO, And Spiders - Oh My!

by: Ian Wilson

Dynamic database-driven sites have become very popular, and relatively easy to set up and administer, through the use of Content Management Systems (CMS) and PHP server-side scripting. It's also possible to create a fancy-looking site with little actual content, or automatically generated code that can harm your SEO, such as multiple URLs that display identical content.

Search engines are constantly evolving and adapting in response to changes in the way information is presented on the web. Strategies that were once necessary to ensure inclusion of PHP pages are no longer required.

It was once helpful to generate a static HTML version of a PHP page so that all the "includes" could be indexed. Now search spiders "see" all the content on a PHP page, the same way it is viewed in a browser.

It used to be prudent to avoid dynamic URLs containing "? & =" - now, the search engines list URLs with the dynamic variables. However, it is best to compose them with no more than three variables. Some variable-laden URLs may be listed, but without any accompanying content/description, in the search results... Stay tuned for further developments as the search engines refine their methods.

With many hosts running the popular Apache server, developers are expanding the use of PHP by modifying the .htaccess file to allow PHP code processing within HTML documents, and enabling shorter URLs with fewer variables by configuring httpd.conf. Your web hosting provider's support team should be able to tell you if these features are available for your site.

Implementing a common-sense approach to SEO for your PHP site requires cooperation and coordination among the developer, webmaster, and web host. Beware of "SEO Experts" with "secret methods" and "guaranteed results" - gimmicks that kludge the search spider today might hurt your ranking tomorrow.

A descriptive and catchy page title is one of the key elements of SEO - whether or not your site uses PHP - since it becomes the linked title of your search engine listing. Use the name of your site in the title to encourage branding, along with a brief capsule about the specific page. Remember that the title displays at the top of the browser window and in the menu bar, so keep it brief, less than 160 characters. Avoid using identical titles on multiple pages (this can easily happen with dynamically generated titles) because they may not be listed individually, and if they are listed separately, it's confusing. Meta tags for description and keywords have become less crucial to SEO - but that doesn't mean you should forget about them.

The basic principles of SEO that apply to static HTML sites also apply to dynamic PHP sites:

● Provide engaging and valuable content presented in an attractive design.

● Code should be error-free and standards-compliant.

● Use keywords appropriate to your subject matter - don't be tempted to use "tricks" that might end up hurting your search engine listing.

● Encourage repeat visits with frequent updates, interactive features, membership sign-up, opt-in newsletters and, if appropriate, "freebies" - contests, giveaways, downloads and other resources.

● Encourage linking to your site with copy & paste code. Reciprocal links build partnerships and enhance page rank, but avoid hosting bulky "link farms" and other venues for worthless web site spam.

● Make use of tools provided by the search engines, such as creating a sitemap.

● Educate yourself by reading the search engine faqs, as well as by perusing some independent forums for SEO tips and methods.

Here are a few resources for further information:

Optimizing Dynamic Content

http://www.highrankings.com/issue065.htm#seo

Building Dynamic Pages With Search Engines in Mind

http://phpbuilder.com/columns/tim20000526.php3

High Rankings(r) Search Engine Optimization Forum > Technobabble > Dynamically Generated Site Issues

http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?s=c5e371a3bec60ac7e650447c430abfd4&showforum=25

Digital Point Forums > Marketing > Search Engine Optimization > PHP, HTML does it matter?

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=53280

Parsing PHP in .html Files

http://www.desilva.biz/php/phpinhtml.html

PHP Logic

by: Izzat Youssif

If else statements

Let's look at an example

if ($lesson = "html") {
echo "Welcome to html";
}

The above statement tells php to display Welcome to html if our Lesson variable is equal to html.
The condition is always stated next to the if in () . The results are stated after the { and } tells php that you are ending the if statement.

Next let's look at an else example

if ($lesson = "html") {
echo "Welcome to html";
}
elseif ($lesson = "php") {
echo "Welcome to php";
}
else {
echo "No lesson chosen";
}

Else statement came after an if statement. Notice else came in elseif and else formate. Elseif looks for other conditions if they existed. Else is the result as a last resort, if no other option is available. Both elseif and else follow the same structure as if statements.

Next , we'll talk about loops statments

The first type of loop statements are while statements

Let's look at an example below

$ls = 0;
while ($ls < 5) {
echo "$lesson" ;
$ls++;
}

While statement are used to loop through a collection of records or data. The above statement simply at the number of our $ls variable and from that number prints the chosen lesson. Again following the same structure as if else statements, condition next to the while and condition below { and ending with . The only differences is we incremented the variable within the statement.

Next we'll discuss for statements

For statements are used in the same essence as while statment, expect more emphasis is put on the variable as you'll in the example below.

for ($ls=0;$ls<$totalls;$ls++)
{
echo $ls['lesson'];
}

The above example, declares the ls variable again and compares it to total numbers of lessons. While ls is less than total number of lessons, we tell php to increment. Again following the same structure as if else statements, condition next to the for and condition below { and ending with } .

Web Languages: PHP vs. ASP.NET

by: Kevin Jordan

While the average web developer has a lot of options these days. It's really more of a bi-partisan system between ASP.NET and PHP, the rest being just independents. The battle rages between the supporters of the two languages, with no clear winner every coming out. While both can be used to complete the same project, it really depends on what you're looking for: price, speed, security, etc.

ASP.NET

If you program in ASP.NET you'll typically get too responses from the other side. Either you're rich (or your company is) or you're a Microsoft lover. While the name comes from Microsoft's old ASP technology, they made a huge leap with the .NET Framework, and the CLR allows you to use other languages for back end processing: typically Visual Basic.NET or C#.

ASP.NET's strength lies in object oriented features, and it's flexibility. Because of the CLR you can have C# programmers and VB.NET programmers working on the same project, or switch languages half way through and not have to rewrite all of your old classes. The .NET class library is organized into inheritable classes based around particular tasks, such as working with XML or image manipulation, so a lot of the more common tasks have been already handled for you.

Visual Studio .NET is a massive development IDE that (as long as your computer is fast enough) will shave tons of time of your coding. It has built in debugging along with IntelliSense, which allows for auto-completion of methods and variables so you don't have to memorize everything.

On the down side, ASP.NET is expensive. One it uses tons more resources on the web server so you'll require either better server or more servers in the farm. Windows 2003 and Visual Studio .NET are pretty tough on the pocket book as well. It's extremely rare for an ASP.NET app not to be running on IIS. And if you pay attention to any of the bug reports, you'll notice that Windows and IIS have had a bit of a history with vulnerabilities being exploited.

PHP

PHP works in combination of HTML to display dynamic elements on the page. PHP only parses code within its delimiters, such as . Anything outside its delimiters is sent directly to the output and not parsed by PHP.

PHP strength lies mostly in LAMP. The LAMP architecture has become popular in the Web industry as a way of deploying inexpensive, reliable, scalable, secure web applications. PHP is commonly used as the P in this bundle alongside Linux, Apache and MySQL. PHP can be used with a large number of relational database management systems, runs on all of the most popular web servers and is available for many different operating systems. This flexibility means that PHP has a wide installation base across the Internet; over 18 million Internet domains are currently hosted on servers with PHP installed.

With PHP 5 finally came exception handling and true OOP, but it still lack namespacing to prevent class naming collisions. PHP's type checking is very loose, potentially causing problems. Another drawback is that variables in PHP are not really considered to have a type. Finally, for some reason big corporations feel that if they're not paying for something, then it's not worth buying. If that's you're company's mentality, they just need to wake up and check out all the awesome free software that's out there.

So Which Is Better?

We'll I have my opinions and you may have yours as well. But in general, PHP is cheap, secure, fast, and reliable, while ASP.NET has quicker development time and is easier due to its class library system can probably be maintained more easily. Both are great languages, and it's up to you to make the decision.