.htaccess and SEO question.

Need help installing PHP, configuring a script, or configuring a server? Then come on in and post your questions! We'll try to help the best we can!

Moderator: General Moderators

Post Reply
Dale
Forum Contributor
Posts: 466
Joined: Fri Jun 21, 2002 5:57 pm
Location: Atherstone, Warks

.htaccess and SEO question.

Post by Dale »

Ok I just want to know which of these URL's (created using a .htaccess file) is better for SEO ?

Example 1: http://www.foo.com/bar.php?story=1
Example 2: http://www.foo.com/bar/1
Example 3: http://www.foo.com/bar/1/
Example 4: http://www.foo.com/bar/1.html
Example 5: http://www.foo.com/bar/1/index.html

??
User avatar
Luke
The Ninja Space Mod
Posts: 6424
Joined: Fri Aug 05, 2005 1:53 pm
Location: Paradise, CA

Post by Luke »

Get ready for some debate!

I personally still don't know the answer to this question. Every time somebody brings it up there are 100 different answers. I would really like to know for sure too :?
Dale
Forum Contributor
Posts: 466
Joined: Fri Jun 21, 2002 5:57 pm
Location: Atherstone, Warks

Post by Dale »

The Ninja Space Goat wrote:Get ready for some debate!
Well i suppose that's what a forum is for... mass debate :?

Though it would be nice to get a decent suggestion on which would be best as i've started using .htaccess files manually edited by yours truly since about 5am this morning. :)
User avatar
Luke
The Ninja Space Mod
Posts: 6424
Joined: Fri Aug 05, 2005 1:53 pm
Location: Paradise, CA

Post by Luke »

Oh... and I'm not so sure this is the right forum to post this in.
User avatar
feyd
Neighborhood Spidermoddy
Posts: 31559
Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2004 3:24 pm
Location: Bothell, Washington, USA

Post by feyd »

Last I checked, the big search engines don't care about that sort of stuff anymore. Read their optimization guides though, they may be illuminating.

I think now it's more of a convienance to users who wish to copy'n'paste the url somewhere.
User avatar
Jenk
DevNet Master
Posts: 3587
Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2005 6:24 am
Location: London

Post by Jenk »

what you are actually refering to is the use of mod_rewrite and not .htaccess specifically.

I've always been told that some spiders ignore querystrings because the idea is that a page is a page, whilst querystrings can and often are used to manipulate the data on said page, whilst it is still the same page.

One note: Google definitely do ignore the querystring var "id="

On the flip side of the argument, mod_rewrite also fools spiders into thinking your site has many many more pages to it than it actually might have.

http://www.example.com/index/foo/bar

and

http://www.example.com/index/bar/foo

are the same page with 2 vars, but to a spider they will appear as two different pages.
Dale
Forum Contributor
Posts: 466
Joined: Fri Jun 21, 2002 5:57 pm
Location: Atherstone, Warks

Post by Dale »

Thanks, i'll go with Example 3.
Post Reply