What constitutes a SEO friendly url with PHP?

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marysunitha2006
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What constitutes a SEO friendly url with PHP?

Post by marysunitha2006 »

What constitutes a SEO friendly url with PHP?
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Lumpy Burgertushie
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Re: What constitutes a SEO friendly url with PHP?

Post by Lumpy Burgertushie »

marysunitha2006 wrote:What constitutes a SEO friendly url with PHP?
whatever it is.

google, etc. really have no problem indexing any phpbb pages.

for instance, this board and the previous one ( using phpbb2 ) do not and never did, have any sort of SEO treatment, and every single post is indexed in google.

As a matter of fact, this post will probably show up in google within hours, if not minutes.

so, bottom line, don't worry about SEO and php files.

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Re: What constitutes a SEO friendly url with PHP?

Post by Jim_UK »

And here it is.

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Re: What constitutes a SEO friendly url with PHP?

Post by drathbun »

This question comes up quite a bit, and the prior posters have provided a typical response. However, there's a difference between being indexed and being indexed well. :) In my opinion phpBB boards do not need to do anything to get indexed. But if you want to strive for top placement for certain keywords, there are some benefits to using some sort of SEO / URL rewrite strategy.

The problem with that sort of tactic, as I see it, is that as soon as someone figures out how to secure top placement in google by playing around with the rules, google will change the rules. :lol: That means that SEO can become a full-time endeavor. I'm not willing to put up that sort of effort.

I will submit back to you a different question: why do you think it's important?

If your content is unique, people will find it. If your content is not unique, you're going to have a hard time generating interest anyway. Good SEO will help but will not fix that problem. What is your ultimate goal?

For the record, I have played with the "Able2Know" SEO process and a few others. I don't see a dramatic difference in the performance of my board, but then again, I have a fairly unique niche.
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Re: What constitutes a SEO friendly url with PHP?

Post by Lumpy Burgertushie »

agreed about inexing "well".

however, having so called "SEO friendly" file names with a html extension as opposed to the php extension, has not bearing on this either.

if your pages are to be indexed "well", they must have relevant content to what is being searched for,

that content must be changing often and you must have inbound and outbound links to other sites with relevant content about the subject.

even META tags are of little help since they can be spammed so easily and the SEs pay little attention to them anymore.

keep in mind that the search engines return pages that are related to what people are searching for.

people are not looking for YOUR webpage. they are looking for information about something. If your webpage happens to have the most relevant, most current information about that subject, then you will show up at the top of the list of returns for what they type in.

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Re: What constitutes a SEO friendly url with PHP?

Post by drathbun »

Lumpy Burgertushie wrote:people are not looking for YOUR webpage. they are looking for information about something.
Absolutely agree with this.
If your webpage happens to have the most relevant, most current information about that subject, then you will show up at the top of the list of returns for what they type in.
It might. :)

Suppose you have two identical pages, and by identical I mean the same content about left-handed green widgets. If one web site has presented the url as

Code: Select all

www.example.com/viewtopic.php?t=123
and the next site has an address that looks like

Code: Select all

www.example.com/left-handed-green-widgets.html
then my understanding is that the second result will get weighted higher than the first.

I am not an expert in SEO, far from it. In fact I've already admitted that I don't use it much, but I can get away with that because the content for my largest board is fairly unique. But if you're one of hundreds of sites that are talking about or advertising left-handed green widgets then there has to be something done better on your site than others. The problem with this is, as I mentioned earlier, what works today might not work tomorrow, so you have to make SEO a priority and keep on top of it.

That's the main reason I've not done much... I don't have the time. :)

Anyway, the main point I wanted to make by posting in this topic is that while the standard response here (phpbb.com) seems to be "don't bother with SEO, it's not needed" in my opinion there are still reasons to consider it and take appropriate measures. If you have the time. :)
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Re: What constitutes a SEO friendly url with PHP?

Post by Lumpy Burgertushie »

drathburn:

yep, I believe you are correct about that scenario.
however, that rarely happens.

you also have to be careful how you create those SEO friendly urls.

google, etc. like the hyphen/dash
therefore:
best-green-widgets.html
will be seen as separate words.
therefore, the search engine will bring you back results with that exact phrase and then results with all combinations of those words and then with each individual word.



an underscore is different;
best_green_widgets.html
will look like:

bestgreenwidgets.html
to the search engines.

and since nobody would ever type in bestgreenwidgets to a search box, you would few if any returns .

( will admit that google is getting better at being able to separate the words in a long string ).

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Re: What constitutes a SEO friendly url with PHP?

Post by drathbun »

Lumpy Burgertushie wrote:you also have to be careful how you create those SEO friendly urls.

google, etc. like the hyphen/dash
therefore:
best-green-widgets.html
will be seen as separate words.
therefore, the search engine will bring you back results with that exact phrase and then results with all combinations of those words and then with each individual word.
Yup, that's why I did it that way in my example. :)

Code: Select all

www.example.com/left-handed-green-widgets.html
Those are dashes rather than underscores.
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Lumpy Burgertushie
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Re: What constitutes a SEO friendly url with PHP?

Post by Lumpy Burgertushie »

drathbun wrote:
Lumpy Burgertushie wrote:you also have to be careful how you create those SEO friendly urls.

google, etc. like the hyphen/dash
therefore:
best-green-widgets.html
will be seen as separate words.
therefore, the search engine will bring you back results with that exact phrase and then results with all combinations of those words and then with each individual word.
Yup, that's why I did it that way in my example. :)

Code: Select all

www.example.com/left-handed-green-widgets.html
Those are dashes rather than underscores.
yes, I noticed, I was just giving a little FYI for others. I have seen many people use underscores in file names not knowing it was incorrect for this purpose.

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Re: What constitutes a SEO friendly url with PHP?

Post by yenerich »

drathbun wrote:However, there's a difference between being indexed and being indexed well. :)
Maybe it can not being described as indexed well, but to show well or better to some searches.

The question is if parameters are the same as you describe in your example:

www.mysite.com/yellow-pictures.php

Is as well as

www.mysite.com/index.php?q=yellow+pictures


Which one will get better placement (considering only the url) if someone search for yellow pictures?
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Re: What constitutes a SEO friendly url with PHP?

Post by drathbun »

I have no idea. :) And to be honest, the answer today might very well be different tomorrow.
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Re: What constitutes a SEO friendly url with PHP?

Post by Lumpy Burgertushie »

yenerich wrote:
drathbun wrote:However, there's a difference between being indexed and being indexed well. :)
Maybe it can not being described as indexed well, but to show well or better to some searches.

The question is if parameters are the same as you describe in your example:

http://www.mysite.com/yellow-pictures.php

Is as well as

http://www.mysite.com/index.php?q=yellow+pictures


Which one will get better placement (considering only the url) if someone search for yellow pictures?

I would think it would not matter.
If you are strictly looking at which url would be more likely to show up , then they would be the same.

google does not care about the .php or about the ? after it

But, as drathburn said, google changes how they do this stuff on a daily basis.

so actually, the best place to find out what google ( and therefore, all the others) does is http://google.com


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Re: What constitutes a SEO friendly url with PHP?

Post by arod-1 »

just my 2c:
if you allow guest posting (i know most people don't, but the option exists, and some of us still do) phpbb indexing in google is absolutely atrocious, because the link that appears in google is the <Reply> link (or is it the <Quote>? can't remember), so when people click on the link found by google, they arrive to the posting page instead of the viewtopic page.
don't remember exactly how i fixed it. probably by adding "noindex" to the posting/quote links, but maybe it was by adding the posting.php to robots.txt.
sorry about the vague solution, but the problem is real.

i have no idea if the same problem exists in phpbb3.
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Re: What constitutes a SEO friendly url with PHP?

Post by Phil »

As for phpBB3, it does not. Bots are in a special usergroup (named, coincidentally, Bots), and their permissions can be set separately. There's a permission role (Bot Access) for bots that not only hides things like that, but numerous other sources of duplicate links.

It is also worth noting that having your phpBB2 board open to guest posting sets you up for torrential amounts of spam ;)
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Re: What constitutes a SEO friendly url with PHP?

Post by arod-1 »

iWisdom wrote:As for phpBB3, it does not. Bots are in a special usergroup (named, coincidentally, Bots), and their permissions can be set separately. There's a permission role (Bot Access) for bots that not only hides things like that, but numerous other sources of duplicate links.

It is also worth noting that having your phpBB2 board open to guest posting sets you up for torrential amounts of spam ;)
good to know about phpbb3. still, unregistered search engines will appear as guests, so i think some measures should be taken anyway. probably the simplest place to begin is adding posting.php to robots.txt
as to "guest posting causes spam torrents": true in general, but there are measures against it, just like in phpbb3 (albeit through a MOD, vs. phpbb3 built-in), eg, "captcha for guest posting".
in any event, the decision whether to allow guest posting should not be based on the software's limitations.
the specific community i managed at the time would just not register, so it was either allow guest posting or kill the board. (eventually it got killed for other reasons, but it had good couple of years *with* guest posting allowed...)
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