Can search engines index dynamic sites?

[adam_shep]

Hi,

I'm very interested in using php/mysql for my site. However, I have heard that search engines have trouble (or just can't) index URL's with things like a ? in it. For example:

http://www.webmasterbase.com/article.php3?aid=228&pid=0

It is important for me that all of the pages can be indexed by engines, as we are bookstore, and we want people who are searching for a particular title to be able to find it.

Does anyone have any comments on this?

Is there a way for the ? part of the URL to not get displayed?

Thanks for your help,

Adam

[qslack]

They certainly can. Just they won't search your engine for specific books, they'll only follow links. Plus they wouldn't pick up new releases.

I'm not sure if this is so with EVERY spider but with the main ones it is.

[simon c]

The engines have trouble getting past the ? in the url. This can be overcome using a mod_rewrite on the server (apache) so that the variables become part of the url displayed as a normal www.site/firstvariable/secondvariable/

More can be found at http://www.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_rewrite.html

Not easy but worthwhile.

------------------
Simon Conroy, Acorn Internet Search Engine Placement
http://www.topwebsite.co.uk/

[Misja]

This can be done easier. Add this:

<FilesMatch "movies">
ForceType application/x-httpd-php3
</FilesMatch>

to the .htaccess file on your server. This forces php to read file 'movies' (without extension). Now you can create 'fake' directories and files, for example: http://www.site.com/movies/titanic/

'/titanic/' is now a variable which PHP can read and process.


------------------
Filmbug Movie Search Engine
http://www.filmbug.com/


[This message has been edited by Misja (edited June 20, 2000).]