index.php?page=keyword issue on website

Hi,

I help a friend with their website, however the the directory pages, and even articles pages have the annoying index.php?page tag after the domain name and before the page name.

I have heard that Google bots may be stopped from indexing a page as well as it might because of this. I know this is part of the way the CM system does things but was wondering how much of a problem this really is, and is there a way around it, rather than scrapping the system - which was put in place by the group that built the website and they still host it.

?

No tech people in here who have an opinion about this - how hard it is to change? cause its killing seo on our pages.

(that's if you believe keywords in url's are important)

If you mean you want
to look something like this


Then you could use .htaccess to do a url rewrite. You would probably want something like this in your .htaccess file

I believe the new "canonical" meta-tag was developed to do something similar.

"Specify Your Canonical:

"Carpe diem on any duplicate content worries:http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/09/demystifying-duplicate-content-penalty.html: we now support a format that allows you to publicly specify your preferred version of a URL. If your site has identical or vastly similar content that's accessible through multiple URLs, this format provides you with more control over the URL returned in search results. It also helps to make sure that properties such as link popularity are consolidated to your preferred version.
-- google webmaster central blog: february 12, 2009"

Google also has a twenty minute video by Matt Cutt on canonical.

Grizzy said:

If you mean you want

Code:

http://www.yoursite.com/index.php?page=keyword

to look something like this

Code:

http://www.yoursite.com/articles/keyword/

Then you could use .htaccess to do a url rewrite. You would probably want something like this in your .htaccess file

Code:

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule articles/(.*) index.php?keyword=$1/

Click to expand...

I have got to say that coding is beyond this black ducks skills set, but I have forwarded your comment onto a tech buddy of mine.

my question is would that change be seen by both humans and the search engines meaning that you can get better serps potentially?

an example of the code (with domain name changed to XXXXX) is

http://www.XXXXX.com/CMS/index.php?page=celiac-age-sex-profile

so in your case, with said changes, it would become what???

thanks!

It is just pagination. I use this technique in php all the time. It actually can improve your bot crawls, as the ' ? ' is just a place holder in the link, which makes google read it like ' domainname.php - link to page. '

It works the same way and hasn't proven any damage in search engine issues at all in my experience in using it. Infact, it is the only way I link pages these days, as it is much cleaner and makes it much harder to log a path routine within my client's websites due to the redirect taking their visitor anywhere within the site without a traditional directory path being revealed.

If you want to change it, just make direct path links in your navigation and don't sweat it.

Bruceamazing said:

I have got to say that coding is beyond this black ducks skills set, but I have forwarded your comment onto a tech buddy of mine.

my question is would that change be seen by both humans and the search engines meaning that you can get better serps potentially?

an example of the code (with domain name changed to XXXXX) is

http://www.XXXXX.com/CMS/index.php?page=celiac-age-sex-profile

so in your case, with said changes, it would become what???

thanks!

Click to expand...

Let's say you used something like this for your example above:


Every time a surfer, search spider or whatever went to:
they would actually be going to the rewritten URL for:

So as long as you use:
whenever your link to that particular 'celiac-age-sex-profile' page (whether it an internal link on your website or and external link to it), this is what the search engines will see and index. Think of it as a way to add a degree of search engine friendly separation between the files and variables used to generate a page and the URL that is shown to the rest of the internet. All this happens 'behind the scenes' so to speak, completely invisible to whoever (or whatever) is accessing your page. As far as the rest of the world knows, you actually created the static file:

Very common practice to do this nowadays, and is the same procedure behind SE friendly wordpress 'permalinks'.

Hope that makes sense for you.

Good luck