Web development is a vast subject. And often web developers are caught up in complex aspects. There’s one question that has perplexed SEO experts and web developers for a long time.
It’s how to have the PHP pages indexed on search engines? Do you resonate with this question? If yes, then read on and discover crucial aspects related to the issue.
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How to get PHP pages indexed on search engines
Debunking the myth
There always existed a myth regarding PHP pages indexed by Google. Simply put, Google is capable of indexing PHP pages that are dynamically generated and those that come with compelling content. Webmasters ought to say yes to stable practices to ensure that their website pages are comprehensible. It’s essential to make a PHP website, Google-ready.
It’s somewhat surprising to see the way such a myth had developed over a span of time. Back in 2006, at the Webmaster Guide, Google carried a specific experiment that stated that indexing pages having a query string on the URL was tough. Google thus recommended to not make use of “&id” in the URLs, as such pages will not be indexed.
Hence, one wonders if Google faced any real hassle indexing the PHP pages. The Webmasters had nothing to state about PHP or dynamically generated pages. According to them using URLs with query strings is not worthy.
It got magnified as a myth – that Google encounters trouble to index PHP pages. This idea is false. In fact, today Google has made adjustments to the Webmasters Guide. The new changes state that it’s perfectly fine to have dynamically generated pages.
Do you want to know more about this? Sometimes connecting with a professional service provider is helpful. You can reach out to https://visionsmash.com/york-seo and other similar names to get clarity on the same.
Technical reasoning
Let’s get slightly technical here. Don’t worry. It isn’t complicated at all. In fact, it is imperative to delve into the technical aspect that started the myth in the first place.
There’s a difference between pages having dynamically generated content and dynamically generated pages. There are situations where the dynamically generated pages might have dynamic content as well. However, not every page having dynamic content should be dynamically generated by itself. To help ease any confusion, let’s take the explanation a bit further.
Pages having dynamic content
Let’s use an example to elucidate this. For instance, there’s a file by the name of “faqs.php” taking up some memory space on a server. It could also have a PHP code that does a selected function. It could be that code admissions a database, procures the FAQ list, and have the same printed on the screen.
It is a sample of a non-dynamically generated page that created content dynamically. Here the faqs.php script will offer FAQ to its users on an end-to-end basis. It might never showcase the contact, about page, terms of use, and the like. It’s strictly for the FAQ.
Google never faced an issue to index such pages. Never mind if it was PHP generated, the idea that PHP is involved here is rather a debatable point. As a majority of the content gets shifted to search engine spider or browser post, the content gets assembled on the server. What happens behind the scenes is not a matter of concern for the spiders.
In all cases, the concerned page is similar to that of an HTML static page. This page gets delivered from the server to the browser/spider. The file extension can be termed as a non-issue. It is due to the fact that a Webmaster can create Apache to implement and offer PHP pages in addition to the HTML extensions. It would completely cover the fact that page content is dynamically provided.
Understanding the dynamically generated pages
Let’s elucidate this with another example! For instance, there’s a file named index.php, such as “index.php?page=faqs”. This too has a query string to it. It could be that the script is offering what others would state as a dynamically generated page which also provides the content to the screen. It also highlights data about FAQs, similar to the last illustration.
So, what’s the difference here? It is this that it’s not specific to mere FAQs.
It is also used to offer to contact us, about us, and terms of use pages. Going by theory, you might possess a complete website of several pages that get categorized under a PHP script.
Google in the past has been warning people about such pages. Google never had enormous issues with such pages. However, you will notice the way Google might have had a tough time earlier. There could be another alternative. It could also be that Google declined from tracking and indexing such pages. It is true for the multiple name-value pairs that are present in a query string.
A few essential answers to remember
With all these elucidations, you might be having several queries. The most prominent one could be this, “Does Google index dynamic pages.” The natural and short reply is, yes.
You would instead want to have a look at that. Google today has placed a record permanently. There are people, who don’t agree to its generating static pages with similar content as the dynamic pages. Just in case that would be a choice, there would be little or zero reason to resort to dynamic pages.
Do you know what Google’s suggestion to the webmasters opting in for unique URLs is? Google suggests they go all out and generate dynamic pages. And then Google would take charge of rounding up and enclose the content for free. Hence, Google has been successfully indexing PHP pages and sites. It is a stage where the dynamic content and the pages are the norms.
However, it is available with a fresh 2.0 user-friendly flare. And going forward there’s something more the web developers need to know. That is the process of generating an elementary PHP site that executes a few of such newly developed aspects.
It can also deploy the suggestions procured from Google Webmaster Central. Hence, there have been a lot of discussions about PHP pages and search engines. Here’s how PHP pages get indexed in search engines.
Author Bio: Muureen Smith is an ace web developer. Presently, she is learning about web development platforms like PHP and delves deep into SEO matters as well. Being associated with names like https://visionsmash.com/york-seo on a consultant basis, she shares her web development posts on her blog.
