would you recommend HTML or PHP for easier indexing?

bit of a noob here..
do you think that it's easier get indexed with straight HTML pages ? or wordpress / CMS / PHP style pages?

Does it make a difference?

I'm a bit old school and created html pages that worked well.. then switch to wordpress style and saw the visits drop so I'm curious if it's just me.. or if I didn't do something right..

thoughts.?

 

Shouldn't make a difference, as long as the URLs remain descriptive and contain appropriate keywords, without query string parameters.

mysite.com/can-openers.html

should be basically equal to

mysite.com/can-openers.php

or

mysite.com/can-openers/

 

it depends.
Assuming there are not too many paramaters in the urls of the php pages to which you refer, and assuming limitless cpu power, memory etc, then there is little difference.

i will expound.

first we will discuss, generally, flat file html versus dynamic generated php pages on apache/linux/unix. the latter, the dynamic system, takes more cpu cycles (read higher cpu load), in general, to deliver the same amount of pages. If google is requesting 30pages/second on your domain, and this is shared hosting with 100 other clients, the server may not be able to deliver the pages fast enough and googlebot with throttle back, thus possibly preventing the complete indexing of your site.

Had it been flat file html, there is very little cpu overhead, and these pages can be delivered at a much faster rate, than say, a dynamic PHP site using CakePHP platform or some other php platform. There are so many classes associated with these platforms (probly code ignitor is one of the best, tho, possibly symphony), and handlers that the overhead prevents fast delivery of pages.......sometime ago I read a study wherein a test server could deliver 30requests/second with flatfile html page of the same content, versus 5 pages a second using cakephp platform.

go figure.

If you code your own php pages and hand code all your sql queries in the code, or use a very small footprint database abstraction layer (php maker?), there should be little difference in dynamic PHP versus flatfile html.

CMS's have been notoriously sluggish, altho advocates of wordpress etc may argue otherwise. Using your own, slimmed-down customized, professionally coded cms built for only the necessities YOU needed, should produce a much faster server response than something like wordpress, etc.

Hope you didnt find all that too confusing.

bottom line: my experience has been that php web application frameworks ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_application_frameworks ) , wordpress and similar cms, have resulted in slower server resonse times than flatfile html pages or hand-coded PHP pages that dont use frameworks or use a small footprint database abstraction layer (a small group of php classes that allow crud access to the db in a more straightforward manner).

 

If your traffic is dropping it may be because you changed the URLs and didn't put the necessary redirects in place.

 

Pick whatever you want. If you want to use HTML, that's fine. PHP is fine as well since just as with every other server-side programming language, only the HTML that they generate gets sent to the client - in this case the search engine.

Sounds to me though that you didn't forward your old links to their new locations with a 301 redirect. I'd do that as soon as possible.

 

Yes does not matter website is in HTML, PHP etc.

 

Both of them are easy to index as long as it is readable by spiders.

 

for the same URL paramaters/patterns, html and php, as far as index potential, are equal. In other words, if whatever the url is, ending in php or html, will in itself make NO difference.

But there are other factors to consider, as demonstrated in these posts.

First, more often than not, a simple, short url structure without multiple directories or paramaters, seems to fair better, across the board, whether html, php, or otherwise.

Second, server load is a consideration, period. I know, because I have worked with teams who have managed hundreds of them. They can see the incoming requests/second, and they know that if their webserver can increase the rate of delivery (ie, serve 5pages/second versus 100pages/second), that more of their site is indexed, and stays indexed.

Therefore, you need to consider the platforms used, both programmatically and technologically.

very often php frameworks, as i previously aluded to, cause a drop in system performance as compared to without said framework overhead. This also applies to cms. A well designed webapplication that only provides the necessities that YOU need will beat, more often than not, things like wordpress, etc., cause of the extra overhead.

So, if you want to listen to the advise of somebody who has worked with hundreds of servers with thousands of domains (thru the use of teams of admins and programmers, not myself), you may want to strongly consider my points and dont just accept that there is NO difference.



As usual, 'it depends'.

 

You can use HTML or PHP. Its your choice, and you also have one more option, you can use php inside HTML pages. I guess you know how to do that?

Anyway, the real thing that matters is the content that you add in your site and the number of backlinks you have.

 

You should use .PHP filename convention whether you are using PHP now or not. Some day you may need to go to PHP, and this will avoid any problems with previously indexed pages.

If you do decide to add php code to your pages, and you probably will, try to keep it simple and factor in my posts.