Just want to confirm if I use a PHP include for my menu bar whether Google will index the page and if it will cause problem with SEO? P.S. I also like to know what is DOCTYPE .. tried to do some HTML validation but it says I do have have a doctype ...
Well, PHP is a server side script, so Google and any visitors should never have anything to do with a php include.
A <doctype> tag appears at tht top of a page and tells the browser which HTML or XHTML specification the page uses. You can read more information about it here . Is is required? No .... google does not use one (go figure) - but You will not be able to validate a page without a <doctype> declaration. Hope this sheds a little light for ya ION Website Design
<doctype> doesnt really have anything to do with the question. The answer was appropriately stated by insivia no SSI should not have anything to do with the spiderability of the page. Html or any other code fed by the SSI is what the SE will encounter, not the SSI itself
The doctype answer was in response to second question asked by whiteperfect: My apologies if this is somehow misinterpreted.
Regarding php include: all of our pages have several include functions - up to 10 for some pages, Goggle indexes all of them without problem. What is important is to disallow your 'system' folders (/include/, /admin/...) in your robot.txt. Goggle may see these pages as scam or not relevant.
To elaborate, I'm pretty sure google doesn't know that you are using an include at all. It's processed server-side, so google will see the same post-processed product of what your clients are served, notwithstanding the limitations of the robots.txt file or the robots meta tag in the header.
To put it simply all any one can see (including bots) is the out put that php produces, if includes are used they become part of the out put.
Yes. No. See reply by IONWeb above and stop worrying about what the validation tools tell you, except where they point out you are missing closing tags for tables and such. As long as your code is complete and can therefore be intepreted by Internet Explorer (since that is the most forgiving of the browsers), spiders and search engines couldm't care less if your code validates or not, and it will make no difference at all to indexing or search engine ranking.
I believe that is correct that the search engine will only see the end result after the file has been included. To verify this and any other question about how search engines see your (or your competitor's) web pages, check out the Yellow Pipe Viewer Tool plug in for FireFox. It shows how the search engine will see your site. I have this and other similar tools linked (all free) from www.managemyadvertising.com in the tools section.
Hello, If you will include a file (menu.php for example) you need to add "noindex" to meta tags of menu.php right? otherwise google will index the www.yourdomain.com /menu.php. Will this "nofollow" file affects google to index the rest files?