Re: php sessions and Google

At 10:56 AM +1000 6/8/06, Chris wrote: >tedd wrote: >>Hi gang: >> >>I've read that php sessions can create problems for Google bots. For example, the >>following was taken from a Google "Web Master Help" Center: >> >>-- Quote -- >>Allow search bots to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track their path >>through the site. These techniques are useful for tracking individual user behavior, but the access >>pattern of bots is entirely different. Using these techniques may result in incomplete indexing of >>your site, as bots may not be able to eliminate URLs that look different but actually point to the >>same page. >>-- Un-quote -- >> >><http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35770> >> >>I've also seen a comment here: >> >>http://www.weberdev.com/get_example-3431.html >> >>But, I'm not following what's happening. >> >>Can someone shed some light on this for me? How can one do sessions and make Google bots >>happy? > >use_trans_sid (I think) will append the sessionid to all pages, so instead of: > >/page.php > >it will become > >/page.php?PHPSESSID=xxxxx > >much the same as if you do: > ><?php >echo '/page.php?' . SID; >?> > >Bots don't like that, so where possible turn use_trans_sid off (check manual about when/how >you can do this). > Chris: Thanks -- after your lead, I found that my site's session.use_trans_sid was turned off by default. So, it wasn't the problem I thought it might have been. Thanks again. tedd -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com