INCLUDES and search engines? (Full Version)

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RickP -> INCLUDES and search engines? (5/23/2005 17:23:23)

I am just wondering about the effect that 'includes' (of all persuasions) have on search engine indexing...

E.g. - If I use a page include for all of my navigation will the S.E. robots find it and follow the site links from it?

E.g 2 - If I create a page with a site banner but also add some keywords in the section and subsequently 'include' it on all site pages will the keywords be read by the SE robots and included in the keyword density of the rest of the page that 'includes' it?

Just two example questions but you see where I am going - can anyone answer this question?

Thanks



Spooky -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/23/2005 17:40:43)

Dont think about them as includes - think of the page as a whole.
If you view the source of the page, then that is the view the search engine sees.
Includes happen serverside, so the bots only see the result



RickP -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/23/2005 18:41:19)

Right... in other words... if my 'include' page was the only page to have site navigation on it then the SE robots wouldn't get past my home page - is that what you are saying?



Mojo -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/23/2005 21:53:56)

No. He said -
quote:

If you view the source of the page, then that is the view the search engine sees.


If you can see it, the SE's can see it.

Your include navigation page would display on every page - so you're safe. I typically have multiple includes:

inc_header
inc_top_nav
inc_left_nav
inc_rightside_box
inc_footer
inc_bottom_nav



jaybee -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/24/2005 5:29:38)

Rick, they're talking about the source of the page as it appears behind the browser, not the source as you see it in FP.

If you view your uploaded page in your browser then "view source", you'll see exactly what the SEs see.

The server takes your code and builds the page and then delivers the entire thing to whatever is asking for it, be it browser or SE bot.



RickP -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/24/2005 6:35:43)

Ah, gotcha'all - I see it all adds up on the returned page from the server and as long as that is what the SE robots see then that's good!

I have read the short tutorial on this site on includes - does anyone else have anything to add? - some 'must do' advice!

It would seem that FP includes are the easiest way if the server has extensions - would you agree?

I am wondering about ssi includes requiring .shtml extensions and working with these pages in FrontPage - If I rename all my pages ".shtml" will FP still handle all of these pages in the same way as it does standard html pages?



RickP -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/24/2005 8:44:19)

And another one on includes please...

Re page layout...

Let's say my main page has a 6oopx width table layout. Now, I want to 'include' a page banner across the top and a nav bar down one side. On the banner page to BE inluded, do I need to put my banner inside a 600px table cell in order to ensure it's going to fit okay? Let's say my banner fades to green and I want the remainder of the bgnd to match the green - do I put this green bgnd with the banner image on the page to BE included or do I set the top table cell on my main page to a green bgnd and then 'include' the other page into it?

Maybe I just 'inlude' my banner as a stand-alone image rather than as part of a page - do I?

With the vertical nav bar... again how do I ensure it fits the main page seemlessly?

What is the best way to make all elements fit together etc?



Reflect -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/24/2005 8:55:49)

quote:

does anyone else have anything to add?


A common mistake people make when creating includes is they make the include page have all the base elements. Think of an include page as it is inserted into the page that calls it so you can "drop" a lot of elements.

Example of a base HTML page with nothing on it:

<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>

Now a lot of people also put the above in their include pages. It is not needed.

All you need is:

<body>
</body>

nothing more. Of course you will need to insert whatever your include is of course.

I do something different though I make a directory off of the root of my web called includes. This is where all my include pages go. I then disallow spidering of the include directory via robots.txt. This will prevent your lone include pages from showing up in the SEs. It will however not prevent the page that has the includes in it from being spidered and the content of the include page gets spidered via the bot reading the content page which has the include page rendered in it.

Take care,

Brian



RickP -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/24/2005 9:06:07)

Yes, thanks Brian - and good advice re the robots file disallowing the include content on its own - good point.

But I was also thinking about page layout - but I guess the best thing is just to start playing with this - thanks again for your point.

Are FP includes the best way to go? or ssi, php... ???



jaybee -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/24/2005 9:39:10)

quote:

I make a directory off of the root of my web called includes. This is where all my include pages go.


Me too.

I use php includes. I was told, not sure how correct this is, that if you have too many SSIs it can affect performance.

The only problem with using php includes is that you either have to name all your pages .php or change the Apache settings so that it parses all html pages as php.



RickP -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/24/2005 10:01:07)

Jaybee,

Would you say that PHP includes have any great advantage over FP includes?



Tailslide -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/24/2005 11:25:59)

quote:

ORIGINAL: jaybee

quote:


The only problem with using php includes is that you either have to name all your pages .php or change the Apache settings so that it parses all html pages as php.


You can leave it as .html if you add the following into your .htaccess file: 

 AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .html


and save it into your web server root.

By using PHP includes you know that FP won't be "messing" with the code as it seems to like doing - then again I'm biaised as I use PHP includes and not FP.  I'd go with Jaybee's suggestion either way as she's expert at both.



jaybee -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/24/2005 11:26:12)

quote:

Would you say that PHP includes have any great advantage over FP includes?


Yes. I know what I'm doing with them. [;)]



RickP -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/24/2005 14:29:35)

Thanks,

Now, Tailslide can you help me with .htaccess? I have some ideas about what is, and what can be, done with this file but have never seen one! or created one![:(]

Should there automatically be one (or more) on my server?

I view the server pages either through FP or a freeware FTP program (AceFTP). Using these I suspect that I may not be seeing hidden files - assuming .htacces are usually 'hidden' files?

Can you recommend a general template htaccess file I can use and add to - clearly it would be useful if I decided to go with php includes - I wouldn't want the hassle of renaming file extensions and losing the benfits of FP for html files.

Can you (or anyone) help on this?



RickP -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/24/2005 14:45:34)

Ah, would you believe it! I just checked in one of my Cpanels and found a file mgr. and in there I can see one .htaccess file - in the root directory only - it is blank though [8|] ? Is that normal?



Tailslide -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/24/2005 14:50:26)

No problem.

Whether or not you have a .htaccess file and where the sneaky little thing is is up to your web host.  I also use AceFTP but I couldn't get at the root of my web server - I had to go into the Control Panel for the web site (comes free with the space) and go through the file management system which is a clunky horrible ftp type thingy - but you can see the .htaccess file there and edit/upload it.  Have a look around your web server and see if you can see it.  It won't be hidden away in a sub directory it'll be somewhere obvious like above the public_html folder for example.  If you can't find it then it may not be there (hey that's helpful isn't it!).

To make you're own .htaccess file - open Notepad and copy and paste the code I wrote in the earlier message.  Save it as ".htaccess" note the full stop and the quotation marks.  If you look at it on your directories it should say .htaccess or you've done it wrong!

Upload it to your web server in ASCII mode (Tools - default transfer mode - ASCII).  I think I uploaded it to every folder on my web server trying to get it to work!  I can't see it'll do any harm so don't worry. 

.htaccess files don't come as templates - they're very basic text files with maybe one or two lines of code in - an example of something else you'd put in there might be details of passwords if you password protect your site.



RickP -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/24/2005 15:39:58)

Thanks for that - as I say, I did find it (inside the public_html directory) - with a clunky file mgr in my control panel - possibly the same as yours - certainly similar. It can be edited directly in the file mgr without the need for Notepad

Perhaps now I will try the php method of inclusions along with the code you've supplied - however, if it requires a separate .htaccess file in every directory then once again that takes away a few benefits of convenience unfortunately - but maybe it will work with just one htaccess file - in the root (?)

I knew that this file could be used for passwords and I was also interested in its use for control of caching - for pages where I don't want browser caching to occur - apparently it is a better method than using metatags.

Well, now I've found it I shall have to research its uses again

many thanks



Tailslide -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/24/2005 17:10:15)

You should be able to do it with one .htaccess file - it would effect everything below it.

Do try the includes thing - I only figured them out recently but they are well worth it.

There are lots of tutorials online about what you can do with .htaccess - just try googling it.

Good luck!



Nicole -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/25/2005 4:47:48)

Hi Rick,

I'm using includes with a banner image on my website with a fixed width at www.nixdesign.com.au

I think an important thing to consider when working with fixed widths is to take into account the size of any padding, cell spacing and borders.

Nicole



jaybee -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/25/2005 4:55:15)

Rick,

Be very careful when making changes to htaccess. If you get something wrong you'll find the whole site vanishes.

I find it best to make the change, check the site immediately, refreshing the page to make sure you're not just seeing the cache. If there's anything wrong you can then change it back straight away.




Tailslide -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/25/2005 5:00:43)

quote:

ORIGINAL: jaybee

Rick,

Be very careful when making changes to htaccess. If you get something wrong you'll find the whole site vanishes.

I find it best to make the change, check the site immediately, refreshing the page to make sure you're not just seeing the cache. If there's anything wrong you can then change it back straight away.




Oh yes definitely, good point Jaybee - plus if you can copy the .htaccess that's on your server to your hard-drive just in case!



Spooky -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/25/2005 5:04:49)

Note that your php / server side includes (SSI) differ from frontpage includes as they are run time and not design time components of the page.
When you create / modify an include in frontpage, it becomes part of the page - "design time"

When using SSI, the includes are added as the server builds the page when requested by the browser.
In that respect, real SSI's are more dynamic (and more useful)



RickP -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/25/2005 6:23:45)

Thanks Nicole - of OZ!

Let me get this right...

1. This is a FrontPage include?

2. Looking at your final page and the included page (located from your source) you have designed your main page using tables and have also designed the page (part-page - to be included) as a table too - hence the final result is a nested table - correct? This is what I was thinking to try first of all but was wondering if that is the best approach.

Thanks for showing me this.

BTW... 3... Yours is the second site I have seen by designers on this forum where your meta keywords have a space after each comma, I always thought that they shouldn't contain spaces - is this not right, or maybe just something not relevant nowadays?



RickP -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/25/2005 6:27:31)

Jaybee - thanks for warning re .htaccess files - I was aware of their potential doom effects! I assume (??????) that seeing my server only has one .htaccess, which is blank, that if worse comes to worse I just upload another blank one - that should be okay shouldn't it !!!!!! [&:]



RickP -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/25/2005 6:31:55)

Thanks also to Spooky - "time" & "design" components I'll have to get my head around! I adn't 'erd nuffink about dat yet [8|] - thanks!



Kitka -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/25/2005 7:18:24)

quote:

Yours is the second site I have seen by designers on this forum where your meta keywords have a space after each comma


As far as I understand it, space or no space after a comma in meta tags makes no difference whatsoever to the SE. I believe it is cosmetic only to those of us who balk at no space because of previous schooling [8|].



Nicole -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/25/2005 7:48:19)

Hi Rick,

1. Yes these are FrontPage Includes.

2. Yes it equates to nested tables, but I also have another example where the include didn't use a containing table but it still resizes to fit the available area set aside for the include.

www.gendercentre.org.au

www.gendercentre.org.au/left.htm (left include)

3. As Kitka says, i just always put a space after a comma.

Nicole



jaybee -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/25/2005 7:48:50)

You may well find you can't actually upload an htaccess file.

The way I've backed it up in the past in case of disastrous changes is:

open it using your control panel if you can, I have an option called Edit .htaccess. If not then open it online via your CPanel editor.

Copy and paste all the contents into notepad on your machine and save it as oldhtaccess on your desktop.

Make the changes you need in the online file and save it, check it, if it's all gone pear shaped, copy the contents of the notepad file, paste them back into the online htaccess file and save.



Tailslide -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/25/2005 7:52:37)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Nicoleoz

3. As Kitka says, i just always put a space after a comma.

Nicole


Me too



RickP -> RE: INCLUDES and search engines? (5/25/2005 9:18:18)

Nicole

Thanks for the new example - It looks to me that it is still a nested table ultimately but the main page controls the final layout (width) of the included page - yes?

Looking at your code brings me to another important question...

Is it necessary to use head tags and add things like links to style sheets? Is this not taken from the main page once your page is 'included' ?

How much 'style' needs applying directly within the included page?

(BTW - thanks to all for clearing up the comma/gap thingy - I suppose I just wasn't taught as good as you all at school - nowonderpeoplesaytheycanneverreadmywriting [:D] )



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