menu includes

[ozchris]

Hi.

I'm about to build a site with the standard left menu. It'll probably have a large number of pages, with a high risk of extra menu items being added/changed.

In the past I have had to modify each page manually when I added new menu items. So this time I would like to use some kind of includes, embedded, so I only have the one file to update.

I know this should probably be in the site design section, but I am very concerned with any possible effect on PR for the individual pages. I'm aiming for at least an index page PR4, with first level menu pages of PR3.

1. Will use of includes stop PR from flowing from index page to first level pages?
2. Can I still use ordinary .htm pages? Or do I have to do something like SSIs and .shtml (had a quick look at the http://bignosebird.com/ssi.shtml page which implied that).
3. Any other suggestions?

ta Chris

[smo]

I don't think any spider will ever know that you have included any files with the main file. This is handled by the server and the net code is returned after including the files to the spider as a single file.

I maintain common menu files for site wide linking and section wide linking. I call them from different sections as per my requirement. When I add one new page I add the url to my menu page so in all other pages the new link appears.

My site has never suffered because of this.

[cspelts]

smo is correct - to the spider (or the end user) an include looks no different than striaght html.

Good luck with your new site!