Cold Fusion

[cooperm]

I was wondering if anyone here knew of any SEO issues with cold fusion. I am not familar with it and have some sample code I need to check for any SEO problems. If anyone can help please let me know. Any tips or specific advice is greatly appreciated.

Hi Cooperm,

Basically, coldfusion is a scripting language, just like ASP or PHP. You can use DW (dream weaver) or FP (front page) or any other HTML editor to edit the pages.

A .cfm page is an HTML page that contains CF tags. So if you open the page, you should see CF tags mixed in with the HTML tags.

The scripting language you use won't affect SEO (unless you're using sessions, or rewriting URLS, etc). coldfusion executes on the server, before the user or SE sees it, and outputs pure HTML to the user.

I hope this helps.

[cooperm]

Thanks for the info. Is there any benefit to placing these cold fusion scripts off the page like you would for javascripts in a .js file? Is that even possible? Also, would there be any benefit to placing HTML content before these CF scripts on the page? Here are some examples of the CF on the page.

[img]<cfoutput>#appPath#</cfoutput>/common/images/header.gif[/img]<br clear="left">

<cfif isDefined("cookie.memberID") and cgi.script_name does not contain "logout.cfm"><a href="<cfoutput>#linkRegular#</cfoutput>/member_returns.cfm"><cfelse><a href="<cfoutput>#linkRegular#</cfoutput>/support/returns.cfm"></cfif>

<cfif cgi.script_name contains "index.cfm">

<cfapplication sessionmanagement="yes" name="XXXXXXXXXXX" clientstorage="XXXXXXXX" clientmanagement="yes">

<cfset dsn = "XXXXXXXX">
<cfparam name="appVarMemberID" default="0">
<cfset bgcolor_blue = "ADCFEB">
<cfset bgcolor_yellow = "FDF592">

<cfif cgi.script_name contains "checkout.cfm" or cgi.script_name contains "member_reg.cfm" or cgi.script_name contains "member_reg2.cfm" or cgi.script_name contains "billing" or cgi.script_name contains "member_profile.cfm">

<cfset appPath = "https://www.XXXXXXXXXXX.com">
<cfelse>
<cfset appPath = "http://www.XXXXXXXXXXX.com">
</cfif>
<cfset linkssl = "https://www.XXXXXXXXXXX.com">
<cfset linkRegular = "http://www.XXXXXXXXXXX.com">
<cfif cgi.script_name does not contain "cron_">
<cfinclude template="common/includes/header.cfm">
</cfif>

[hawkwind dave]

Hi All,
Just realised today that I too am a coldfusion virgin.

I found this thread which may help shed some light on CF, http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum23/3676.htm

hope it helps, dave

[JSeverson]

cooperm,
It is possible to place ColdFusion scripts in a seperate file and call the scripts in another page. You would use the <cfinclude> command to include the file. Here is an example:

<cfinclude template="directory_name/filename.ext">

I'm rusty at ColdFusion so I'm not sure what most of the code you provided means. It looks like the first few lines are outputting an image and a link while the 2nd to last line is importing an include file. The first few lines are outputted as standard html and I assume the header.cfm that is being include does as well.

To my knowledge, search engines don't pick up ASP, ColdFusion or PHP code. If you view the source on your page, you'll notice that there is no ColdFusion code showing, only HTML. This, essentially, is what a search engine will see.

The only problem you have to worry about is ColdFusion outputting the HTML code incorrectly and that would be the programmer's fault, not the ColdFusion language.