Flat Files or Database driven website

[Atlantean]

I know this subject must have come up before, but please forgive me because I just don't have time to dig through the search results to find an answer.

I am at an empass. I have a friend who believes in using a flat file system for optimum search engine performance. And, I tend to agree.

However, I have recently gained some valuable knowledge on the "behind-the-scenes" techniques used by a certain retail website that's in a very specialized niche market.

Because I do not have the money to start a proper e-commerce site, I have decided to go the affiliate route. I take the data provided by the site with which I am affiliated and use it to build my own site, with all links leading to the partner site for ordering.

The problem is, I have chosen a couple of products that have a more general appeal but are, according to my research, good bets. However, there are hundreds of products and to make them all into a flat file site is going to take forever, not to mention rather tedious.

FYI, I code primarily in PHP:

I have coded a CMS designed specifically for my primary product using MySQL. This way I can simply copy and paste the information into a form, which is a lot easier than trying to handle hundreds of individual files. And updating product information is a whole lot easier this way.

I'm torn, though. With the flat file system, there are at least 4 levels of pages: The homepage which connects to the category pages, which connect to the sub-category pages which lead to all the product pages in the sub-categories. All of them saturated with relevant filenames, page titles, metas and content.

With the database, I get URLs that look like this:

http*//www.mysite.com/widget/widget-info.php?page=Widget%20Widget%20Widget

The "%20" doesn't bother me so much, but the "?" does.

I'd like to get some opinions on both sides of this issue so that I can be informed properly before I proceed with populating the site.

Another question: Can using a config file system to define variables in the template be used for the same purpose where the config file defines the variable $widget_name which is called to the include template by <? echo $widget_name; ?> ? If so, how would I structure this?

BTW, if anyone knows of an easier way that still maintains the site's ability to welcome spiders and bots, please don't hesitate!

[williamc]

The obvious solution is to use a real CMS. The one you are using obviously was not made as a search engine friendly system. That, today, is a major flaw. It should be using rewritten URL's thru-out the system.

[Faglork]

Another obvious solution would be URL rewriting using mod_rewrite - you could stay with your CMS (if it does the job for you) and simply let the server do the rewriting.

Basic info:
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/misc/rewriteguide.html

You will find a lot of rewriting tutorials on the 'net.

hth,
faglork