Why PHP?

[seaflex]

Hello All,

I am a graphic designer with a few basic html skills - enough to get a site up and make it work reasonably well. In the past I have employed a SEO company to help my sites along as I do not profess to know about that side of things.

My problem is this:
I have just taken on a redesign of a site for a big company - its not their main site but it could open the door for me. I have looked at the site that needs to be redesigned and it looks as though it is very straight forward - its not very big and the only technical feature is a quite lengthy form which I know I can handle - the only thing is that the whole thing is done in PHP. As I do not have the technical skills I dont know why they may have done the site in this way as opposed to html (to be honest I dont even know what PHP is). Every page ends with the .php extension. They make minor text changes to the site on a monthly basis.

I am a bit stuck - I dont want to get myself into something that I dont understand, and I dont want to change the site from PHP to HTML and then find out why it was PHP in the first place.

Can anyone shed some light on this issue - any help will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Phil

[paulhiles]

Hi Phil,

I think if your immediate role is maintaining/ updating site content, you need to ascertain how and where the data is stored. Are they using a mySQL database with some sort of content management? Maybe they're using simple text includes, or possibly even hard-coded?

The pages and code may look deceptively small/short.. the real guts of the thing may lie elsewhere! :o) A few more details from your investigations would be good! :o)

Paul

[AndrewX]

I dont know why they may have done the site in this way as opposed to html (to be honest I dont even know what PHP is).

You may find this link interesting...

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...&q=what+is+php

HTML is generally static. You create the pages and they sit there on the web server waiting to be downloaded by surfers. PHP is one of many languages used on the web to create pages that are more dynamic in nature than plain old HTML. For example, the page that you are looking at right now is the output from a PHP script file. In the case of this page, viewtopic.php is passed an argument, the topic number 19329. The script looks in a database residing on WebProWorld and retrieves all the information it needs to display the posts, poster's information, etc and finally generates output which is HTML so you can see the page. As people add replies or edit their posts, the information in the database is changed (via other PHP scripts) and thus the HTML output from viewtopic.php for a given topic will change over time.

Using PHP scripts with a database is a good way to provide pages that can easily be changed, without having to regenerate lots of static HTML files. Hope this simplistic explaination helps.

[Stroppy]

Hi Phil,

As well as databases, PHP also has lots of other functions for tasks such as handling dates and times, creating images dynamically, manipulating files, handling data from forms, manipulating text etc.

There are thousands of applications and scripts written in PHP for almost any purpose you need.

I wouldn't worry about it, with a little practice you will find it quite easy to understand - and there are tons of tutorials on the web.

Beth

[davebarnes]

Why PHP?

Because they could.
Because they added it to their resume.

[DarrenC]

When I first launched my business back in February 2002, in my bedroom I used to design every single advertisement manually, yes, the ad's were great, better than my competition, but all of my competition were over taking me, and making a name for themselves, why? PHP, that' why!

In January 2004 I complete redesigned the website, and implemented PHP and MySQL, with the help of a good friend, now the site runs for it'self. My main aim now is marketing my clients holiday homes, and optimising the website, where before it was marketing the site to get new clients, and then spend hours designin static HTML pages, now it's done for me, and since January 04' the number of clients have doubled compared to February 2002.

So this really would be my main reason for moving on to PHP, along with being able to put my clients in control of their advertisement.

Darren

[chrisjaeger]

What's the general consensus on .php pages getting indexed in search engines. I see them, but still I see .html files beating them, in most cases.

Is .php more "SE friendly" than, say CFM, or ASP. It sure seems so, just looking at SERPS.

Can you customize your title tags for different pages that are generated?

I understand writing out .html pages is laborious work - but if 60% of your traffic comes from search engines, moving to a dynamically created web site can put a fast crimp in your traffic/sales.

Sort of like moving to an all Flash driven site.

I see it every day. :(

[gellnsh]

Hi Phil,

I went through what you're about to a year ago. Php is truly a wonderful way to go. However, I hired a search engine optimization company about a month ago and they promptly told me that search engines don't read dynamic content (PHP) all that well. I'm now changing everything back to html as I think this may be a lot of the reason my rankings have been affected over the past few months. PHP is great to maintain but unfortunately the downside is greater. You may want to explain this to your clients. How often have you seen a listing on google with a .php address? I haven't seen them too often.

I hope this helps

http://www.guitarmusician.com

[compusolver]

Your assertion that HTML pages beat PHP pages in search engines is incorrect.

Browsers and robots only see HTML, period. Server-side scripts 'serve up' HTML pages dynamically to browsers and robots. Therefore it is totally irrelevant to a search engine robot whether a page is written in PHP, ASP or HTML because it only gets the final HTML version of the page.

Yes, you can have dynamic title tags using PHP. You can even have dynamic meta tags, keywords, etc.

I regularly get clients indexed in the top three or at least top ten (and often #1) using PHP, just like I did a couple years back when I coded in ASP.

I hope this helps shed some light on the server pages / SEO issue.

[vbarrio]

The reason is because it is a more dynamic language
(if then logic, etc...)

and you can minimize the number of pages you need as well as maintain your pages more easily.

[southplatte]

PHP is a great way to create dynamic sites that pull information from a database. The main consideration you need when looking at your client's website is the pages functions, and the data that they use. You may have one page pulling from a database, and another just a script to validate or verify information or to setup another page for data display. It is hard to say as the limits of what PHP can be used for are pretty broad.

The thing you need to do is get a quick and dirty primer on PHP, so you have a basic understanding of it, then disect the pages and find out exactly what the pages are doing, what information they are pulling (if any) and what the scripts do as far as overall design.

When you go to redesign the site, I would probably not move away from the PHP and go to a static site, as this may hinder the business model in use on the site, and may create more work than necessary.

Go to http://www.wdlv.com for some tutorials on PHP, and also http://www.php.net to get info from the source as well as documentation (some times the docs are overwhelming at first).

I would also suggest getting some books on PHP, such as the Teach Yourself in 24 hours series or something along those lines.

And, if in doubt, ask for help. You main focus is to please your client, if you need help to do so, ask for it. Also, if the project is beyond your understanding and it takes too long to get to the knowledge level you need, inform the client of this, and if necessary refer them to another designer. No one ever likes to do this, but in some cases, if the project is over your head, you will not only help your client, but your business as well by referring them. They will appreciate the honesty and the referral and will remember that in the future and may use your other skills. Where as if you take the project, blunder it up due to lack of knowledge, they will remember that more, and it will hurt your business more long term than passing the project off. They most likely will not use any of your other skills in the future after such a blunder either.

[synergytheory]

If you can get a hold of the source code [un-parsed by the server] you will get a much better idea of what they are using the PHP for.

If you see PHP connecting to mySQL, you may have a big job on your hands.

Or they may just be using the PHP includes function to generate the a header and footer for quick updates [hopefully below the <head></head> tags]

[Stroppy]

gellnsh, you can configure your webserver so that PHP works with pages .htm, .html or whatever.

Most of every webpage I create uses PHP, but the extension is .htm so a search engine wouldn't know any different.

Beth

[HB Central]

Originally Posted by chrisjaeger

I understand writing out .html pages is laborious work - but if 60% of your traffic comes from search engines, moving to a dynamically created web site can put a fast crimp in your traffic/sales.

Sort of like moving to an all Flash driven site.

I see it every day. :(

PHP (like CGI) is a server-side script. This means that when "called" -- all code is run by the server before delivery. "Server-Side Includes" can process or retrieve various bits of data, and put together a final HTML page to give to either your browser, or a SE spider. By looking at the source code of a PHP page from your browser, you'll never see the actual code that was used to create it. You are just looking at the end result.....

and so are the spiders.

[Diana]

Originally Posted by gellnsh

Php is truly a wonderful way to go. However, I hired a search engine optimization company about a month ago and they promptly told me that search engines don't read dynamic content (PHP) all that well.

That's complete bull if I ever heard it! Most major SEs could care less what extenstion your page is! What they care about is the number of parameters your passing in the url, if you're smart, there will be minimal in the URL.

http://yourdomain.com/index.php?bob is perfectly acceptable and no major SE that I know of will choke on that.

http://yourdomain.com/index.php?id=2...kfjas=lkdjfkas

That they may choke on.

Use a *good* quality CMS and you won't see that garbage in the URL. You can also (on an apache server) use mod_rewrite to rewrite those long nasty dynamic urls to short sweet, SE *love* urls.

http://seochat.com if you want to educate yourself before throwing all your money away on an "optimization" company that may/may not be feeding you garbage.

-Diana

[synergytheory]

Originally Posted by compusolver

Your assertion that HTML pages beat PHP pages in search engines is incorrect.

Browsers and robots only see HTML, period. Server-side scripts 'serve up' HTML pages dynamically to browsers and robots. Therefore it is totally irrelevant to a search engine robot whether a page is written in PHP, ASP or HTML because it only gets the final HTML version of the page.

Yes, you can have dynamic title tags using PHP. You can even have dynamic meta tags, keywords, etc.

I regularly get clients indexed in the top three or at least top ten (and often #1) using PHP, just like I did a couple years back when I coded in ASP.

I hope this helps shed some light on the server pages / SEO issue.

The main problem with dynamic pages and SEO is not so much the code but the URL. Try to limit the amount of variables carried in the URL to three and you should be okay.

It use to be question marks [?] that stopped the spiders, but it seems most bots can get around them now.

[johnmcm]

The great thing about php is that it is so common today that you can have a code inserted to any pre-designed page for about $25.

The form sounds real simple and would take no more than 20 minutes to activate. That's assuming you have a database Mysql that is.

There is no excuse not to have a database on your site today as a popular hosting service offers the hosting with db, Mysql, php, and all the toys you'll need for $95 for a year including domain name registration. Don't tell me you can't afford it.

You can link to them though my web site top right http://www.whitelightweb.com . May as well get the kick back.

If you need the page set up let me know. There are also many great php books out there for beginners and tones of forums.

[computergenius]

Do you mean that the site is *really* HTML, but the files are called index.php, etc? Some people (mistakenly) believe that, if you name a page .php, the code cannot be downloaded - PHP code cannot be downloaded, but HTML certainly can.

I use PHP to "do things" on the sites I design. Today, I have been doing an enquiry form - when the visitor enters a request for information into a page, then an email containing some of the data is sent to Head Office, telling them which page. A copy of that email is sent to someone who "owns" the page - put simply, the name of the page is kept in a database, and PHP looks up the email address of each owner, and sends the email. And a copy email is sent to the visitor, to remind them that they enquired about a page, and to remind them *which* page the enquired about. PHP *does things* that HTML can't.

However, since I never know what my clients are going to ask me to change <G>, I *always* name my pages .php - it takes an extra squillisecond on the server, but means that if I have to add php to a page, I don't need to change any other pages - because the page is named mypage.php, rather than mypage.html, everything is ready for The Man to change his mind. And I make less mistakes...

[ronniethedodger]

Originally Posted by chrisjaeger

What's the general consensus on .php pages getting indexed in search engines. I see them, but still I see .html files beating them, in most cases.

Is .php more "SE friendly" than, say CFM, or ASP. It sure seems so, just looking at SERPS.

Can you customize your title tags for different pages that are generated?

I understand writing out .html pages is laborious work - but if 60% of your traffic comes from search engines, moving to a dynamically created web site can put a fast crimp in your traffic/sales.

Sort of like moving to an all Flash driven site.

I see it every day. :(

Whether it is .php, .asp, .cfm, or even .shtml ... they all serve up Html pages to the visitor and the spider. Flash is another story altogether and there is no comparisons to be made there.

The problem most data-base driven sites have is with the Url and the query string in them. But there are ways around that to make it more spider freindly.

If you look at the Url of the page your are reading right now, you will see the query string with ? marks and = signs. This page's Url is a simple one and the spiders will have no problem crawling it. In fact, as a test you can browse around WPW and you will notice that there indeed is no problem with googlebot (at least) for the pages are indexed and they are showing PR.

The extension of the file has nothing to do with SERPS. Just because you are seeing more .htm and .html pages in the results of search queries does not mean that they enjoy better results than pages that are not .htm or .html. It just means that probably 1.) they outnumber the others so drastically and the odds are they will show up more, 2.) they have content that better fits the query and is more relative.

Also ... look at the results a little closer and you will notice sometimes there are pages listed that do not have an extension at all. Those are pages that are dynamically created with mod_rewrites done on the Url with the query strings in them. They could be of any flavor of scripting language (.php,.asp,etc.)

Do a View Source on any server-side generated page and tell me what you see. Then tell me why the Html in those pages are any different than pages of static .html pages. Regardless of the extension, the browser and the spider both get served HTML. They do not get served programming code (php, asp, SSI includes, etc.).

[lutenegger]

First thing people need to understand is that the language of the web is HTML (and XML maybe). ASP, Perl, CFML, PHP, JSP are just ways to write HTML code dynamically.

Statically...dynamically the end result is the same, an html page. Do a view source on any page and you're only going to see html.

The reasons why someone might use PHP or any other server side language are numerous. Sure it allows dynamic generation of content but it also gives the ability to collect information about the users. Personally, PHP is my preferred language because I can pickup an entire web site and move it to virtual any platform without having to make significant changes to the code. Unfortunately most people have either fell for Sun's or Microsoft's brainwashing.

As far as Search engines go, I don't necessarily think that any extension is discriminated against. Typically a problem might result from a sites code not responding with information that search engines can index. For example if a page requires a parameter to be passed to function an engine may not do that properly.

So as whether you'll be able to complete the project I can't say for sure. If HTML is your only coding background it could be more difficult. PHP is super easy as far as scripting languages go. If you don't have the background and you do try to do it just workaround it only touching the HTML code, and avoiding everything you see in the <? ?> brackets, and always backup originals.


That's hilarious we wrote the exact same thing...great minds...

[jgoddard]

Most likely the company that used to maintain the site used PHP, there's tons of other programming languages they could have used, but they just happened to use PHP. HTML is not a programming language, it is a markup language, meaning that it can layout and describe the content, whereas PHP, as well as JSP, ASP, ColdFusion can actually perform calculations and logic.

It was probably in PHP because the web host was a Linux/Unix box, and PHP would allow them to do a number of programming things like interact with the database, email people etc...

PHP is quite easy to learn, and if you're starting from scratch, I'd recommend picking up one of the Teach Yourself PHP in 21 days books, that series is great when you start from scratch... then move on to a WROX or Oreilly book once you have the basics.

Most likely about 80% of the PHP pages will still be just HTML, and the PHP embedded in them will not be too complicated...