[Resolved] Dynamic Meta Tags with PHP

artnow

Hello all. On my site I use the url to link to dynamically created pages: ... /page.php3?type=contests&category=weekly .

The page.php beings with the following code:

<?php include (meta.php3'); ?>

<body bgcolor="#184866">

content goes here

</body>
</html>

Now meta.php3 contains the <head> information as follows:

<?php

$pagetitle = ucfirst($category);

echo "<html><head><title>Contests and Sweepstakes - $pagetitle Entry - ContestHound.com</title>\n";

  if ($type = 'contests')    { 
echo '<meta name="keywords" content="keyword list">';

echo '<meta name="description" content="description text">';

echo '<bunch of other meta tags>';

echo "</head>\n";
echo '<body bgcolor="#184866">';
} else {
}

?>

It does work putting in the <head> section in the appropriate spot but what I am wondering is this actually the proper way to get dynamic pages indexed by search engines?

Pig

Meta has almost nothing to do with search enging placement and indexing these days. Placement is all about your content and related links to/from your site.

BTW, this line:
if ($type = 'contests')
should probably be
if ($type == 'contests')
if I understand what you are trying to do.

Moonglobe

actually it should be if ($GET['type'] and $GET['category'], unless [man]register_globals[/man] is turned on....

mzanimephp

Originally posted by Pig
Meta has almost nothing to do with search enging placement and indexing these days. Placement is all about your content and related links to/from your site.

He's right. If you want to get your site indexed fluently, try using the:

<meta name="robots" content="index,nofollow">

tag. It seems to help. but most search engines seem to be indexing pages according to the content of the page itself. And, also the links which they contain.

I often find my site indexed according to a link on it which is pointing to an outside web site.

artnow

Thank you all for your feedback. The meta.php3 file does include a robots follow meta tag (I just edited it out to keep things short). I understand that meta tags for the most part are not really all that useful. I do however want to have them in place for some of the smaller search engines that are still requiring meta tags.

But I am still wondering if the whole process actually works in terms of meta based search engines. In other words, will they only index page.php3 or will they index page.php3?type=contests&category=weekly and various other $types and $category.

Pig

Many search engines choke when they hit a query string. If your site is well structured, you can create work around that by creating a mod rewrite to change your url to a query string.

instead of
page.php?name=joe&catsname=bubba
you would have
page.php/joe/bubba
and apache will follow a rule to convert the first /text to $name and the second /text to $catsname.

artnow

I browsed through these forums to learn about the mod rewrite and though it appears to be a good method, I can't use it since my host doesn't have the rewrite module installed (security issues they say).

They did suggest using an apache addhandler but it beats me what that means. Any suggestions on where and what to look for would be really helpful.

HalfaBee

You can do it without any apache changes.
... /page.php3/contests/weekly

Now have a look at $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] or ['PATH_INFO']
The two bits of information are there just explode them out and you have a nicer looking URL.

HalfaBee

artnow

There are some people who are not programmers by any stetch of the imagination which could explain why it took me three hours to come up with exactly what you suggested. Here is the solution:

convert.php

<?

$string=$_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"];
$vars = explode("/", $string);

echo "http://www.mysite.com/$vars[1]?type=$vars[2]&category=$vars[3]";
?>

converts the following seach friendly URL:
...mysite.com/convert.php/contests/weekly

into a php friendly URL:
...mysite.com?type=contests&category=weekly

and I use the $vars[] as the variables in the dynamic pages.

Thanks for all of your help.