need a piece of advice concerning search enginekeywords and redirects

ajdegans

Im learning php as we go.... creating websites in php and such 🙂

But i realized that searchengines scope for urls to put in the ranking lists. So (if my thinking is right) the search engine is able to grab file urls on a server.

The site is module based which means there is one file which acts as a base for all other files. like when you click on a link and it includes a module to show content the url would look like (example) www.zerocom.nl/index.php?act=websites .

Basicaly what i want to know is how do i prevent people from entering my site on another page than index.php. And if they do enter on, let's say, navigatie.php whats the smartest way to redirect them to the index.php. I figured if i put in something like this:

<script language='javascript'>
window.location='http://www.zerocom.nl/navigatie.php';
</script>

it would redirect people, yes, but also the ones who click a link and are supposed to go to the page....

:rolleyes:

This website is working with 2 template files (one to start at the top of the page, holding the top and main thing. and one to put the bottom in place) Now, can i add search keywords into the template for the searchengine? or must they be in the index.php? and how do i fit it in then... some thing like this (below)?

echo "<meta http-equiv='keywords' content='put the words here'>";

anyone got an idea? 😕

razz

Lets take the first part of the question...

How do I redirect a user to the index page?

Use a SESSION variable to mark when a user has been to the index page. On the other pages check for the variable. If it is set, show the page. Otherwise redirect them to the index page. I would use following:

header("Location: url/page.ext");

The header code must come before any other headers are sent. In other words, before any output to the page.

The second part is the META tag info.

I am not sure of what you mean by 2 templates and an index.php, but lets assume it is some type of include. The PHP code will generate html for you. This will result in a page of html that has the META tag from your template (included file). The spider/robots will read it and be fine.

razz

ajdegans

the template thing is indeed with includes... like you enter on index.php then it includes a header.php and an footer.php whom create the actual page... on index.php is no visual content....

From your post i understand i just can put the meta tag then in the header.php 🙂

second... how about sessions?
is this the session thing you talk about?
http://nl2.php.net/function.session-register

Ill go look into it ... anyway 🙂

Thanks😃

razz

"is this the session thing you talk about? "

Yes and No...let me explain,

You can use the session_register, but it is no longer recommended. here is the CAUTION statement from that link:

"If you want your script to work regardless of register_globals, you need to instead use the $SESSION array as $SESSION entries are automatically registered. If your script uses session_register(), it will not work in environments where the PHP directive register_globals is disabled. Since PHP 4.2.0, the default value for the PHP directive register_globals is off."

So, the session_register may fail based on your version of php.

$_SESSION() is a better way. Try this link:

http://nl2.php.net/manual/en/ref.session.php

razz

ajdegans

Hmm i looked at the link you gave. And there is alot of stuff 🙂

I can imagine that there is alot you can do with it.... for example cookie based stuff. But i cant really think of a way using it for my issue...

I figured i must combine one and another... but i dont know which ones 🙁

That a good one to start with?

session.referer_check string

session.referer_check contains the substring you want to check each HTTP Referer for. If the Referer was sent by the client and the substring was not found, the embedded session id will be marked as invalid. Defaults to the empty string.

still the n00b :mad:

travelbuff

Originally posted by ajdegans
But i realized that searchengines scope for urls to put in the ranking lists. So (if my thinking is right) the search engine is able to grab file urls on a server.

That is kind of correct - search engines find files by crawling hyperlinks. If a file has no crawlable links, the SE cannot find it.

Basicaly what i want to know is how do i prevent people from entering my site on another page than index.php. And if they do enter on, let's say, navigatie.php whats the smartest way to redirect them to the index.php.

To me, the more important question here is not how can you do this but why would you do this? If the page the SE brings up is relevant to the users search, why not let the user land on that page and find what they are looking for? I know if I click on a search result and don't relatively immediately find what I expected to, I usually close that site and go to the next SE result. For example, if you are selling widgets, and I am looking for specifically a red and green widget. I do a search for red and green widgets and your red and green widgets page comes up. I click on the link in the results, and I am redirected to your home page instead of getting your red and green widgets page. I scan the homepage, see that you sell widgets but nothing specific on red and green ones. So I close the window and try the next result.....is that what you want to do????

Ok, I realize I didn't really answer your questions above. So...
Razz is correct in recommending using a session or cookie to set a variable that says "index.php has been visited!" when a user visits your homepage. Then, each page after that can check and see if the user has visited the homepage and if so, go ahead and load, and if not, redirect them to index.php. If what Razz and I have said doesn't make sense to you, a good place to start is here: http://www.phpfreaks.com/tutorials/41/0.php .

Example of code on index.php:

session_start()
$_session['home_page_visited'] = 'yes';

Example of code on other pages:

session_start()
if ($_session['home_page_visited'] != 'yes') {
header ("location: [url]http://www.mysite.com/index.php/[/url]");
exit ;
}

Ok, now another word of caution...if you do this, you will keep the search engine from crawling your site. Bots do not accept cookies and generally won't crawl url's that have SID's appended to them. One option is to check the user agent and see if it is a SE bot and if so, don't start the session. Example:

// Use this to start a session only if the UA is *not* at search engine 
$searchengines=array("Google", "Fast", "Slurp", "Ink", "Atomz", "Scooter", "Crawler", "bot", "Genius"); 
$is_search_engine=0; 
foreach($searchengines as $key => $val) { 
if(strstr("$HTTP_USER_AGENT", $val)) { 
$is_search_engine++; 
} 
} if($is_search_engine==0) { 
// visitor is not a search engine - start the session 
session_start(); 
//You can put anything else in here that needs to be hidden from search engines 
} else { 
// visitor is a search engine - Put anything you want only a search engine to see in here 
}

Hope that helps.

ajdegans

hmm, well to point out one thing. i want the visitor to view my website. not just one chunk of it who might give the visitor the idea the site is incomplete.

For instance they visit the navigatie.php which hold ONLY the navigation bar. Many people think the rest is missing and click away my site and all other links are commonly ignored by them after the first try....

Note: most people do that... not all 🙂

anyway, have a look at my site (www.zerocom.nl) and you'll see all sites are directed and loaded from the index.php with 'index.php?act=something' like urls. So its no use entering on another page because there is no way to navigate from to another.

Thats why i want this redirect thing. second on that is the search engine who searches for links and places them in the ranking. and therefor give the visitor access to the pages as described above... Hopes this cleares some things up about the why...

I will try your code though travellbuf 🙂 you might have given me the solution already 😃

ajdegans

Update:

I inserted the searchengine checking code of travelbuff (the 3th piece of code)

and get this error:

Warning: session_start(): Cannot send session cookie - headers already sent by (output started at /home/virtual/site70/fst/var/www/html/template/tp_header.php:19) in /home/virtual/site70/fst/var/www/html/navigatie.php on line 8

Warning: session_start(): Cannot send session cache limiter - headers already sent (output started at /home/virtual/site70/fst/var/www/html/template/tp_header.php:19) in /home/virtual/site70/fst/var/www/html/navigatie.php on line 8

I have as far as i know and can see no other sessions running, except for an pageloading time, but that doesnt include anything with sessions as far as i know.... 😕

Anyway. Does this mean that im a worrieing for nothing because the browser obviously starts at the template file and therefor the searchengine too... so it can never place wrong url in the ranking list, where this was all about.

Or am i thinking wrong now? 😕 😕

travelbuff

Ajdegans:

You have to start the session before sending anything AT ALL to the browser - even whitespace. What that error means is that you have already sent some output to the browser before calling the session. You need session code at the VERY TOP of your script. If that is awkward from a layout standpoint, use output buffering to overcome the problem.

For instance they visit the navigatie.php which hold ONLY the navigation bar. Many people think the rest is missing and click away my site and all other links are commonly ignored by them after the first try....

I still say there are better ways to skin that cat! The search engine should never see navigatie.php if you don't have a direct link to it somewhere. The SE doesn't see the code of an include - only the output. Perhaps instead of redirecting the user if they haven't visited the homepage, you should add some extra content that tells about your site if they come in through a back door.

ajdegans

ok,

i understand the error.

maybe i put the code in the wrong place but it was at the very very top of the file...
so the browser starts the output somewhere else... appearantly
it starts at the template file and that means so does the SE.
So i dont even need the whole code i guess 🙂

razz

WO, I go on vacation and when I come back I have a nice compliment to read. Travelbuff has written out all the code I would given. I also agree with him that the 'concept' is not the best. I too would not like landing on the page that does not contain my search text. Example: I search for "attach widget". I get redirectted to the index page and (while it might seem all encompassing to you) can't find my string using a find command. I may not see the widget link.

That said, if this is what truely fits your code need then go for it. One thing Travelbuff touched on was cookies or session ID's appended to URL's.

A VERY important note is that most people think that SESSIONS replace cookies. This is not true. Most sessions use cookies. If the cookies are disabled they will append a strange string to the end of the URL. Sessions are for maintaining state throughout a single visit. Cookies do the same thing but are capable of keeping info through multiple visits. Great for saying welcome or presenting their last requested info when they return.

What you have asked for would be best served by setting the session variable on load of the home page and then checking it on the others as pointed out by Travelbuff. The only difference I would do is make the checking portion into a funtion that could be called from any page. That way editing in the future only is required in one place.

The Keywords can be loaded via an include and the bots will search through the links on all pages. They will normally not load just a navbar. If you use PHP then they will only see the finished HTML anyway.

Hope all this helps.