search engine friendly

[aconway]

I am in the process of updating a site and I would like to change it to php and use a database, but I don't want to loose the placement I have on search engines.

I was reading in Yahoo that it will search a file like "file.php?id=2" fine but not to have dynamically created links.

First of all, I'm nervous about using the uri structure above, because I don't want to loose placement. Should I worry?

Second, I use php in many ways like server-side includes. Will search engines index the site and follow the links easily with this use?

[dalecosp]

Some search engines seem to be OK with url?var=contentstringtype, etc. but I'm no expert as search engines. I did see one of my pages that way the other day at Gigablast, for example.

However, it's probably true that some don't like that stuff. The guy who created PHPBuilder (and SourceForge, and more) way back in the day, Tim Perdue, wrote a real popular article about this issue several years ago. IIRC, most of the ideas are still real usable.

There are also other discussions of this on these boards. "Use the 'Search' Luke" ...

HTH,