.htaccess transparent PHPSESSID and sessions

[nozom]

just putting the finishing touches on a shopping site and have run into errors in the process when users are blocking cookies.
i am using
<IfModule mod_php4.c>
php_value session.use_trans_sid 0
</IfModule>
in my .htacess file to supress the PHPSESSID=22y3213etc. but it means that if a cookie isn't set the site fails to work properly.

if i remove that from my .htaccess the site works fine because the PHPSESSID is passed around evey page, but it creates drawbacks from a search engine promotion point of view.

Is there a way i can do:
if (isset(cookie))
{
supress PHPSESSID;
}
else
{
dont supress PHPSESSID;
}
any help would be much appreciated!

damn seo always throws a spanner in the works ;-)

Cheers,
nozom

[rehfeld]

php automatically does that for you.

1-on the first request, since php did not receive an sid from a cookie nor through the url, php will add the sid to the html for you, AND send a cookie.

2-on the next request, if php receives the cookie back, it stops adding the sid through the url. but if all it receives is the sid through the url, then it just keeps adding the sid to the query string.

but you could do something like this

$is_crawler = false;

$crawlers = array(
    'google',
    'msn',
    'inktomi',
); // add more

$ua = strtolower($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);

foreach ($crawlers as $crawler) {
    if (false !== strpos($ua, $crawler)) {
        $is_crawler = true;
        break;
    }
}

if ($is_crawler) {
    ini_set('session.use_trans_sid', 0);
}

[nozom]

Apparently google & co. sees a different URL for the page every time it comes and gets confused, hence the need to hide the PHPSESSID from the out.

Your solution looks great though, will give it a whirl!

Cheers,
nozom