[RESOLVED] PHPSESSID Clogging Up Search Engine Links

partypete

Hello,

When I do a search for one of my sites at search.msn.com or google, most of the links to dynamically generated pages look like this in the search engine:

www.domain.com/page=3478?PHPSESSID=wr2r23e0718e3425wer23wf5234133cd519

When following links on the site with a web browser, the url appears as:

www.domain.com/page=3478

The site consists of user submitted records, so it does use sessions which allow them login and edit their records etc. But I use cookies to store sessions id and it should not show up in urls. At least is doesn't when I view the site in a web browser.

Is there something I can do to stop the PHPSESSID from appearing when search engines spider my pages?

========== EDIT ==========

I noticed I have "session.use_only_cookies" set to "off" in phpinfo. If I turn this on, would this get rid of PHPSESSID from the urls? If so, how do you turn this on in PHP?

Thanks for any and all help!

Peter

partypete

I added this to the .htaccess file in the web root of the site:

php_flag session.use_trans_sid Off
php_flag session.use_only_cookies On

From what I've read, this should prevent PHP from placing session ids in the URL, and should force it to use cookies. I'm hoping this will fix the problem. What do you think?

========== EDIT ==========

Now I read it should be "php_value" not "php_flag"... ahhhh which one?!?!

Thanks

partypete

I think I was able to figure it out by making the changes in the .htaccess file and then viewing thier effect in phpinfo.

I settled with the original:

php_flag session.use_trans_sid Off
php_flag session.use_only_cookies On

But funny enough, php_flag and php_value both will change the value of session.use_trans_sid Off

... BUT ...

only php_flag will correctly change the value of session.use_only_cookies On

Hope this fixes my search engine problem.