http headers

referer and session id

[David]

My first venture into this forum! I have two questions.
The first is how dependable is the referer header coming from the browser another words are there browsers that will not send it. I am using it to determine which page on my site they are coming from.

The second is... I am using php sessions for a cart and secure form. I then was going to use it an all pages so I could grab the original referer. The problem I just found is when spidered php will append the session id to the urls (since cookies are not available), I am not comfortable with it from a ranking stand point. Is there a short work around with out having to snif for browsers or spiders?

Thanks
David

[sugarkane]

Congrats on your first scripting post David :)

There's a thread about referral headers here [webmasterworld.com] which should give you the info you need.

As to PHP sessions, I think browser sniffing might well be the only way around this - but I'll be happy to be corrected if anyone has any other ideas...

[David]

Thanks Surgarkane