ssi for large site changes

Large sitewide changes

[Piker]

I have a number of large(ish) sites that from time to time require changes on every page. I have been using SSI but have learned recently that SE's may penalise for the use of extensions shtml ! Does anyone know if there Is is a way that I can create say three or four files 'header.htm' footer.htm' & 'menu.htm' and thenb embed them in chosen pages in large numbers, and then, as with SSI change just these embedded pages thus saving huge amounts of work?

[Marcia]

Piker, you can use multiple includes on the same pages. I've got some SSI on .html (not shtml)pages using this in .htaccess:

AddType text/html .html
AddHandler server-parsed .html

I believe it's server dependent, but you can try it on a test page. Mine wouldn't work until I used absolute URLs.

[mark_roach]

I have the following in .htaccess

XBitHack

This allows you to selectively decide which files to parse by setting the execute bit on the appropriate files.

[Piker]

Hi Marcia & mark_roach, Thanks for the quick replies.
I am not yet familiar with using .htaccess. Could you demostrate the code insert for if I were to embed the contents of a file called header.htm

i.e. below is my current code for shtml SSI
<!--#include file="header.htm" -->
Many thanks.
Must change the name Piker, think I rushed that when I joined!
Simon

[Marcia]

Slight correction: this is how I've got it, on pages in a directory of the site (inside a table):

<!--#include virtual="/navigation.txt" -->
<!--#include virtual="/footer.txt" -->

This uses two separate files at the bottom of the page, one for navigation and one for the copyright info, etc., underneath. I'll be adding one for the right navigation column also.

I tried a few different ways, and this is how it ended up working.

[Piker]

Hi Marcia
Had a go, must be missing something. I have inserted the following
<!--#include virtual="/footer.txt" --> I have tried it with and without the '/' both in the root and within a directory.
Do I need to upload an .htaccess file? You mentioned this before. If so - What?
Many thanks in advance
Simon

[Marcia]

>Do I need to upload an .htaccess file?

Piker, I haven't had to. I use hosting that has a control panel, because I like the convenience of being able to make minor changes to pricing, text, page titles/keyword phrasing, etc., among other conveniences, easily and quickly without having to modify pages and go the FTP route to upload revised pages.

All I have to do is go into the control panel and create a new file, right online - including robots.txt and .htaccess

Otherwise yes, you'll have to upload the .htaccess file.

Two things to keep in mind: the functionality for SSI on .html pages depends on the host, and if you've already got pages with good search engine rankings on a site for .shtml pages you might need to think twice before making the change.

[Piker]

Hi Marcia
I have not yet attempted to rank any of my shtml pages.
What is in the .htaccess file. Can you e-mail a zipped copy of it to me ([e-mail])
Is it the same as activating Front Page Extensions?
I did not have to upload anything for the SHTML pages.
My sole reason for wishing to use SSI within html is based upon the fact that I'd heard of SE's penalising for any extensions other than htm or html because of being able to cloak or modify pages beyond the spidered code!

[litmania]

Is it true that search engines penalise pages with .shtml extensions?

I'm asking because all our pages are!

[Piker]

Hi Litmania
I'd heard recently at the Pub Conference held in holborn just over a week ago that using cfg, asp, php, shtml, dhtml etc could affect your ranking chances because of the ability to use dinamic code to construct pages different to that which the spider may see.
My brother 'Kapow' and I attended this conference and pretty much had this confirmed by some of the SEO's that were there. A lot of my sites are shtml. I have not yet attempted to get top listings for most of them.
Whilst I am pretty good at getting a site to look good, I'm not that hot at ranking and did not want to spoil my chances through any reason.

[mdharrold]

My host allows the use of .html extensions even with SSI on pages. You may want to check into that.

[ggrot]

An .htaccess file, among other things, will let you enable file extensions to do things that they wouldnt normally do. They should work on most any apache servers(and maybe IIS, I sincerely dont have a clue). The format is just a line of commands that pretty much change settings, often mostly unrelated(except mod_rewrite...but thats a different story). If you want an example just do a google search for htaccess and qualify it with what you want to do.

[Brett_Tabke]

shtml may or may not hurt rankings. It certainly did hurt rankings in the past, but most engines seem to be dealing with it ok at this time. That is not to say they won't in the future. It's wise to use raw htm or html extensions.

htaccess file is just a file you place in your directory - possibly in the root directory.

The filename is ".htaccess".

To enable ssi on html files, just create a .htaccess file in your root and include the lines as Marcia suggested:

AddType text/html .html
AddHandler server-parsed .html

or

AddType text/html .htm
AddHandler server-parsed .htm

[Piker]

Thank You ggrot. It works! I can now change all my extensions to html and use the .htaccess file with

AddType text/html .html
AddHandler server-parsed .html

For anyone else who needs to know how. Create a file called access.txt, type the above contect, ftp using ASCII, rename the file .htacces - That's it. Dead easy when you know how.
Thanks also to Marcia & marc_roach
usefull site for info is
[execpc.com...]
Piker

[Piker]

Whoops! Hi Brett
Your entry whent in just as was pressing submit. Thanks all the same.

[grnidone]

>maybe IIS, I sincerely dont have a clue)

From what I can tell, the file has be an ASP file to do a SSI. I am very new to SSI on a Windows box, and I would think there must be a way around using .ASP extension.
-G

<added> I started a new discussion on SSI specifically for IIS servers. [webmasterworld.com]</added>