Dynamic content and the fresh listing

Would using php to generate changing content help at all?

[Arnett]

I've found that using dynamic content in static html file is generally useful for generating repeat visits but just as useless for generating Google "fresh" listings.

What I'm wondering is whether calling dynamic content like newsfeeds from php files would cause google's freshbot to "see" the generated page as updated. I doubt this because the last-modified date would also have to be dynamically updated at the same time. Is there a way to do this from within a php file?

[Arnett]

I've seen examples using php to set up 301 redirects. Is there a way to use php to modify the last-modified date for a page?

[DerekT]

header('Last-Modified: '.gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s \G\M\T', time()));

[Arnett]

Thanks!

[TheDave]

The date/time format for a last-modified header, does it have to be an exact format? The example I found when searching google shows the date format as being something like:

"1st Jan 2003, 12:45AM GMT"

however, would it also be acceptable to use

"01/01/2003 12:45AM"

What about the GMT part, what if your server time is not GMT time, do you have to modify the time to be GMT time, and is the GMT part required in the format? Say I'm hosting a web page down here in Australia, and it's 9:00AM, I've just updated it. On the server, the file is now marked as being modified at 9:00AM, on Friday 10th October, but that's actually Thurday 11th, 11:30PM GMT. So now I'm serving up a file with the last-modified date which is actually in the future. What happens here? Could you theoretically set your server date/time to 2010, modify your files, and they will be fresh until 2010?

[Arnett]

do you have to modify the time

Whoa! Once the date-modified is reset on Linux servers it stays that way for a certain number of days. When Google checks it all it sees is that the file was "recently modified". After the time expires the file is not "recently modified" and Google does not consider it "freshly updated".

Get a grip,grab a Fosters,take a couple of chill pills and calm down.

[claus]

<deleted - it deserves a thread of it's own>

[TheDave]

The reason I ask is because I have a page that includes another file which is updated quite often, but the page itself isnt. I would like google to crawl the updated content often, and so I am setting the date modified from the file:

last_mod_date = f.DateLastModified
response.AddHeader "Last-modified", last_mod_date

All I really want to know is if that is enough to make googlebot crawl the page again? It's not about the fresh tags as claus must've thought ;)

[WebWalla]

If your content has changed because of some script or whatever but the page itself hasn't had its timestamp changed, you could make Google think the page has been recently updated by setting up a cron job to "touch" the page every night.

This is just a technical solution, but I wouldn't use it myself - it just seems like you're trying to cheat the SE's somehow. Maybe not spammy, but perhaps not entirely ethical.

[claus]

Personally i don't think Googlebot ignores the content of the page.

/claus

[WebWalla]

Claus - you're saying that Google takes every page and compares the content to the cached version to see if it's been updated? Surely that would take up massive processing power (which I know they have, but this would be too much). Wouldn't it be far easier for the bot to simply check the timestamp for the page?

[claus]

>> you're saying that Google takes every page and compares the content to the cached version

That might be saying too much. I didn't do it ;)

At least i didn't intend to. I intended to say that you could rebuild the page in stead - that way it will get a new timestamp, as the content of the page (and the page itself) will have changed.

/claus

[WebWalla]

Of course you are right - if you rebuild the page you will get new content and a new timestamp, but my understanding of this thread was that people only had new content due to SSI including other files. In this case the main file would not get a new timestamp.

[TheDave]

I dont think I'm trying to cheat the engines, after all if the page isnt updated for 4 weeks, it will still report that date of 4 weeks ago. I'm not unnaturally setting the date, it is the last modified date.