Is having example.htm copy of example.php spam?

[djtaverner]

Hello,

I have a dynamically generated php site. I want to create html copies of the primary pages of the site to improve the chances of google spidering.

If google finds the example.htm copy of

example.php?bla=1&bla=2

and these pages are identical (as copy) is this considered spamming?

cheers

dave tav

[caveman]

I'd certainly be wary of it.

Worst case: G sees it as dup content and some sort of penalty is assessed. (Many belive that the dup content filters have been dialed up substantially in recent months; I'm one of them.)

Best case: G ignores one of the two pages and you won't suffer.

Why take the chance. Generally speaking, if you're doing something solely for the purpose of manipulating the SERPs it's a bad idea, though of course the number of exceptions to this rule are too numerous to mention.

[seomike2003]

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .htm .html

just add this to your .htaccess then you can run your php in an html file.

Choose one or the other but I don't see any need to. php is index just as well as html

[rogerd]

I think what DJ means is not that he's trying to get rid of the php extension, but rather the query string.

I'd recommend rewriting the URLs to eliminate the query string - you'll have one set of apparently static pages. Problem solved without duplication.

[djtaverner]

My host does not supoort mod_Rewrite.
What other options do I have?

Could someone extrapolate on what seomike2003 says?

cheers

[g1smd]

You could put the meta robots noindex tag on the .php pages to stop them being indexed.

No duplicate penalty problem then!

[rogerd]

DJ, SeoMike's fix is for the extension. The extension isn't your problem, it's the query string. If you can't rewrite URLs, generate static pages and place the dynamic URLs off-limits as suggested above. Consider a new host.