.cgi and PageRank?

Do .cgi pages get PageRank?

[Dave2]

It seems that .cgi pages don't get any PageRank in Google - at least three forums I've tried (including my own, a popular hacking commuity (for the software, that is :P) and even the makers') have NO PageRank - yet the "accelerated" PHP versions do. I believe this has also caused my forums to drop out of the Google directory, since it has a PR of 0 (does this happen? I don't know, it's disappeared anyway...).

Am I right or 100% wrong? I've submitted a request to dmoz to change my link to the PHP version, but as I'm sure you know, that'll take about a year before it's changed, if ever ;).

[Chico_Loco]

They get a pagerank alright ... problem is that not many people link to CGI script directly, except for any links you have internally.
Same goes for .pl, .plx etc.. they do get PR but don't usually get linked to, most likely because CGI script are dynamic and linking to a script directly at times might yeild nothing unless a query string is implemented.

[Dave2]

Well, the thing is that I used to have links to this one CGI script on every page - in my navigation include (now changed to the PHP version - gives exactly the same page), but the .php page which is simply an "accellerator" for the forum software, which gets linked to less often, does have PR, and it's exactly the same scenario as on other forums (using the same software) that I've seen... Most of my PHP scripts have PR6, and the PHP "accelerator" has a PR4, but no PR for the CGI page.

[Dave2]

Could it be something to do with the forum software?

[Monus]

I have never seen that Google index CGI script.
But they follow the links if the script redirects the user to a webpage.

[Grumpus]

Nah. I've been wondering the same thing. Google DOES index .pl and .cgi - and has no more problems than with any other dynamic pages. The odd thing is that PR is grey.

Interestingly, my forum has been in google for months (not much going on there, but one topic ranked very highly for a popular search term last month). The PR is always Grey in my toolbar and Linkto's are always the "Huh? Click here if it's a real page, but We've never heard of it".

Even more interestingly, Google DID give that thread some sort of value - so much so, in fact, that there was a several day stint where I was getting traffic on it from news.google.com!

So yup - they get crawled - just not via a secure socket. They get into the index and they can rank well in SERPS. Therefore, they MUST get pagerank, but you can't see it in the toolbar.

G.

[Monus]

Google DOES index .pl and .cgi - and has no more problems than with any other dynamic pages. The odd thing is that PR is grey.

Yes, Google index .pl and .cgi but only a few. Look for allinurl: "ikonboard.cgi" or allinurl: "form.cgi". And there is no different between indexing dynamic or static pages. The request and the respond is more or less the same.

So yup - they get crawled - just not via a secure socket.

I don't think that this have to do with a secure socket. I think that Google have made the choice not to give many weight to CGI script because CGI is most of the time used as a program for to do tasks on the server and not for to create dynamic page. PHP and ASP are more times used for dynamic pages.
Forums with a CGI or PL extension have a problem to get indexed by Google.

[Dave2]

Hmm... Sounds like I'll just have to link to nothingtodowithwidgetsjustaforum.php instead of .cgi and hope DMOZ updates as well :(.

Ah well, at least it's not as if the site gives me any money :P.

[Grumpus]

Dave - hold off on changing anything til after Christmas. Google's still new at the dynamic stuff and improvements are made each month. For all we know, they're working on it one programming language at a time. (In fact, I noticed real PR on my ASP pages a month or two after PHP developers started noticing it on theirs). CGI may be the last on their list and you might see a change next update or the one after that.

G.

[Dave2]

Well, I have changed links to the .php page - just dmoz (as usual) hasn't updated it... I submitted it about a month ago or something.