php verses html in page building

will it hurt ranking to convert to php from html

[Jakester]

I have a young assistant who wants to re-do some pages in php as a way of managing the content better. I know php pages get ranked as we already have some but I'm not sure if it will hurt those already ranked and written in html?

Any body know?

Thanks

[andreasfriedrich]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com] Jakester.

Be sure to read Marcia´s WebmasterWorld Welcome and Guide to the Basics [webmasterworld.com] post.

Changing the server side technology will not hurt your ranking one bit. What might change the ranking of any given page is changing its URI. You might use a Redirect Permanently server response to inform any robots about the new URI. At least GoogleBot will then treat the new URI as simply a new name for the given page.

Andreas

[louponne]

> Changing the server side technology will not hurt your ranking one bit.

hmm, that sounds pretty definitive. For google, ok, but are you saying that *all* SE's now treat dynamically generated pages with exotic urls www.domain.com/script.php?var=whatever&var2=whateverelse just as nicely as www.domain.com/folder/file.htm?

[andreasfriedrich]

that sounds pretty definitive

And I meant it that way. Never ever will changing the server side technology hurt your ranking. The only thing that can potentially influence ranking is your interface to the external world. Like a lot of people you assumed that changing the server side technology will cause a change in your interface as well. While this is often the case simply because people do not know better, it does not follow necessarily from such a change.

are you saying that *all* SE's now treat dynamically generated pages with exotic urls www.domain.com/script.php?var=whatever&var2=whateverelse just as nicely as www.domain.com/folder/file.htm

Not at all. If my post gave that impression then I´m glad you gave me the opportunity to rectify that impression. I strongly advocate the use of the URI namespace as an interface between the server and client. While this is good practice it has the additional benefit that you do not depend on the ability of SE spiders to follow URIs that contain query strings.

Andreas

[louponne]

Thanks greatly for clearing that up, Andreas. I have struggled with mod_rewrite a few times, and am glad that my work was indeed justified! :-)

[Jakester]

Thanks for that! I think then that I'll let him write new pages in php and that should work :)

If we don't re-write existing pages we'll have no problems - well except for getting them ranked of course!