PHP Session ID and Google

[jaffstar]

A client recently added his own contact form in PHP with session ID activated, therefore each page including html carried the following:

.html?PHPSESSID=84bff32944e1c4de69c8ada9b0343e79

I read on Googles Guidelines that you should disable this, and G does does not like this.

I have now deactivated this via .htaccess

A few questions:

1. Due to the fac the session ID changes on each peage, does google see say a page like services.html as one page or many versions based on the session id? Even though the actualy page has PR.

2. How bad is this ITO Google?

[Vimes]

Hi,

Google will see each URL as they appear, each time the session creates another id it becomes a completely new page, creating a whole load of issues with duplicates.

If this is across the whole site then you'll encounter multiple pages of the entire site.

They don't have a php thread in the hot topic section but its the same principle as the canonical duplicate issue in the duplicate content threads.
[webmasterworld.com...]

meaning that multiple versions of a page are not good for the health of the website.

Vimes

[Added] just found this link might help, you can code and not deliver the session id for certain user-agents.
[webmasterworld.com...]

[edited by: Vimes at 8:31 am (utc) on Jan. 18, 2008]

[jaffstar]

Hi,

Thanks, I removed these sessions now, hope the damage wasnt too bad :) Rankings are still good...