Can Google See SSI?

[ezyid]

say i decided to make my pages look more updating e.t.c put random text via ssi would google see this and would it be valad?

any ideas?
thankyou.
steve.

[rj87uk]

I think so.

Google should only be able to see what your Include writes to the page - a browser gets the page after the include has been applied from your server. Google wont be any different.

ray

[EBear]

I did this a couple of years ago too. Then it struck me, although the on-page text will change this way, the file's DATE will stay the same. Therefore Google may not see it as changed and may not respider the new content. I posted something about it here at the time.

[Sanenet]

Search engines can only see the HTML code (the same as if you right click, view source), so that's fine.

They can't see the files last modified date, that information is not sent out in the headers.

Problem with putting random text on a page is that Google can soon twig on to what you're doing unless it's done properly.

[EBear]

that information is not sent out in the headers.

It can be [webmasterworld.com].

Use Navigator and view Page info and you'll see it, if available.

[phpdude]

Google certainly can see if the file has been modified.

If you see a 304 response for client request in your logs for Googlebot, that tells it that there was no modification since the last visit, so it won't spider the page any further.

What you want to see is a 200 response.
Here is an example:
No Change:
"GET /yourpage.htm HTTP/1.0" 304 - "-" "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)"

Changed:
"GET /yourchangedpage.htm HTTP/1.0" 200 14293 "-" "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)"

They use the server response codes to save bandwidth and crawl times. If the data has not been modified, no since crawling it again.

You need access to your raw log files to see this.

[suggy]

SSI's cannot be seen by Google, only the result can be.

Your server pastes any SSI's (SERVER SIDE includes) into the page at the time of the request. The browser / user agent receives the stuck together outcome. If googlebot / your browser had to do the work they would be called CLIENT side includes.

The pages are, therefore, indistinguishable from a normal HTML page, apart from the possibility of delayed server response. Lots of traffic + lots of SSIs = lots of processing work for the server to do for each request. This could slow your site down markedly.

[WebGuerrilla]

It is very simple to add a small piece of PHP that will allow you to send whatever last modified date you want. Add that with your SSI and it will work like a charm.

[ezyid]

that sounds great.. how would that be done?
honestly i didnt know the files had dates on them...
i must not have noticed..
but thatnkyou anyway.
steve.

[vincevincevince]

I have tried random text in the past - without good results in Google.

[phpdude]

I guess it depends on your server then since I've included NO type of SSI or tag on my page to modify the touch date, yet Googlebot seems to know whether it has changed or not.

[ezyid]

is this a good thing?
if so how to do?

thanx
steve.

[jimh009]

What's with trying to add a bunch of needless, useless text into your pages? It's been my experience that pages which are not frequently changed tend to RISE over time - assuming the page actually has a purpose and provides something unique.

This is not to say changing content on a page is bad. Of course it isn't - especially for the home page - where fresh content is always a good thing.

However, trying to "trick" Googlebot into visiting your far-interior pages more frequently by feeding up "garbage" content that has no reason to be there is only playing with fire if you ask me. You may get that page spidered more often - but that doesn't necessarily mean your rankings for those interior pages will improve. Quite the opposite may happen, in fact.