Forum Moderators: mack
I've just started a 12 page site using query strings such as
www.mydomain.com/article.php?t=page-title&id=3
The article part stays the same on each page, the page title and id change. I can't rewrite the url because my hosting won't let me change the .htaccess files to do this. Is there a way to use something like www.mydomain.com/page-title/ without using htaccess?
The pages got indexed but had the 'similar pages have been omitted from results' message at the bottom of google.
I just checked again and all but 2 pages have drop out of the index altogether. I know it is early days as I only launched a week ago, but I think this could be a bad sign.
I have used nofollow links on most links to external sites, maybe this is having a negative effect?
The content is all new so I thought it might do well. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Is there a way to use something like www.mydomain.com/page-title/ without using htaccess?
Yes, you could use your scripting language to have a URL like www.mydomain.com/area/page1/ , and use the component paths of the URL to figure out which page to serve. This would involve rewriting your code a little though.
I have used nofollow links on most links to external sites, maybe this is having a negative effect?
Debatable. I think the general consensus is that Google insist you take care on which sites you link to. If you believe the sites you're linking to to be of high quality and well maintained it shouldn't be a problem. I doubt there is a need to use the nofollow and removing it should not have a adverse effect on your search engine positions.
The content is all new so I thought it might do well
That would be a common problem. Do you have links from other sites pointing to your pages?
Thanks for your reply. A few of the pages have re-appeared in the index but I am still keen to change the URLs for SEO purposes, and so they look better for users. I was interested to read your idea to use components of the URL to serve pages. I found the PHP parse_url() so I will have a play with that.
The sites I am linking to are all major high quality sites, I realise nofollow isn't really indended for these, I just thought my new site with a lot of outbound links might work better with them.
I have done some link building from social bookmarking sites, and working on links from other related sites.
Cheers
Tom
Can you give any more clues on the URL converting? I can create the list of links to nice static pages. My head hurts when I try and figure out how to serve the correct page, without actually have that file saved on the server.
The only thing I've found searching google is this :
Some people I know use this kind of URL: mysite.com/index.php/article/165 and index.php does an include() of article.php?id_article=165
But I would ideally like to not have the index.php part. Maybe I'm just hoping for too much..
I was thinking about this the other day and realised you wouldn't be able to use my suggestion without .htaccess use. Apologies :)
If your above alternative works I'd say it's one (or one of a few) alternatives. It's possible to remove the .php for something else but again, you'd have to have access to either .htaccess or httpd.conf
[edited by: brotherhood_of_LAN at 11:58 am (utc) on Dec. 18, 2008]
O.k thanks. I think I may just use static urls for this site, and display the page with the ID feeding a function. I will use htaccess for sites on other (decent) hosting. Just shows you get what you pay for I guess.
Tom
Just shows you get what you pay for I guess.
Indeed..it seems like a major hassle in this case not to have .htaccess, and in general.
