Does Scripting Language Matter for SEO?

Which is best CFM, PHP, ASP, ASPX, or html?

[JimmiPhoenix]

I am new to these forums and find them incredibly valuable. I am just wondering if certain scripting languages are viewed more favorably by the search engines or if they have any real impact on rankings at all? I have seen discussions about this in the past but can't seem to find anything current. Thank you!

[rocknbil]

Welcome aboard Jimmi, generally speaking, search engines digest the page's content, they really don't care how the web site delivers it. As long as it is functioning properly, and outputs valid html, a site's server-side programming has no real effect on search engines.

The exception, I think, is dynamic programming that uses rediculously=long&query=strings&in=the&URI+or+URL. This can be remedied by careful integration with mod_rewrite so you can user keyword_rich_URIs to point to cryptic query strings.

The two bolded points above are important, though. I've seen tons of ASP pages disabled by spurious errors, and a lot of server-side programming still use font tags, invalid nesting, and other tricks to capitalize presentation over semantics. If you program from scratch, it doesn't hurt to validate yor output. :-)