PHP vs. HTML

[thejosh]

Do HTML pages index better in search engines than PHP pages?

Thank you for the help.

[grace5]

html is has always worked best for me

php is fine but the "?" is a problem for some SE.
Most get around this by using mod rewrite which produces shorter urls without the "?"

[spiderden]

I have it running both ways and have no issues, I like the .html better using the rewrite, everyone screams static or .html pages, but if you look at the big sites that stay in the number one spots, they are all database driven so it really does not matter that much.

Here's a cool trick if you build multiple sites with content that is almost or the same, Use mod rewrite and htaccess and make a copy of your site domainname.com/index.php and a copy (different domain) ... .htm .asp or .aspx and so on... I used .wtf and they crawled it... no issues , thought about playing with .brb or .btw or a big one like .rtfm

anyway... its something different

[khuldun]

So why do all the forums get seo and then have their forum urls changed from .php to .html? Just like DNForum for example?

[NosajiX]

google "mod-rewrite" i think youll find the answer

[paradis]

php or html Any difference
There are problems with php?q...

[Darren06]

Search engines tend to think .html are static pages so they like them more, because they require less re-visiting. But PHP should work just as well.

[MrDude]

x.php?t=1 and x.php?t=2 can sometimes be classed as just x.php by some search engines, the same page. The reason forums such as dnforum use rewritten urls is for SEO.

Eg: php-vs-html-thread-135778.html

The search Engine would read the URL as php vs html thread 135778 therefore anyone searching for php vs html might have more chance ending up finding this topic.

[denny007]

Also important is, the page gives "last modified" and answers correctly "if-modified-since" requests. Which might be difficult for generated pages, but not impossible. DNforum does not do it, so it probably gets some "penalties" from search engines.