Almost any developer knows that search engine placement is
critical to the success of a web site. What many people don’t
know is that a lot of search engines cannot index many database-driven
pages (basically any page with a ‘?’ or ‘&’ in the URL).
critical to the success of a web site. What many people don’t
know is that a lot of search engines cannot index many database-driven
pages (basically any page with a ‘?’ or ‘&’ in the URL).
So when I set about building gotoCity.com, one
of my goals was to make the site database-driven, but still indexable. I didn’t want
any use of cookies or mile-long URLs, and the site had to be co-brandable
to top it all off. That meant the look-and-feel of the site had to be dependent
on which “affiliate” site was being accessed (gotoCity.com is just one incarnation of the
“DirectriCity” engine).
of my goals was to make the site database-driven, but still indexable. I didn’t want
any use of cookies or mile-long URLs, and the site had to be co-brandable
to top it all off. That meant the look-and-feel of the site had to be dependent
on which “affiliate” site was being accessed (gotoCity.com is just one incarnation of the
“DirectriCity” engine).
To pull this off, I started with a subtle Apache feature that can “force” a
script to be called for any certain directory tree. In my case, I wanted all
URLs that fall under “/local/” to call a script. This would be MUCH easier
than creating 200,000 localized, co-branded web pages and a genuine directory
structure to match it.
script to be called for any certain directory tree. In my case, I wanted all
URLs that fall under “/local/” to call a script. This would be MUCH easier
than creating 200,000 localized, co-branded web pages and a genuine directory
structure to match it.
So in Apache’s
access.conf
<Location /local>
ForceType application/x-httpd-php3
</Location>
This forces everything under the “/local/” directory to call a script called
“local” in the root of my server. “local” then uses PHP to parse the URL
and act accordingly:
“local” in the root of my server. “local” then uses PHP to parse the URL
and act accordingly:
