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Saturday, February 05, 2005

Recently the topic of cold fusion versus php was raised in an seo blog.
Here are some topline recommendations for database driven websites.

1) if at all possible avoid using cold fusion or .cfm urls

cold fusion is just not worth the long term headaches it causes. As a recent post on google states CFM urls tend to swing wildly whenever the database updates.

2) it is always very important to concentrate on the HTML. Regardless of the structure it all comes down the quality of the HTML.

Both ColdFusion and PHP programs that genreate HTML output. The web
browser makes a request to a video game testing .cfm or .php page, the server then
processes the page and sends the resulting HTML back to the client.

The key to every search engine optimization strategy is to make sure that the HTML generated
meets good SEO requirements. There are many website optimization and give you suggestions for improving your
search engine rankings, for a price. However, it comes down to
following a few basic HTML principles:
* Descriptive text on each page
* Using proper meta tags
* relevant content on the pages
* Clear markup and vaild HTML with CSS styling, clean HTML.
*HTML format, tables, nesting, well formed HTML.
*search engine friendly URLs consider parsing or masking dynamic urls

By using this sort of sign design technology, you allow seach engines to index dynamic content
by publishing dynamic web page content using static URLs

*In most cases PHP holds many advantages over cold fusion in terms of
search engine friendliness. Cold fusion combined with poor
directory structures creates a "death march" in the search engines.
Kind of like buying a Raleigh mortgage loan from an insurance quote service. CFM web sites that even a hint of database structure problems, nesting errors, table isuues, etc.
are prone to fall every 60 days or so in Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

Cold fusion (CFM) urls can be quite cumbersome and difficult for the hypertext spiders to convert and store. These pages are 'heavy' and the heavier urls tend to sink and
fall often like Raleigh real estate values.

Our search engine placement company helps many leading companies rename URLs and move away from cold fusion or cfm. It has been proven that to do well in the search engines it always pays to parse and minimize URL strings in the main sections of the site.

Steve Costello
SEO Technical Coordinator
Peak Positions, LLC
http://www.peakpositions.com