Problems with joining up 2 pages.

tigermann · 12-11-2003, 03:38 AM

Hi,

I am trying to add a common footer page to my main pages.

I seem to be able to do this in php (with dreamweaver) at this test site:
http://www.privatesales24.com/php/

But when I try to do this with FrontPage using the "include page" function the footer page is not included:
http://www.privatesales24.com/fp/

I can see that the codes are there on the main page (index.htm):
<p> </p>


Anyone familiar with FrontPage?

Could it be a server side problem? I am hosting it at a Unix server.

**LazyJim** · 12-11-2003, 04:35 AM

I do not know FP, but I would guess FP requires FP extensions on the host.

simply look up the code in your page made in DW and tranfer the PHP "island" of code to the FP code.

if u don't want to use PHP another option is SSI (server side includes) which work like a cross between the PHP and the FP solutions, but again, like any of those solutions, requires the host to have particular software installed. I think PHP is the most common of the three to be installed on hosts.

dave conz · 12-11-2003, 02:46 PM

Don't use the FP webbots. FP will always let you down. Guaranteed.

Use PHP or SSI. They will both be available on any half-decent hosting plan.

Alternatively, as I suggested recently on another thread, do it yourself manually. I run sites with thousands of pages using "find and replace" to update page components such as footers. It has fewer drawbacks than benefits and frees you from having to worry about anything like PHP or SSI. Honestly, it's just not the archaic system that some people will tell you it is. I've used them all and I'll stick with doing it manually.

It helps to use comments, then you can use regular expressions to find and replace. EG:

Footer Stuff

**LazyJim** · 12-11-2003, 03:38 PM

that means ppl have to download the code for headers and footers etc for every page!

SSI and PHP are common enough not to cause problems with finding the right host.

any sever performance lost to processing the includes would be offset by the extra time and bandwidth used to server the code multiple times.

so it's a trade-off, does your server suffer from too much PHP processing overheads, or too much loading?

This is a useful time for frames - they don't require processing or downloading after the 1st time! Other alternatives to frames should be available, but aren't really yet I don't think.

tigermann · 12-11-2003, 04:49 PM

Dave and Jim, thanks for the comments.

Quote:

I run sites with thousands of pages using "find and replace" to update page components such as footers. It has fewer drawbacks

I don't have thousands of pages but I don't quite fancy the manual bit of uploading even 100 pages ....!
I think I'll stick to php for now.
But may I ask this: if I use php would the SE robots read the 3 joined pages (head, main and footer) as a single page everytime?

Distorted · 12-11-2003, 05:08 PM

I'd think that they would.

The 3 pages are seperate entities on the server only. When someone, or something, requests the page that they are included on, they are served as 1 page.

**LazyJim** · 12-11-2003, 05:56 PM

yes they would be seen as a whole single page as Distorted says.

tigermann · 12-11-2003, 06:21 PM

Fantastica! Thanks chaps.

tigermann · 12-13-2003, 11:07 AM

Hi all,

I am using php to join up the 3 pages (header,main,footer) and I was just wondering - should I put the TITLE and META TAGs on all 3 pages?

These tags ...
<html>
<head>
<title>xxx</title>
<meta name="description" content="xxxx.">
<meta name="keywords" content="xx">
</head>

kwvarga · 12-13-2003, 11:15 AM

no
that should all be in header...

if you want to different titles
on main page do $title = "Main Page"
then include header file..

in header file do
<title><?php echo $title; ?></title>

tigermann · 12-13-2003, 06:39 PM

Thanks.

In that case should I also do the same for the keyword and description tags?
$keyword = "Main Page"

Google might not use the keyword tags but I think it uses the description in the SERPS - I would like it to describe each main page differently to suit its content.