I've been doing some searching here and on other sites and it seems that using dynamic content can cause problems for search engines in that they don't like URL's with ? in them. So then I found out about mod-rewrite, so that instead of authors.php?authorid=1 I can have authors.php/1/index.php or something similar. What I want to know is - is this really as good as it sounds? Are there any downsides from a SEO point of view? Can search engines even tell if you're using this? Because escentially isn't this URL cloaking? Which I thought search engines din't like.
Also, one other question. Somebody told me that it's better to use .html extension rather than .php because search engines will know that .php is (probably) dynamic content. Personally I would have thought that they're wrong - seing that I could just as easily configure my web server to parse .html files with a php parser and therefore "fool" the search engines - if it is true that they prefer html file extensions. So my question is, if I do use mod-rewrite, should I rewrite the url as .php or .html extension?
Also, one other question. Somebody told me that it's better to use .html extension rather than .php because search engines will know that .php is (probably) dynamic content. Personally I would have thought that they're wrong - seing that I could just as easily configure my web server to parse .html files with a php parser and therefore "fool" the search engines - if it is true that they prefer html file extensions. So my question is, if I do use mod-rewrite, should I rewrite the url as .php or .html extension?
