Is there any way I can convert dynamic URL into static URL in php? i.e. convert php file into html so that the page is search engine friendly. For example:

Change this: http://mysite.com/pagename.php
To this: http://mysite.com/pagename
or this: http://mysite.com/pagename.html

I know there is something called mod_rewrite in Apache, but not sure how it works and whether it's related to what I want.

Thanks for any comment.

Yes, mod_rewrite is what you want if you are using Apache.

If anybody has any proof, I'd like to see it, but the official word from Google and others is that data-driven content (.ASP, .PHP, .JSP, etc.) is not a problem for their spiders. The only problem for spiders associated with data-driven pages is speed. A spider obviously "browses" your site a lot faster than a human. It may request a dozen pages in a single second. Spiders are not as patient as most humans, either. If your page takes 5 seconds to return--whether static or data-driven, the spider may consider the link bad and move on.

My point is that jumping through hoops to make your data-driven pages LOOK like static pages doesn't help your pages load any faster--which is the real issue with search engines--at least Google anyway.

Google has a Facts & Fiction page here that explains they can index dynamic pages.
http://www.google.com/webmasters/facts.html

At least for google, querystrings are not an issue either, although they do recommend you keep your querystrings short with only a few parameters.

Another "secret" is that if the only way to get to your pages is via a search on your site, then a spider will never find them. You do need every page that you want indexed somehow linked from another page. For example, if your site sells fruit, and the only way for me to reach your fruit_detail.php?fruit=apple page is by searching your inventory for "apple", then a bot will not find this page. However, if I can click on "Inventory" in your menu, then click "Apples" on your page listing all the fruit you sell, a bot can follow these links, too. (This assumes your menu is not generated by javascript, does not require javascript to navigate, and is not a Flash movie menu.)

This is a huge topic, and should be discussed in http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/forum45.html, but one last tip I can offer is to remember you need standard links to your content. If a link has a target like <a href="javascript:LoadPage('fruit.htm')">Fruit</a>, a spider will not be able to follow this link since they cannot run client-side script.

Troy, that's really helpful!

I realise the search engine can search through dynamic site, but not many people convince about this, especially those non-programmers. this is why I try to have html version to convince my clients.

I developed an ASP site for a client years ago. The site is still in use today. It is an ASP site using a SQL Server database. The site has only 5 ASP scripts that produce over 250 data-driven pages. So all the "page" URLs are similar to trip.asp?S=14&L=57. Although the pages load very fast, I read that search engines may not search ASP pages, so I wrote a powerful (but surprisingly simple) script that generates a static HTML site from the ASP site. It crawls the site like a spider and generates a static .htm version of every dynamic page. Now, about once a week, the client runs the "generate static site" utility to update the site with recent data changes. The result is that I've not seen any improvement in search engine ranking. The site was indexed before, just 100s of hits down in the results. This has not changed.

I know there is a lot more to SEO than static vs dynamic, but my point is that in my experience and from what I read from Google, static vs dynamic does not matter.

They "prefer" .html pages over dynamic pages, but Google doesn't care, they spider forums just fine, take a look at vBulletin.com for example, ALOT is indexed

http://mysite.com/pagename
http://mysite.com/pagename.html

Both will work in mod_rewrite.

As for http://mysite.com/pagename, try
RewriteRule ^pagename pagename.php

As for http://mysite.com/pagename.html, try
RewriteRule ^pagename.html pagename.php

There is an another option you can also try called php pathinfo. http://www.tutorio.com/tutorial/php-...-friendly-urls

Hope it helps.

An example of how to write a simple rewriting rule:

[URL sipped]

4 year bump! Drink!