Is it bad to have your pages as .php pages?

[BruLee]

Hello everyone,

Is it bad to have your website pages indexed as .php?

For example, the contact page is site.com/contact.php and not /contact. Does this affect your SEO rankings in any way? Is it better to have your pages without the extension?

Also, if I'm working with a news site and the urls are dynamic for every article (ie site.com/articleid=2323.)

Should I change all of those dynamic urls to static?

Thank You.

[Mr.Rangen]

First question, it's personal preference. Just be sure you decide early on what you want to do, then stick with it. Changing it after the fact is where you're going to lose out a  bit.

Second part, if you're using web publisher, look at the long-term strategy for URL structure before making the switch. ID's will probably still be necessary/recommended, but that's not to say you can't spruce them up with article titles and page numbers as well.

[eyepaq]

For example, the contact page is site.com/contact.php and not /contact. Does this affect your SEO rankings in any way? Is it better to have your pages without the extension?

** No, this won't affect the rankings in any way.

It's better for sharing the link and user experience to have the url without the extension - but that's minor overall. You can edit the htaccess file to "hide" the extension - that's easy and fast (10-20min session).

Also, if I'm working with a news site and the urls are dynamic for every article (ie site.com/articleid=2323.)

*** Yes, that will affect the rankings. Keywords as part of the urls are important.

Should I change all of those dynamic urls to static?

** Defiantly yes.

[danbocain]

I wouldn't get to concerned about having an a file extension in your URL. If you can remove/hide it, by all means go for it because it couldn't hurt + it looks a little nicer.  With that said though, I wouldn't go out of my way to hire a developer to do that, it's not going to make a major impact on your ranking ability.