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speedyskis
Joined: Nov 15, 2005
# Posts: 2
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Posted: 2005-Nov-16 02:50
hello
I have discovered messy PHP code that seems well indexed by google and I can't figure out why. Why does this matter? Because I am eternally looking for off the shelf CMS & blog solutions for clients that don't have the bigger bucks to spend. In fact I spend way too many hours researching them all, never finding the right 'one' because each situation in unique.
background: Many Open Source CMS solutions require Apache/Linux so that you can use the htaccess file to create 'clean' URL's (my-web-page.html). Or you need to change the IIS file and many shared servers will now allow that. I prefer windows hosting with CFM/SQL and PHP/MySQL so that I can program anything I want vs Apache/Linux hosting and no ColdFusion.
What I found: A web site for chief home officer via Google while looking for something else. I wondered about the long messy PHP & figured out they were using accrisoft. Then I Googled accrisoft and found a bunch of sites (because they all have a little accrisoft graphic or link) all with messy URL's like that one.
I've been testing WordPress and TextPattern among others with messy URL's - none of them have been indexed.(Assume I know what I'm doing after 10 years of this.)
Why are accrisoft generated messy URL's being indexed and while most other solutions with php & messy URL's are not?
- There is obviously an edit for title tag, but none had visible meta key or meta description.
- The sites are heavily weighted with code vs content.
- I didn't find a robots.txt file
- the sites fail the W3C validator
I'm intrigued but not in a rush to try more CMS and blog solutions. Any comments how accrisoft sites could possibly be so deeply indexed by google?
speedyskis
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lizardz
Joined: Nov 12, 2004
# Posts: 1394
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Posted: 2005-Nov-16 16:03
<<<<I prefer windows hosting with CFM/SQL and PHP/MySQL so that I can program anything I want vs Apache/Linux hosting and no ColdFusion.>>>>>>>>
If you prefer shared windows hosting, you won't have rewrite options.
If you want a good cms with clean urls, there are plenty of php ones out there, mambo with the correct seo clean url extension, can't remember which one, is good. I think it's mambo anyway. Of course as you note, you need to use apache to have access to .htaccess, which is how you do the rewrite.
If you're running a cms I don't see why the hosting needs to be IIS, but if you must use cfm (I guess someone has to use it or they'd stop selling it) I don't know, you need to get a dedicated IIS windows box, install the proper isapi rewrite module, and off you go.
If you find yourself unable to resolve issues due to your programming tastes, cfm? then why not try being a little more flexible, it's not like you can't program anything you want with php after all.
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speedyskis
Joined: Nov 15, 2005
# Posts: 2
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Posted: 2005-Nov-16 16:23
lizardz-
Your points touch on exactly what I said- if you want to use Mambo or WordPress or similar they require Apache. As an alternative- I think it's wordpress- could write clean URL's without Apache, but requires an IIS plugin, which my host company will not allow to be uploaded on a shared server.
Why CFM? how about because it uses 1/3 the code of ASP which makes it faster to develop. And because SQL (used with CFM) is more secure than MySql (used with PHP).
But we digress- the point of the post is to uncover why this particular PHP code from Accrisoft is being indexed when other Open Source PHP CMS programs are not.
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dirty_shame
Joined: Aug 28, 2005
# Posts: 191
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Posted: 2005-Nov-18 00:33
I've got a lot of years in this game too and I've been inclined to over-think things like this at times. Usually it's much ado about nothing. I suspect that's the case with Accrisofts' CMS.
Your choice of platform, server, database and programming language aside, when you think about it Accrisoft can't really produce any kind of truly 'superior' presentation over anything else. Sure, the code may be cleaner or the system may be easier to deploy and manage and all of that, but in the end what you see on the screen isn't substantially different than anybody else's. I don't think there are any secrets here that apply to actual visibility or SE placement.
Accrisoft is used by a bunch of corporations and that alone may make it more 'visible' just because it is the only thing that they have in common. It's like a closed-loop network of Accrisoft sites. But just like every other CMS program out there it is still way too generic for a lot of applications.
In other words, I cannot believe Accrisoft produces anything more suitable for the SEs than any other solution (unless it's a piece of junk that makes pages that resemble MSWords' version of HTML to load onto the Net). So it's a red herring.
So far as CFM/SQL being "more secure" than PHP/MySQL, naw. You've just got a database and a hook, that's all. You can make the interaction between them as secure as you want, depending upon what your needs are. You can encrypt/decrypt data with everything from mcrypt to 256blowfish if you want to. CFM and PHP are both far more efficient at doing that than ASP for sure - with a quarter of the scripting - so it just boils down to what you feel more comfortable with and like to use.
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lizardz
Joined: Nov 12, 2004
# Posts: 1394
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Posted: 2005-Nov-18 08:45
"CFM/SQL being "more secure" than PHP/MySQL"
I'd like to see some data on this, somehow I kind of doubt it. I kind of suspect the person posting this just likes cfm, nothing wrong with that, but running php/mysql on windows, that's kind of silly.
If mysql is secured it's secure, and it's simple to secure it. Thinking some simplified scripting thing is secure, I don't know, I hear that a lot, seen the claim many times, it's why i don't use the products that have made those claims, IIS comes to mind. If security is an actual concern, then using IIS or Windows server is not something you'd do. So security is clearly not a concern, that's a red herring in this thread.
This is a first though, I've never seen a cfm fan in the wilds, I'd heard about them, but never actually seen one. Maybe it's time to learn Lisp after all?
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dirty_shame
Joined: Aug 28, 2005
# Posts: 191
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Posted: 2005-Nov-22 08:56
Content management is moving up the ladder. The ladder goes like this:
SGML, XML, (PHP, ASP, CFM) => HTML
Let's say you want to run all the Associated Press (AP) feeds from anywhere in the world, WIFI, live feeds and everything else currently possible, securely.
China doesn't like 128 encryption (and either does France among many others) so you have to write code to defeat the restrictions. Gonna use Cold Fusion? I don't think so. ASP? Not likely.
CFM is a great language that has no scope, globally. ASP is a good language, but cumbersome. Both of them require an expensive license and you have to call somebody at the Home Office to drag the source code out of the refrigerator - just to figure out what you need to do - just to let some guy from China submit his article.
It's just easier to use PHP and the global developer support they already have established to help you accomplish that. CFM/SQL is not mentioned anywhere as a legitimate enterprise competitor to Oracle, dah, dah. But PHP/MySql is. Hmmmm. Nobody outside the U.S. thinks anything about ASP which is very strange if you consider the fact that Bill Gates made his original stipend by open-sourcing DOS to the world.
If PHP wasn't an open source program there'd be a federal antitrust suit against "them" tommorrow for overwhelming the market and diminishing their (namely everybody else charging money for their language) income by way of free and open programming - whatever that is supposed to mean.
You know, in all this talk about interpretive languages, does anybody even know binary anymore? Do you even know anybody who can write straight binary or want to? Not.
Content management. Go down to your local auto parts house and they'll be runnin' some evil Pascal or Fortran or A+ program that their superiors installed 8,000 years ago (by Web time) and then understand content management to the max.
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lizardz
Joined: Nov 12, 2004
# Posts: 1394
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Posted: 2005-Nov-23 04:07
"Content management. Go down to your local auto parts house and they'll be runnin' some evil Pascal or Fortran or A+ program that their superiors installed 8,000 years ago (by Web time) and then understand content management to the max."
dirty_shame, it's funny to see you post so clearly on this topic, php etc, but not apply the same type of logic to our newest friend google, but at least you're strong in this area.
I'm curious though, just what do you mean by the above quote? To me it sounds like you think using a cms is a long term error, which is by the way my feeling, especially after seeing enough security patches come out on product after product, forums, etc over time to realize that these web based content management systems, whatever you call them, blogs, forums, cms solutions are maybe not quite what people think they are.
But I'd be interested to read more of your thoughts on this, as I noted, while I don't agree with your takes on google etc, your programming stuff is pretty interesting, at least it is to me.
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dirty_shame
Joined: Aug 28, 2005
# Posts: 191
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Posted: 2005-Nov-23 15:45
I'm in line with many of your concerns about Google to some extent. Any company that's big enough to now become a verb in the English Language Dictionary is pretty scary, I agree. On the other hand, I just want to give their products a complete and thorough examination by participating in their schemes now if only to make intelligent recommendations to my clients in the future. But I keep everything on a leash, so to speak. A Devils Advocate post here and there sure brings a number of things into focus in these forums though.
CMS has always been a strange animal to me. Several things are exposed in the way CMS programs are currently being created in the first place. The approach is wrong.
They're trying to write Webware based upon the old, local computer software model. It's a step backwards instead of forwards. The more they do that, the less flexible and adaptable the product becomes. Pretty soon, sure enough, you need patches and version upgrades and code tweaks and... The whole idea of building truly Evolutionary Webware (whereby the core can actually change dramatically and dynamically as needs demand) is out the window.
Every desktop-to-website publishing system I've seen is some God-awful hybrid with, maybe, an FTP client jammed into a slot like an extra appendage. Then there's the tendency of CMSs to become oatmeal generic with 10,000 "features" you have no need for. I wonder how many people use over ten percent of the Windows features on their own computers?
Some of this CMS stuff has a very familiar ring to it. It's the sound of a few thousand programmers trying to make their extended retirement income by writing proprietary software just like they've always done. That's the auto-parts-house type connection I'm getting. Sideline: You walk into any escrow office or title company or county courthouse in the nation and you'll see a bunch of people typing with their cap-lock set to "on", into some black-screen program written in Basic. The guy who wrote it has long since retired in Phoenix or Orlando or wherever and is using his endless, ongoing royalties to pay for his country club membership.
I guess all the CMS stuff I'm seeing still has the foul smell of obsolescence. I find it hilarious that the new way to market these programs is to call them "organic". Nothing could be less organic than a bunch of electrons in a digital transmission. Anyway, there are a lot of other chinks in the armor regarding content management systems and I'm just touching on a few things that give me the overall impression of impending doom when it comes to choosing one.
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lizardz
Joined: Nov 12, 2004
# Posts: 1394
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Posted: 2005-Nov-23 19:28
A Devils Advocate post here and there sure brings a number of things into focus in these forums though.
Always a good strategy, I've had great success with that method over the years...
Nothing could be less organic than a bunch of electrons in a digital transmission.
Great, quotable, put it up on your wall and look at it daily, very accurate statement, nice to see someone who actually gets what computers and the web are, that's annoyingly rare. Plus of course data trunklines, server farms that consume a small town's worth of electricity, chip fab plants that are filled with some of the most toxic industrial chemicals available, and all that other stuff it takes to actually view a webpage. Happily the Wired magazine flavor of techno utopian is getting slightly less popular now than it was in the late 90's, but it still underlies far too much of what passes for thought in high tech circles.
Anyway, there are a lot of other chinks in the armor regarding content management systems and I'm just touching on a few things that give me the overall impression of impending doom when it comes to choosing one.
I'm really glad to read someone who is looking at these things with a critical eye. I've been feeling very uneasy about moving to these things, I've avoided it in most cases, and in the cases where I haven't avoided it, forums, a test blog, etc, the bottom line is the package is not stable, ever, constant updates in order to maintain the security of the application. Bad programming is a constant, wordpress for example really stands out, globals all over the place, no smooth upgrade path from 1 to 1.5, I'm going to dump that one I think.
The cause is exactly what you see as far as I can tell, far too many features to satisfy far too many different tastes, these packages should always start with an absolute base minimum functionality, in the case of a cms, it should generate a new page and navigation to that page, period. Then modules should extend that base functionality. I've written small applications that create parts of these functionalities, very simple, very stable, they just sit there, a few small security patches to fix vulnerabilities I missed, then nothing more.
I'd guess that in a few months I could tie most of them together and have a very tight small cms, but I have never really been able to convince myself that it's actually worth doing, the parts are, but not the whole. The further away I can keep the user from the data the happier I am, the closer to it I let them the harder it is to maintain security, one site I do is custom programmed, but I only let one guy into the control area, takes two separate logins to access controls, which are pretty raw in terms of security.
It took me a while to start realizing that the convenience I get from making easy postings, or having users make postings, on say a forum, is always counteracted the requirement to do security updates, which are ongoing. Then when a new version comes along, all the hacks and tweaks break, you have to start all over. That's roughly a 3 year cycle. So any application you currently install will be out of date in 3 years, that's a safe bet. That time frame is completely unacceptable to me. And inside that 3 year span you can expect to do up to 6 security patch updates a year.
Some forums avoid the biggest problems by security through obscurity, aka roll your own, like searchengineforums or webmasterworld, but evne then they can almost certainly be cracked by anyone willing to spend the time finding the holes.
From what I've heard and read, OScommerce has become the open source version of what you're describing, so buggy and problematic that only the developers can really implement it decently, and so they charge you do it. To me, in the open source arena, it most closely matches the problems you lay out. As Mr. T says: I pity the fool that runs OScommerce. I have one install of that that I am in absolute terror of even touching, I got it working, barely, and that's it, I will never touch it again, I have never in my life seen worse programming. And that's the best known open source shopping cart on the market.
I've talked to an ex developer on that particular project, he said that there were one or two developers whose servers ran php 3, and just to keep them happy they kept using deprecated php in the code rather than bring it fully upto date. Things like that are ridiculous.
I think I can safely say I've never seen a web application that does content management that I'm actually happy with, although some seem to get the point better than others.
I like the direction some projects seem to be going, but overall, and in another life, I'd write my own, but I don't want to put out the energy for that now.
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dirty_shame
Joined: Aug 28, 2005
# Posts: 191
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Posted: 2005-Nov-24 10:35
I feel your pain. I've written a couple of online CMS systems that must be upgraded once in awhile to replace the depricated code you mentioned. Hell, it's always depricated no matter what you do. Classes, DOM, COM, dah, dah...It is certainly a challenge for somebody. Not me. It bores me, which is even worse than somebody putting a Lobster on your head and not noticing it's there for two hours.
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