# Can Google (et. al.) see rails pages? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [January 23, 2006, 5:02am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/can-google-et-al-see-rails-pages/64335 "2006-01-23T05:02:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jeffpritchard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/43a26b/32.png) [@jeffpritchard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jeffpritchard)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 5:02am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/can-google-et-al-see-rails-pages/64335/1 "2006-01-23T05:02:12Z")
Hi, Noob here. One problem faced by developers of active content is making sure that the final results of their magic result in URL’s that Google and other search engines are comfortable with. Otherwise, your content won’t ever get spydered and indexed and ultimately returned in a google user’s results pages. In reading the agile rails book, it seems that the URL’s are all simply the name of a controller, with no extension to tell a spyder or search engine what kind of content that URL will serve up – “.html”, or “.php”, or anything else that a spyder would be comfortable with. That being the case, are there ways to change how its written, or redirection tricks, or some other way to make a dynamic rails site deliver pages that search engines will index? thanks, jp ---
**Author:** ![jeffpritchard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/43a26b/32.png) [@jeffpritchard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jeffpritchard)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 5:07am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/can-google-et-al-see-rails-pages/64335/2 "2006-01-23T05:07:45Z")
On 1/22/06, Jeff P. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Hi, > Noob here. > > One problem faced by developers of active content is making sure that > the final results of their magic result in URL’s that Google and other > search engines are comfortable with. Otherwise, your content won’t ever > get spydered and indexed and ultimately returned in a google user’s > results pages. Google doesn’t have a problem indexing rails sites, but I"m unsure about the other engines. If you’re really worried about it, I think you could to same magic in your routes.rb files to get .html extensions. Not sure about that - I’ve never tried it. ---
**Author:** ![jeffpritchard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/43a26b/32.png) [@jeffpritchard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jeffpritchard)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 5:29am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/can-google-et-al-see-rails-pages/64335/3 "2006-01-23T05:29:03Z")
On Monday 23 Jan 2006 04:02, Jeff P. wrote: > One problem faced by developers of active content is making sure that > the final results of their magic result in URL’s that Google and other > search engines are comfortable with. Otherwise, your content won’t ever > get spydered and indexed and ultimately returned in a google user’s > results pages. Just think of all those ugly JSP and ASP “short novel” URLs that get indexed no problem - Rails URLs are a work of art by comparison. 🙂 > In reading the agile rails book, it seems that the URL’s are all simply > the name of a controller, with no extension to tell a spyder or search > engine what kind of content that URL will serve up – “.html”, or > “.php”, or anything else that a spyder would be comfortable with. That’s what the MIME type is for - only really old / broken user agents depend on the file extension to work out what the content is. You could theoretically serve your pages with the extension “.doc” or “.somerandomextensionthatimadeup”, or even no extension at all - as long as you set the MIME type correctly in the headers it will work great. In fact, I’m sure some future RFC recommended not using file extensions at all for anything (not even for images), though my Google-fu isn’t so great at this time of night that I can actually find it. > That being the case, are there ways to change how its written, or > redirection tricks, or some other way to make a dynamic rails site > deliver pages that search engines will index? The search engines will try to access each URL as if it were the root of a directory (so you know from back in the old days of “my first website” when you go to “/” and actually you’re seeing “index.html”), and thanks to the MIME type will recognise that it’s a HTML page. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”… this is a non-problem, so don’t worry about it, everything will work just fine as it is! 🙂 Cheers, ~Dave – Dave S. Rent-A-Monkey Website Development > **[Tree Removal Service For Home & Businesses in Salt Lake City, UT](https://www.rentamonkey.com/)** > > Rent A Monkey Tree Service provides the safest, highest-quality tree removal for Salt Lake City, UT homes and businesses. Request a service today! PGP Key: [http://www.rentamonkey.com/pgpkey.asc](http://www.rentamonkey.com/pgpkey.asc) ---
**Author:** ![jeffpritchard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/43a26b/32.png) [@jeffpritchard](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jeffpritchard)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 5:46am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/can-google-et-al-see-rails-pages/64335/4 "2006-01-23T05:46:20Z")
Dave S. wrote: > “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”… this is a non-problem, so don’t > worry > about it, everything will work just fine as it is! 🙂 > > Cheers, > > ~Dave Cool. It’s an interesting thing about technology. None of what you learn has a “freshness date” on it. There’s no way to know if you’re really smart because you’ve been learning this stuff for a long time, or really stupid because most of what you know ceased to be true yesterday (or in this case maybe a couple years ago). thanks, jp