TWITTER HOW-TO TIP #77 What’s best? PHP or Javascript for your Twitter RSS feeds?
September 22nd, 2008
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NOTE: This Twitter How-to Tip is an authorized part of the “Twittin’ Secrets” Series: 100 World’s Greatest Twitter Tips and Twitter Secrets by Internet and Twitter Strategist, Dan Hollings.
TWITTER HOW-TO TIP #77
What’s best? PHP or Javascript for your Twitter RSS feeds? Here’s the deal… there are many services, gadgets and widgets that make displaying Twitter posts on your blog or site very easy:
AddTweets.com (http://addtweets.com)
Or search Widgetbox.com (http://www.widgetbox.com/search?q=twitter)
Or search The Twitter Wiki (http://twitter.pbwiki.com/)
Or search Google Gadgets (http://www.google.com/ig/directory?q=Twitter)
Or build your own at SproutBuilder (http://sproutbuilder.com/)
However, you must be aware that Google and other search engine spiders are blind to Javascript and Javascript feed displays (this includes most gadgets and widgets). So while a visitor can read your Twitter feed at your blog or site, Google can not.
If your goal is to get your Twitter feeds (and the pages they are on) ranked in Google, a javascript solution will do you no good. The answer to this challenge is to use an ASP or PHP server based script to render your Twitter feed as real text and HTML on your blog or site. To find an “ASP Feed Script,” just do a Google search. The PHP solution I recommend is called CaRP. The SEO value of using CaRP and RSS (in general) and a link to download CaRP is at http://go2468.com/carp
