[ic] Removing session ID from the URL

[Grant]

> > I'm experimenting with Google AdSense and Google sees
> > /page.html?id=abcd as a page not in its index although /page.html is.
> > This means it serves the default (non-targeted) ad to any page
> > accessed with a session ID in the URL.  I realize the id must be in
> > the URL to provide functionality for users not accepting session
> > cookies, but I think that's a tiny fraction at this point.  Is there
> > any way to disable the id?  Should I use Rewrite rules for this?
> 
> With the correct Robot* directives in interchange.cfg Google bots
> should never see session ids.
> 
> Bye
>         Racke

Hi Racke,

That's actually the problem.  Google indexes pages without the session
ID in the URL.  If you visit the same pages with an appended session
ID, Google will consider them different pages.  That means the AdSense
ads Google serves to the pages you visit won't be targeted to the
content of those pages.

It looks like IC usually appends a session ID to all links on the
first page of the session.  If IC gets a session cookie back from the
user after that, it keeps the session IDs out of the links.  Is there
any way to keep IC from appending session IDs right away?  If it would
wait until page #2 of the session, cookie-friendly sessions would
never get the id-appended URL (as long as they're POSTing).  That
would mean no lost AdSense opportunities.

Also, I've been noticing that after awhile IC will start serving pages
with session IDs appended to all URLs.  I'm seeing it in Firefox 1.0
on Linux.  I wonder if it's a Firefox or IC issue.  Has anyone else
noticed this?

- Grant

P.S. I recommend everybody at least give AdSense a try on their site. 
It's ridiculously easy to set up, free, and can be a nice stream of
revenue if you have traffic and Google can understand your pages. 
Amazon's doing it....