The problem with that approach is that you will never be able to personalize the results - or for example show a shopping cart to store selections, since your content is now static. Unless you have an ajax driven part.

From an engineering point of view, I would focus on providing functionality until I have a performance bottleneck - and at that point the correct approach is to cache some of the slow query results since the database usually consumes 90% of the script run time. Another approach is to speedup the database. Since the disk is what slows it down ( you can identify that by running atop ) the straight solution is to speed up disks - use RAID !

A third approach is to use faster storage engines, like BerkelyDB or derby instead of postgres or mysql. That would require more work on the code side, but will produce faster pages without changing the hardware.

If the CPU is a bottle neck then just cache some of the slow queries as I described earlier - however, you would really need a significant load with super fast RAIDs to reach that point.

So my school of thought is to continue using dynamic pages.

For updating listings, I compare the ModificationTimestamp in the Property search type. A similar time stamp exists with media.

So, do you write unique html pages every day, or do you only grab the homes that are updated? If so, which field do you use to scrub for homes that are updated?

Agents have to use the Broker’s site, or pay for a monthly service through a 3rd party provider, like homesdatabase or MLSFinder.

Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. Feel free to not post this.

Your fan

My bottom line is people requesting to see properties, and I’m happy with that. Actually, I’ll be rolling an update soon that will enhance on a lot of features in the website. The times when I roll new features is usually followed by a big increase in traffic, followed by an increase in business.

The main thing that grows a website (at least my websites) business is content, quality and features it presents.

I have another one which is actually growing faster than this ! http://www.clker.com may be because its audience is worldwide instead of MD & VA.

If PHP didn’t have to query any database, it will be extremely fast. Querying the database is the slow part, and is the part that requires most engineering effort in order to make pages appear fast.

In regards to real estate, I’m in real estate because I like real estate ! It’s exactly the same as I like developing website & research…. I enjoy doing real estate transactions, that’s why people benefit when buying with me.

And why are you a realtor again?

I don’t even get all that database stuff. You say “design your database” but then you say “adding a database” slows it down. So if you have no database…?

It’s good that you think its fast, even after I downgraded the machine. The old machine had a dual core Opteron on 1GB RAM. I actually found that I get a very reasonable performance on a Sempron 64 bit also on 1GB of RAM, I just had to correctly schedule priorities ! board & processor $75, ram $41 and I had an old case.

I use GNU/Linux (ubuntu), apache, postgres & php and edit using emacs. Its all about how you design your database, creating the correct indexes and using the powerful features in your tools. PHP is very fast. Adding a database whether it is mysql or postgres, will slow it down. It then becomes your job to optimize queries so that scripts run faster. There’s no magic or secrets about it.

Just as an FYI, I’ve had few minor issues here and there with the KVM switch. Mainly when trying to download updates for attached peripherals. The problems were easily corrected by unhooking the KVM switch.

Regards,

LaMont

I agree that site content is super important and better content should be rewarded. I am still however impressed by the job that Google has done with their page ranking algorithms. There is so much data to consider and it is amazing how they can return pretty relevant results so quickly.

As far as impressing the search engines peopel will always try, ut the algs. will respond and ultimatly it comes down to the users expreience.

thx
-S

As far as impressing the search engines peopel will always try, ut the algs. will respond and ultimatly it comes down to the users expreience.

Best regards,
WMA