I often see that websites use more than one page to display their information, while I’ve always preferred to use a single page which automatically changes its content by means of a PHP script.. Won’t it be faster and simpler to have only one page that changes every time using a webpage argument, instead of having multiple copies of the same layout?
For instance:
... <body> ... <?php insert_requested_content(); ?> ... </body> ...
should be simpler than having a bunch of pages with the same header, footer, navbar, etc..
When I create a website, I usually have one index.php page and then the content pages, which are included into the index.php by the script, when they are requested by an argument such as:
http://mywebsite.com/?content=news
So: why people still use many different pages? Is there any particular need of doing this, or it’s just a matter of choice?
Do spiders encounter any difficulties when trying to access the content of a website created with this design?
Your program structure is usually made easier by having multiple pages to reflect your different content while maintaining a common header/footer and css that can be inserted as you stated above. Placing all of your content in one page and dynamically trying to determine what the user is requesting and display it properly can become a nightmare of if/else statements if your site gets much more than three or four pages of content.