Does using "include" files in PHP or ASP affect search engine
performance and/or results? Specifically, we're concerned that the
links that we embedded in the "include" files will not be recognized
by Web crawlers.

Hi, 

PHP and ASP pages are rendered into basic HTML before they leave the
server. All include files, and parsing is added and rendered before
that time. Any browser, or bot, or search bot, will only see the
finished page, and never know that an include file was used to create
that page.

PHP especially, takes in the include files, and creates on big program
from these, before it even starts on the rendering part. The only
reason the include file is used, is so that the programmer can work
easier, instead of working with a single file that is 10,000 lines of
code long. Without them, websites of any real complexity would be much
more expensive, simple in the time it takes to maintain them.

ASP files are compiled programs, which render in the same fashion. The
only true difference is that one is compiled before the call, and one
is compiled after. They would have even less of a problem in this
manner than PHP, which has no problem at all.

PHP Include function
http://www.php.net/function.include

webadept-ga

The answer was very helpful, but the writeup had a couple of typos
that made it a bit hard to read.