Is it this easy to create a static category page?
 

1) Use an .htaccess file to parse .html as php.

2) Create a category1.html

3) In category1.html put:


Could it be that easy? Any forseen problems with the affiliate module or the like?

You could do it as .php file the .html is of no relevance to google, its the ? after them that it may count against you.

So you could skip it and do

<?
$cat = "1";
include "./home.php";
?>

Inside a file called category1.php would have exactly the same effect without having to force your server to parse all .html files as PHP.

Would doing this effect any variables passed to home.php like affiliate links, etc.?

Technically it shouldn't affect it, all you're doing is including php within php so it should have access to all the variables unless the pages are doing anything non standard when reading the url params.

It's easy enough to test, set up an affilliate link and place a test sale through it and see if it registers it.

Will do. Thanks for your feedback.