On 14/07/06, Pete <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, James > Keeline <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes > > >--- Pete <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >> On your error page, you can automatically forward the user to another > >> page. You can set up whatever rules you want, within your error page, > >> to calculate which page the user should be sent to. > >> > >> I have a site which displays properties. I want visitors to be able to > >> find the properties fast, so I tell them to go to > >> http://hahomes.com/348 > >> and it goes to a custom error page, notices that the page you requested > >> is simply a number (348), displays a "please wait whilst I find you > >> property 348, and then forwards you to the page which shows you property > >> number 348. Very easy for a user to use! > >> > >> -- > >> Pete Clark > > > >That probably works most of the time but the search engine spiders may not > like > >it. We had a situation where a requested page sent a 404 and then > forwarded to > >the correct page and the spiders stopped as soon as they saw the 404. It > >really hurt our search engine ranking. > > > >A series of mod_rewrite rules would be better in this instance. You could > look > >for a number after the domain name and use it as a GET variable for your > lookup > >script. > > > >James > > I would agree, I don't think that the search engines can see the pages > via this route. But there are alternative routes to the same pages, > which search engines CAN see. > > This is an additional route, to make it very easy for visitors to find > individual properties that we want them to see. > > > -- > Pete Clark > > Free advertising for your website, business, or organisation at: > http://www.hotcosta.com/resources.php > >
It's quite possibly a good thing that search engine's can't see these routes, as, in many cases, they shouldn't really exist anyway.. we're just trying to make our sites more friendly to the users. What you can do to help search engines (and users) is provide a more accurate error code. Create a list of pages that no longer exist and a map of pages that have moved and return the relevant codes for GONE (410) and MOVED (301). If the failed page is in neither list then you could return a 404 as the page probably doesn't and never did exist. Phill Community email addresses: Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Shortcut URL to this page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/php-list Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/php-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
