On 23 Jun 98, at 19:17, Suzanne wrote:
> "What about static vs. dynamic pages? I've read that the search engines
> won't pick up dynamic pages, and that many smaller ecommerce
> programs/hosts don't allow for static pages. Do you know how
> Shopsite/First Host works in that respect?"
I have been writing some spiders with the LWP library based on work by Tom
Christiansen and Randal Schwartz. I had to add some tag names to follow
some links. E.g.
$link = $attr->{href} if $tag eq "area";
$link = $attr->{href} if $tag eq "a";
$link = $attr->{src} if $tag eq "frame";
$link = $attr->{value} if $tag eq "option";
I get imagemaps with 'area' and access to frame sites with 'frame' and perhaps
other pages with 'option'.
I ran into problems when someone used the '<select><option value="1">some
dumb name' and used javascript to turn the 1 into a path. Why? I can only
assume they wanted to thwart a robot. That would stop most any robot.
But SSI pages are read by the robot as if they were part of the page. The robot
is after all requesting the page just like a browser...how else could it gain
access to the foreign server.
Even cgi links will return data. I have a lot of dynamic (ssi and cgi generated
pages) on my sites and I always test my spiders on them first. The spider will
send the request for any links it finds..cgi or not and if cgi it will process the
results.
> Am I correct in assuming that the only page in a commerce site that needs
> to be dynamic would be the shopping cart/order form page (which wouldn't
> need to be indexed by search engines), and that the rest of the site would
> be the usual static HTML pages?
I find the best way to do most sites is to have the database publish the pages
upon an update to its data. I always try to minimize the need for querying the
database. But I have seen that most people do the opposite; it is easier but I
think it is short term thinking.
> While we're on the subject of search engines, I have another question.
> This client insists on frames for their site. What are the precautions
> that I need to take to make sure they function properly with search
> engines?
Good question.
I just got a reply from Alta Vista that they do index framed sites. I don't think
all do although they should be able.
For sure put meta tags in the frame holders (or whatever they are called). Also,
put in <noframes> section. Just recently a friend of mine asked me to register
her site. I looked at the page she wanted to register. No meta tags in the initial
frame holders, nor even on her page and not non-frames alternative. What a
waste.
Peter
_________________________________________________________
Peter J. Schoenster [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Exercise Your Brain..Read a Book http://www.rede.com/
Free CGI Scripts and Applications
http://www.rede.com/samples/index.html
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