404 errors and redirects

[Mike]

Hi:

We have a web design crew building a site. It's fairly large, but not
thousands of pages.

When I do a scan for broken links I get a few hundred.

Now, I've built sites before in html, no broken links.

When I looked at the scan results, most of the broken links are one little
image.

The directory structure is such that there is a unique subdirectory for
almost every item, and in that subdirectory , another IMAGES directory where
that image would have to be placed in order for that 404 not to come up.
I've never seen anything like it.

When I asked why this is, the php fellow says he's using a redirect to fetch
that image ( mod_redirect). So, I used another scanner filtering out
redirects, which showed a cleaner scan.

Question is: Will the SE's 'see' all of these errors or is php different
than good ol html?

I'm trying to get this site to rank well in the SERP's but not sure if these
404's are legit or if I have a problem.

I don't do php, and need to know if the redirect story is true or bovine
excretion.

TIA

Mike

 

[John Hosking]

Hi:

We have a web design crew building a site. It's fairly large, but not
thousands of pages.

The site, then, not the crew. ;-)

When I do a scan for broken links I get a few hundred.

Now, I've built sites before in html, no broken links.

When I looked at the scan results, most of the broken links are one little
image.

Lemme guess: spacer.gif

The directory structure is such that there is a unique subdirectory for
almost every item, and in that subdirectory , another IMAGES directory where
that image would have to be placed in order for that 404 not to come up.
I've never seen anything like it.

When I asked why this is, the php fellow says he's using a redirect to fetch
that image ( mod_redirect). So, I used another scanner filtering out
redirects, which showed a cleaner scan.

Question is: Will the SE's 'see' all of these errors or is php different
than good ol html?

The search engines won't know a page is generated via PHP anymore thqan
human will. We people assume a page named contact.php is made with PHP,
contact.asp is made using ASP, contact.cfm uses ColdFusion, etc., but we
can't be sure. And that's okay, because what counts is what we see on
the served page.

What do you get on the served pages? If you get 404 errors, that'll
affect your SE ranking and your visitors' experience. If you don't, then
you just have a really weird directory configuration, which just sounds
like a (potential) internal management/maintenance problem to me.

I'm trying to get this site to rank well in the SERP's but not sure if these
404's are legit or if I have a problem.

If they're legit, you do have a problem. Yes?

 

[Mike]

The site, then, not the crew. ;-)


Lemme guess: spacer.gif


The search engines won't know a page is generated via PHP anymore thqan
human will. We people assume a page named contact.php is made with PHP,
contact.asp is made using ASP, contact.cfm uses ColdFusion, etc., but we
can't be sure. And that's okay, because what counts is what we see on
the served page.

What do you get on the served pages? If you get 404 errors, that'll
affect your SE ranking and your visitors' experience. If you don't, then
you just have a really weird directory configuration, which just sounds
like a (potential) internal management/maintenance problem to me.


If they're legit, you do have a problem. Yes?

Hi:

Yes, it's a spacer.gif.

I'm using Xenu to scan. It's showing those 404's all over the place for that
gif.

Additionally, if I search on the domain name at google, and then select one
of the links that comes up for one of the site pages, then copy that link
into the google search field, I get

Your search - http://4thesea.com/categories_listing.php?CatId=MTM0&view=1 -
did not match any documents.

And, there's the root domain if someone wants to help me see if I should get
on this fellows case or not.

Again: I've built sites in html with no errors and great rankings.

We went with php because the designers said it'd be easier to manage the
hundreds and hundreds of products via a gui they've built, where I can
add/edit kwds and description. But- the descriptions I put in do not show
up, and the SERPs look very redundant. Not at all as they should look if the
gui actually worked, which I don't think it is.

I've requested server error logs.

I just think I'm being hornswaggled, but need to know for certain.

TIA

Mike

 

[John Hosking]

Yes, it's a spacer.gif.

Aren't you curious how I guessed? Aren't you just astounded at my
clairvoyance?

I'm using Xenu to scan. It's showing those 404's all over the place for that
gif.

If only there were a way to get rid of the errors *and* simplify the
markup itself "all over the place". Hmmm...

Additionally, if I search on the domain name at google, and then select one
of the links that comes up for one of the site pages, then copy that link
into the google search field, I get

Your search - http://4thesea.com/categories_listing.php?CatId=MTM0&view=1 -
did not match any documents.

I'm not sure your methodology is valid (assuming I understand it
correctly). I really don't think that Google cares about anything after
the ? in the URI. I actually thought (although I am not sure) I had seen
something somewhere about parameters being ignored. I'm also thinking
about the enormous and outwardly meaningless parametered URLs I've seen.

Looks like a large portion of your product links are hidden/generated by
JavaScript, in which case you're lucky any of those links come up in
Google at all. Anyway, I wouldn't be disappointed that a search on a
parametered URL brings zero results; what potential customer will do that?

And, there's the root domain if someone wants to help me see if I should get
on this fellows case or not.

Well, you could ask him to declare a bg color, and validate the code.
Markup (Failed validation, 552 Errors)= Failed validation, 552 Errors
CSS (http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/)= 4 errors, 1074 warnings

Again: I've built sites in html with no errors and great rankings.

We went with php because the designers said it'd be easier to manage the
hundreds and hundreds of products via a gui they've built, where I can
add/edit kwds and description. But- the descriptions I put in do not show
up, and the SERPs look very redundant. Not at all as they should look if the
gui actually worked, which I don't think it is.

Sorry, I'm not savvy enough here to be able to help. Maybe those who
have worked with PHP-generated pages and catalog-store sites can offer
more assistance.

I've requested server error logs.

I just think I'm being hornswaggled, but need to know for certain.

Good luck. Experts?

 

[Mike]

I just used Xenu to scan your site (http://4thesea.com). All of the
404s are legitimate as far as I can tell. I tried opening several of
them directly in my browser and got a 404. However, in the Xenu report
there was not a single listing for "spacer.gif". Also, the first time I
scanned it turned up a huge number of 404s but only 19 on the second
scan. Rather odd.

One question is: Is the site functioning properly or do you get 404s
when clicking actual links on the site?


When I Google 4thesea.com the results show only a single listing on your
domain: http://4thesea.com. All the other results are on other
domains. The one you cite didn't appear. What exactly was your Google
search for?


I certainly would ask him for an explanation of why it's happening.

Hi, all:

Thanx for the input so far.

What I did was search at Google for 4thesea.com. At page 2 of results I
click the

"repeat the search with the omitted results included."

That SHOULD show 177+/- links Google. And it looks goat-roped, many pages
redundantly titled, etc because the gui for inputting that info seems flaky.

I was getting 404's in lines that sought boating-accessories-divider-003.gif

LOTS of them. I've got the guy(s) working on this stuff, so maybe (
hopefully ) trey're actually making progress. Problem is/was this thing is
going live and I hate errors and not know php I feel like I'm not in control
as with other sites I myself build ( plain html).