Dynamic Content Indexed Strangely

[vinyl-junkie]

Remember all the stuff I went through a couple of months ago with everyone's help so I could have my dynamic content pages appear as static? I've been monitoring the progress of the indexing of those dynamic pages, and indeed more are showing up in Google. However, when I check out what's there, like so:

site:www.napathon.net "+www.napathon.net"

when I get to the 240th index entry, from that point indexed items show up like this:

www.napathon.net/TrackList.asp?AlbumID=799

No title, no nothing, yet my ASP code has all that. Does anyone have an idea why this is happening?

[polarmate]

Pat, I've seen this happen to my pages. In fact I think I have mentioned it in the context of whether a 301 redirect could be dropped.

Google had your ASP pages in their index. However, all your ASP pages now 404 and are redirected as you are rewriting the URL to look static, right? The dynamic URLs are not yet dropped from the index but there is no description or title to show anymore for that ASP page because as far as Google is concerned it does not exist. You will soon see all the dynamic pages disappear from the index and Google will keep the new URL that you are rewriting which in this particular case is
http://www.napathon.net/AlbumID799.html

This is not something that is specific just to dynamic pages. It happens to static pages also. It happened to all my pages, static as well as dynamic when I moved them from a folder on one site to another domain.

[vinyl-junkie]

So I just need to have a little patience, huh? Whew! I can do that. I just couldn't understand why the URL's were showing up like that. I guess I didn't pay that much attention, but it seemed like the number of indexed pages was increasing but showing up weird like that. I'll hang tight for a while longer and see what happens. Thanks for the reply!

[polarmate]

Yup! Wait. The wait may not be long. But then again, who knows!! However, when Google does drop the ASP pages, the total number of pages indexed for your site will drop and so might the backlinks, if any of the ASP pages show in the backlinks currently.

While we're on the subject of your web site, here's something totally unrelated: You may want to consider linking the image with the text 'Pat Wong's Music Around the World' to your homepag viz:
http://www.napathon.net/
with appropriate alt text for the image.

[vinyl-junkie]

While we're on the subject of your web site, here's something totally unrelated: You may want to consider linking the image with the text 'Pat Wong's Music Around the World' to your homepag viz:
http://www.napathon.net/
with appropriate alt text for the image. Do you mean a more descriptive alt tag than what I currently have?

[polarmate]

pssst~ Pat! It's alt attribute not tag!

I don't see any descriptive text for the images in your 'header.' The source shows alt=""
:confused:

[vinyl-junkie]

Originally posted by polarmate
pssst~ Pat! It's alt attribute not tag! Picky, picky, picky. ;)

I don't see any descriptive text for the images in your 'header.' The source shows alt=""
:confused: I fixed it. Guess I thought everything was ok, even if you just had alt="". I guess that's a no-no, huh?

[polarmate]

Picky, yeah! It's kind of like saying a function and its argument are the same thing. :eek:

I am sorry if I implied that alt="" is a no-no. Actually it is highly desireable. If you don't have anything to say about an image then the standards suggest that you include an empty alt attribute. This is important from the accessibility point of view where screen readers then know that the image can be ignored.

So always include the alt attribute for an image tag even if it is empty.

Now make the image clickable, Pat :)

[vinyl-junkie]

Hmmm. Now I'm really confused. I had alt="" attributes (;)) on all my images on my home page. I double-checked that. Doesn't hurt though to have the attributes not be null.

But what do you mean by making the image clickable? Make which image clickable? Do you mean to make it a hyperlink? To what? :confused:

[polarmate]

Make your logo clickable by linking it to your homepage from every page and always stating the link thus:
http://www.napathon.net/
and keep the alt attribute for the image but don't leave it empty - use meaningful and descriptive text with your keywords in it.

[JuniorHarris]

>This is not something that is specific just to dynamic pages. It happens to static pages also.

Yes, I have noticed this before too. Google is in the process of forgetting about the old URLs, and the last thing it forgets is the URL. I suppose this may allow it a 'last chance' check to ensure the page is truly gone.

And yes, whether you put something in the alt attribute or not, definitely link your logo image to the home page.

Very good suggestion polarmate!~ :up:

[vinyl-junkie]

Originally posted by JuniorHarris
And yes, whether you put something in the alt attribute or not, definitely link your logo image to the home page.

Very good suggestion polarmate!~ :up: Apologies to polarmate and Junior Harris for being so dense, but do you mean that I should use the absolute path for the images rather than the relative path, as I have done? I'm still a little confused as to what you're suggesting.

[polarmate]

Pat, link TemplateLogo.jpg to your home page using the absolute URL preferably with the trailing slash ;)

[JuniorHarris]

LOL!~

Make an image link out of the logo...psudeo code:

<a href="http://domain.com"><img src="image.gif" border=0></a>

So that if you click the logo it will take you to your home page.

[vinyl-junkie]

Ah, the light bulb finally came on inside this thick head. ;)

But now, it looks a little strange because of my CSS code. There's a light blue that shows up at the base of the logo. Does that look too weird? What do you think? Here's the URL:
http://www.napathon.net/

[polarmate]

maybe create a new class for the a tag that does not light up that way and apply it to the link?

[ihelpyou]

Hi Pat, I only see the blue line right below the logo. It looks like the link/logo is being 'underlined' which looks pretty darn cool to me! :)

[vinyl-junkie]

I think I could live with it like that if there weren't two places on the right side of the screen where the blue shows up, depending on where you have your cursor.

Here's where I reveal my true ignorance. I made some changes to both the style sheet and where it's used, but they're not working. Here's what I have in the style sheet:

a.plain:link {color: transparent; text-decoration: none; }

I tried it with and without the "color: transparent" atribute. Here's one of the links that uses it:

<a class="plain" href="http://www.napathon.net/">
<img src="images/TemplateMenu7.jpg" border="0"
alt="Music Around The World Logo (click here to return to my home page"></a>

Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong? :confused:

[JuniorHarris]

It looks to be a hover effect, as it only happens on mouseover.

[JuniorHarris]

Might be easier to create another class...but you could use:<a class="plain"
href="http://www.napathon.net/"
style="a.hover{text-decoration : none; background: transparent;}">

<img src="http://www.napathon.net/images/TemplateLogo.jpg"
border="0"
alt="Music Around The World Logo (click here to return to my home page">

</a>

[vinyl-junkie]

Yup, I was having a "senior moment." ;) Thanks for setting me straight.

As far as having in-line CSS, I'm a bit picky about that. Even if a class is used in only one place, I'd much prefer having it in my external style sheet. That way, if I ever decide to change anything I know I've only got one place to look for it.

Thanks once again for the help! :D