asp.net site/GG problems

[loki]

i'm looking at an aspx site that is either sandboxed, or has something in the code that stops it getting ranked.

a site:www.domain.com search on gg shows around 1000 pages but only a few with a title and description. they rank for "domain" but not on any competitive keywords.

i've run the homepage throught the W3cvalidator here (http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.friendlyrentals.com&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&verbose=1)

and get 129 errors. a lot seem to be "value of attribute "ID" invalid: "_" cannot start a name"

i've asked the programmer to look at this and his reply was Yes we can't clean this up any more. Don't know if you have looked closely
at what the valuator is complaining about is that the "id" tag starts with
an underscore.

We use some Microsoft technology to build the website, and this
automatically puts an underscore in the ID tag which we can't change. My
personal opinion is that it can't be so serious otherwise why would MS add
this (automatically). Also if you look at it apart from that, and look what
the error really is, the id tag is an identifier of some objects in the
page. The HTML is correct, it's just complaining that the name starts with
an _. I tried to find some info on the web about this issue and couldn't
really find much, nor about the underscore, not about the official
specification of the ID date. Not stating that this is the case here, but
the validators are also not 100% accurate.

2 questions:

1. i'm not a programmer so am in their hands, is their answer correct?

2. are there other validation issues here that are indeed "serious"?

many thanks in advance.

[chrishirst]

Is he taking the p**s or just landed on this planet with this comment
why would MS add this (automatically).
Maybe he doesn't realise that some code is put in as invalid so other stricter browsers could well break the page while IE will handle the MS invalid code.

I can't see anything there that would cause problems when using a transitional DTD, But the URls are a mess and will certainly be slowing down the crawlers.

798 pages (http://www.google.com/search?q=site:http://www.friendlyrentals.com+apartment&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-29,GGLG:en&start=30&sa=N) I see, the vast majority in the supplemental index. Probably just the aging delay kicking in (or out) but it could lead to future problems.

[loki]

not everyone thinks MS is evil. yet.

1. "the URls are a mess". do you mean unnecessarily long?

2. why such a major difference in search results for your search with aprtments (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&rls=GGLG%2CGGLG%3A2005-29%2CGGLG%3Aen&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.friendlyrentals.com++apartment&btnG=Search) and my search without apartments (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&rls=GGLG%2CGGLG%3A2005-29%2CGGLG%3Aen&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.friendlyrentals.com&btnG=Search)

[chrishirst]

I don't consider them "evil" just monopolistic :D

Yep just too many parameters in some for comfort. Personally I would have found a way to code it with just one.

Adding a word that can be found on the pages forces a text snippet to be created and shown, so you can then tell which are really PIPs (Partially Indexed Pages) and which are supplemental index pages.
But of course it won't show any pages without that word on.

[Quadrille]

Originally posted by loki
not everyone thinks MS is evil. yet.There's reams of evidence to support Chris's point; M$ routinely join organizations whose aim is to establish industry standards - and just as routinely, they then introduce non-standard code for M$ software.

Think virtual machine, for one where M$ lost millions defending their policy (and lost).

I'm not an M$ fan; never was - but on this issue, there really is no doubt!

[loki]

Originally posted by chrishirst

Yep just too many parameters in some for comfort. Personally I would have found a way to code it with just one.


programmer argues that he needed 3 parameters as there's 1. language, 2. region and 3. apartment size to filter.
Originally posted by chrishirst

Adding a word that can be found on the pages forces a text snippet to be created and shown, so you can then tell which are really PIPs (Partially Indexed Pages) and which are supplemental index pages.
But of course it won't show any pages without that word on.

this is a new area for me, i'll look for more info on PIP/supplemental index pages.

the site was overhauled in november and i don't know if it's a A sandbox, B code or C content related issue that's causing no rankings.

[g1smd]

An ID cannot start with an underscore, digits, or any puctuation.

It must start wth a letter.

Change the ID to something else in both the HTML code and the stylesheet.

An ID can only be used once per page. If you need to repeat an ID use a class instead.

You also need to change & to & in the URLs too.

[loki]

Originally posted by g1smd
An ID cannot start with an underscore, digits, or any puctuation.

It must start wth a letter.



can you explain to a non-programmer what the implications are if it doesn't start with a letter?

[chrishirst]

Browsers that are strictly compliant to standards will ignore them, So if you have javascript / DHTML functions referencing the IDs they will fail and CSS definitions for the IDs will not be applied.

Browsers that run in quirks mode eg Internet Exploder, will ignore this kind of markup (No surprise there then).

You will also notice there are some non-existent attributes and properties applied as well align="absmiddle" for example. This is an IE only property and is just ignored by other browsers. So any carefully designed layout will simply "break" in other browsers.

Basically a case where a programmer/designer only knows how to use FrontPage/Visual Studio and is stuck with whatever auto-generated gibberish they turn out.

[g1smd]

That is simply the standard. The W3C rules are that the ID must start with a letter. Microsoft decided to ignore that rule. However, it is very easy to edit the ID in the HTML code, and in the stylesheet and so just do that.

[loki]

i'm trying to seo a site written in asp.net

the site offers vacation rental apartments in barcelona. they are one of the bigger operators here and by rights *should* at least be in the top 20. (ie, they're not an affiliate, have a bricks and mortar office, flesh and blood employees, etc).

my brief is to get it ranking in GG. since i started, the site is doing better and better in MSN and Y!. no luck yet with gg.

a site check on GG shows that very few pages are indexed correctly sitewide check (http://www.google.es/search?q=site%3Awww.friendlyrentals.com&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official)

the site was in plain-vanilla html until november, ranking well with gg, msn and yahoo.

on changeover to asp.net gg dropped rankings. it thought to be the sandbox but now appears there something else is trigerring a filter with GG.

i am slowly working through the 'issues' with the programmer/designer. one stumbling block is that the pages do not validate w3.org (http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.friendlyrentals.com&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&verbose=1)

many of the 122 errors are related to "value of attribute "ID" invalid: "_" cannot start a name."

i have spoken with the programmer and he says "Our applications are built with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and it puts these underscores before the ID's automatically. Unfortunately we can't
change that."

a few questions:

1. is this likely to stop us getting ranked by gg?

2. can we simply rename the attributes without the leading underscore?

3. how serious are the other errors produced on the w3.org report?

4. can anyone see further issues that i need to address? (i am still working through some duplicate content issues where descriptions of apartments/apartments' areas have been cut&pasted.)

5. i am trying to do this without a total rebuild. if that is unavoidable, what advice do i give the programmer apart from :

a. avoid session ids
b. limit parameters in querystrings/short URLs
b. don't use javascript to generate content
c. static sitemap

6. where do i go to learn about seo-ing a dynamic site built by a non-seo savvy designer/programmer (similar situation with another job/i am not a programmer).

many thanks in advance.

[Quadrille]

I've merged this with your previous thread, as it appears to be the same site and the same problem.

Has anything moved forward since the issue was discussed before?

[loki]

fair enough.

there have been some minor changes:

1. hugely improved rankings in MSN
2. somewhat improved rankings in Y!
3. i've spent a lot of time looking into the gg sandbox. my understanding now is that if you accept it exists, it's a matter of a few months (this has been 10 months now). i'm now leaning more toward an 'error in site' issue.

and a month has passed and i'm still not getting #%!¿@¡# anywhere!

:)

[g1smd]

And how are you getting on with fixing the errors in the HTML code?

[loki]

Originally posted by g1smd
And how are you getting on with fixing the errors in the HTML code?

if you're referring to the ID starting with an underscore then i have to confess that i'm still at a standstill on this point with the programmer (also summer has interupted progress).

i guess i'm trying to regroup now to attack the issues again now we're back from holidays.

[srikanthsh]

1. is this likely to stop us getting ranked by gg?
I think, No.


2. can we simply rename the attributes without the leading underscore?
Yes. While modifying, you need to check if these IDs are used, in any method, to manipulate the control's content at the run time. If it is used, in that method, you need to refer the control using new ID.