12 replies to this topic

[-=seth=-]

when you use <!--> does google throw a wobbly, the theory is:

Comment tags and Opacity all hide something from some type of browsers. google wonders what you are hiding: naughty sex stuff? Key word stuffing? whatever it is it thinks it is naughty and aimed at hiding things from Google

its actually possible to have entirely separate stylesheet for explorer, and doesnt seem unreasonable that google would see that as suspect

Also really would appreciate it if anybody could point me toward any good css horizontal menus which have the sub menus inside

[chrishirst]

to answer the title;
No it doesn't

<self-promo>
http://www.candsdesi...enus/drop-down/
</self-promo>

http://www.seoconsul...nus/horizontal/

http://www.seoconsul...menus/vertical/

[-=seth=-]

ops just realised something i said horizontal i meant vertical

thanks Chrishirst, i liked your menus a lot, particularly the one with the scroll but i did notice it doesnt validate, did you have any problems with the search engines, validation seems to matter more when your using strict xhtml

[chrishirst]

If SEs "cared" about code that validated as strict

where would that leave all the FrontPage pages



I've obviously "lost" a tag somewhere probably in an include.

[Katy]

You could have a look at

www.dhtmlcentral.com/projects/coolmenus/

I've used them on a couple of sites - not sure how well they validate though.

Oh, and the last time I looked the above site's server was throwing a wobbly so you may not be able to get on just yet!

[Randy]

re: Validation and do the search engines care...

• Google's home page fails with 65 errors.
• Yahoo's main search page fails with 50 errors. (37 on the main Yahoo.com page.)
• MSN/Live fails with 60 errors. (Though the main MSN page does validate, oddly enough.)
• And Ask fails with 79 errors.

I guess that's about the best example I can give concerning just how much the engines focus on validation.

[jehochman]

These big companies have QA teams to tests their sites on every available browser, so they don't need to worry too much about validation. If you are just a Humble Webmaster™, validation is a tool that can help reduce the time it takes to QA and troubleshoot a site.

[Katy]

I guess that's about the best example I can give concerning just how much the engines focus on validation.

I'd have to agree, although from an accessibility point of view - for both website visitors and cross browser/platform sites - validation is important.

I did read somewhere that some spiders may have trouble with websites that use badly formed/formatted HTML (such as nested tables) as they can't crawl the content properly due to the rubbish code. That was a while ago though so it may have all changed by now...

[torka]

I can tell you from personal experience (having had to deal for the past three years with somebody else's code with tables nested as much as seven or eight levels deep) the SEs -- today, at least -- do not seem to have any trouble with nested tables, or with reasonably crappy code in general.

I'm sure it's possible to code something that's bad enough to stop the spider in its tracks, but I would think browsers would choke on something like that before the spiders gave up. As long as a browser can display something resembling the page, my gut feeling is the spiders would be able to work it out as well.

(And, yes, for those who have heard me complain before about the code on this particular site, I AM working on updating the code -- finally! We got the first round of design comps from the graphics guy this morning and will be making a decision on the new site design next week. Woo-hoo! Maybe one of these days I can actually tell my webmaster friends where I work without being worried they're going to do a "view source" on the company's website... )

--Torka

[-=seth=-]

in my personal experience i've found when using xhtml strict msn has problems if it doesnt validate, i have just 2 errors in my menu and ever since i switched to pure css i've lost msn traffic, which was why i was trying to find a new menu

i was thinking about using a css play menu 'grooming-health.com/delete1.htm' but i was just worried having 2 style sheets might upset the search engines

PS thanks for all your suggestions and help

Edited by -=seth=-, 16 March 2007 - 01:41 PM.

[chrishirst]

I did read somewhere that some spiders may have trouble with websites that use badly formed/formatted HTML (such as nested tables) as they can't crawl the content properly due to the rubbish code

Nope, just someones wild imagination

Crawlers can read source that would not be rendered in a browser. Don't mix up reading and rendering, Rendering is what browsers have to do so we humans can see the pretty pictures.

Source code retrieval agents (SE crawlers and indexers) have no need to render the code, they simply need to extract the sections that are between the tags they are looking for. It can be done with a few simple regular expressions.
If the source code is so badly mangled, the extraction process may pull in bits of code along with the text, but provided there is a start and finish tag around the element the content of that element will be seen.

[torka]

in my personal experience i've found when using xhtml strict msn has problems if it doesnt validate, i have just 2 errors in my menu and ever since i switched to pure css i've lost msn traffic

How long ago did you make the change? How soon after did your traffic drop? What changes, if any, have your competitors made to their sites in the same time frame? When you "switched to pure css" did anything else on your site change? Page URLs? On page code? On page content/copy? Page titles? Site linking structure/navigation? Anchor text of internal links?

There are a lot of factors that go into rankings... Sorry, but I've seen so much crappy code (XHTML strict, transitional, plain o'l HTML, whatever) that does just fine in the SEs, I have a hard time believing that a measly 2 validation errors in your menu -- which, since you presumably tested the site before taking it live, are not sufficient to affect the browser display -- are the sole cause of a drop in MSN traffic for you.

Not saying it absolutely couldn't happen... it just doesn't seem likely that's the cause, IMO.

--Torka

[-=seth=-]

since switching my site to xhtml i've lost all msn traffic, so i'm concluding that shes having problems reading my site (randy has kindly been advising me), its been months and months now so its not a error on msn part, bot still visits so i havent been banned (i dont run a spammy site so theres no reason i would be)

i may be barking up the wrong tree but feel the need to try something, as my problems started when i throw out my old coding, validating my site just seems the obvious place to start

Not saying it absolutely couldn't happen... it just doesn't seem likely that's the cause

really hoping it is the cause because if it isnt i dont have a clue what is