css file seems to put robots into endless loop

[Catherine Jo Morgan]

In in an SEO class that urged me to change my site's internal links from
relative ones to absolute links. Yesterday after I changed my internal links
to absolute ones, I had Atomz do a new index of the site. I have the free
search account. What a mess!

I never looked at the index logs before so I can't tell whether or not this
same thing was happening earlier - but the Atomz robot seems to get hung up
with the external css page. It looks to my uneducated eyes as if the robot
gets caught up in a loop, cycling through the css page again and again. I'm
concerned that search engine robots will have the same problem and give up.

Atomz did finally complete the crawl, and I think the search is working ok.
But now I get two error messages in the index log, which I didn't get before
(when the links were all relative) and I'm baffled as to what's wrong or how
to fix it. The error message seems to say that the URL is too long - but of
course with css repeated 50 times (my estimate) it WOULD be too long....

Anyone know how to fix this, or where else to go to ask how to fix it? Since
the Atomz search is free, I don't see any way to get tech support beyond
what's on their site. There's nothing about this.

I'm concerned that if the Atomz robot has this much trouble crawling my
site, then search engine robots will too.

Here are the error messages:
1: 03/28 04:06:39 ERROR: HTTP error status 414 returned to page
http://www.cjmorgan.com/articles_for_artists/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css
/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css
/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css
/css/css/css/css/css/css/unblocking_psychic_energy.css from
http://www.cjmorgan.com/articles_for_artists/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css
/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css
/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css
/css/css/css/css/css/site_map_abstract_art.htm.
2: 03/28 04:14:57 ERROR: HTTP error status 414 returned to page
http://www.cjmorgan.com/vessels/welded_metal_art.htm/css/css/css/css/css/css
/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css
/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css
/css/css/css/css/css/css/unblocking_psychic_energy.css from
http://www.cjmorgan.com/vessels/welded_metal_art.htm/css/css/css/css/css/css
/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css
/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css/css
/css/css/css/css/css/site_map_abstract_art.htm.
View 50 lines at a timeView 100 lines at a timeView 200 lines at a timeView
the whole log Only show lines with errors.
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Catherine Jo Morgan
Art for Energy - http://www.cjmorgan.com
online artist journal, Hand Forged Vessels:
http://radio.weblogs.com/0120691/
mailto:[email protected]

 

[MD Websunlimited]

Hi Catherine,

Why did you change your relative links to abs ones? I would strongly recommend that you change them to relative links. Using
relative links have very strong advantages over abs links such as being able to place the web at any level within a web tree.


--
Mike -- FrontPage MVP '97 - '02
http://www.websunlimited.com
Need to use ASP in a FrontPage 2003 include component? Well you can with IncludeASP!
http://www.websunlimited.com/order/Product/IncludeASP/IncludeASP.htm
http://www.websunlimited.com/order/product/includeASP/includeASP.htm

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

Also by changing your link to absolute, FP will no longer manage any of your links if you rename or
move pages or images.

--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
WEBMASTER Resources(tm)

FrontPage Resources, WebCircle, MS KB Quick Links, etc.
==============================================

 

[Catherine Jo Morgan]

Yes, for this reason I was very reluctant to do it, but the teacher of this
SEO class insists that without absolute links, Google page rank will be
greatly diluted.

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

I suggest that you visit and post a question at:

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/

to verify what the teacher of the SEO class is stating.

--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
WEBMASTER Resources(tm)

FrontPage Resources, WebCircle, MS KB Quick Links, etc.
==============================================

 

[MD Websunlimited]

Catherine,

IMHO, find a different teacher.

Go to google and select any topic, then link to a displayed web site. View the source, how many of the links are abs?

 

[Catherine Jo Morgan]

Thanks. I registered and posted my question there. This looks like a great
resource.

I do have a backup of course, of the site still with internal links all
relative.

 

[Catherine Jo Morgan]

I'll do some more research as you suggest.
I'm a little concerned too that at some point Google could decide that this
is an SEO spam technique. OTOH, what I've read online so far is split about
50:50 between using absolute vs. relative links for internal site links.

Catherine,

IMHO, find a different teacher.

Go to google and select any topic, then link to a displayed web site. View

the source, how many of the links are abs?

 

[Steve Easton]

I would tend to *disagree* with your teacher.
All that accomplishes is fooling the server into thinking that every request
for a page is coming from an external source, and therefore causing the
server logs to show your own site as the top referring site.
Search engines don't scan server logs.

--
Steve Easton
Microsoft MVP FrontPage
95isalive
This site is best viewed............
........................with a computer

 

[Catherine Jo Morgan]

Here's the teacher's theory - that if the index page isn't specified
internally the same way it is from external links into the site, then this
will dilute the hits & links that go toward page rank. She asked us to test
google listings for the domain name including www. and compare it with
google listings for the domain name without www. It's true that I get a
different list of pages each way.

But I'm stil considering about this. It's troubling me.

 

[Steve Easton]

OK.
The difference between what you see using www and not using www doesn't have
anything to do with the internal links in your site.

It has to do with how the name servers are configured by your hosting
company.
When the name servers are configured correctly http://www.domain.com and
www.domain.com will lead to the same place with or without www.

Example: http://www.95isalive.com and http://95isalive.com

Without the http:// header www.95isalive.com and 95isalive.com are not the
same. Because without either A, the http:// header or B, the www world wide
web designator, a browser does not recognize the domain name by itself as
being a hyperlink.

Additionally, Google ( as does most search engines ) finds and searches web
sites by finding them via the Domain Name Server system ( also called DNS
system ) which is the same system used by your computer/ ISP to convert one
of the links above to the actual web site location.

Once Google has found a domain in the DNS servers it is automatically
directed to index.html as a function of the server pointing it to the
default page. In this case index.html.
Once the web crawler has entered the site it follows the internal links in
the site and automatically prefixes http://www.domain.com to any *internal*
links it finds.
If it has crawled the site as a result of following http://www.domain.com as
directed by the DNS then all references will be to
http://www.domain.com/filename
If it has been directed via http://domain.com then the references will be to
http://domain.com/filename

The major difference is this:
Not all hosting companies automatically configure their name servers to
propagate both http://www.domain.com and http://domain.com because the one
with www is the default setting in the local name server and is what is
forwarded/propagated to the DNS system.

This is the difference your teacher sees.

Your host configures name Servers. The name servers * send the domain
address information out to the DNS system.
You click a link, your computer checks a Domain Name Server, which then
points your computer to actual IP address of the domain.


Steve Easton
Microsoft MVP FrontPage
95isalive
This site is best viewed............
........................with a computer

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

With or without the www is a completely different issue from using or not using absolute URLs.

--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
WEBMASTER Resources(tm)

FrontPage Resources, WebCircle, MS KB Quick Links, etc.
==============================================

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

However using or not using www or https makes a difference if using server-side scripting the uses
session, as each would create a different session:

http://www.yourdomain.com
http://yourdomain.com
https://www.yourdomain.com
https://yourdomain.com

The above would create 4 separate user sessions for the same user if your internal links use any of
a full absolute URL.

--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
WEBMASTER Resources(tm)

FrontPage Resources, WebCircle, MS KB Quick Links, etc.
==============================================

 

[Catherine Jo Morgan]

Whew. I was able to republish the site with relative links, from a backup
copy. I've been publishing a backup copy to an external hard drive every
time I make substantial changes in the site. This made a LOT of difference
in fixing my problem.

Now Atomz indexes the site in less than 2 minutes again, with no errors. In
the past 2 days while the site used absolute links, over half my recorded
page views were the 404 error page. Not a good sign! I expect this to
improve today.

Thanks everyone. I really appreciate your taking the time to help.