Oliver_Henniges - 11:13 am on Oct 18, 2008 (gmt 0)

Out of 103 errors reported on my site, there was exactly ONE from a crappy external page. 102 of the errors came from googlebot not being able to cope adequately with relative internal paths on my website.

This is a phenomenon I observed quite often in GWTs diagnostics the past years.

I know that google recommends to use absolute hrefs wherever possible, and I am continuously trying to improve my site accordingly. But this is not in accordance with the general W3C-standards.

For instance, years ago, when modem speed was still quite common, I used to burn my website (html-pages) on CD and send it to some customers substituting a paper-catalogue. A weird idea nowadays, I know, but in those days it made sense. That's where those relative links (../../../widgets.html)came from.

With all the things you reported on googlebot following java-script links, I must say the engineers simply got some priorities wrong.

The tool in itself might of course be interesting and helpful, but what's the use of diagnostics from a doctor making fare more mistakes than I myself? The negative mental implications of google telling me "you have a really dirty website, naughty, naughty" are quite frustrating, particularly if it simply isn't correct (or outdated).

So, normally I don't look at this section.