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But looking at it tonight i've not seen anything like it...
Firstly, they have a meta-refresh going from www.theirsite.com to www.theirsite.com/htdocs/Home_49.php .. why?
That's not going to be crawled to any effect?
They have no "DOCTYPE" at the head just a DWT (<HTML><!-- InstanceBegin template="/Templates/previewhomefinal.dwt" )
Redundent links hidden in the page, the anchors still there but no link text ...
Then pages with gaps... www.theirsite.com/htdocs/this is how you do it.php again can't see those being crawled..
How do I explain with diplomacy, is what's troubling me lol ..
Firstly, they have a meta-refresh going from www.theirsite.com to www.theirsite.com/htdocs/Home_49.php .. why?
They most likely use a generic content management System most likely. Maybe 49 refers to the document ID in the database.
That's not going to be crawled to any effect?
I don't see why not. The major search engines understand meta redirects.
They have no "DOCTYPE" at the head
There's no requirement in HTML for a doctype to be added. In theory the only reason to have one is to inform a validator which version of HTML a document uses. Unfortunately, in practice, some web browsers use it to decide how to render a page.
For most documents on the web (tagsoup), the doctype will serve no purpose.
Redundent links hidden in the page, the anchors still there but no link text ...
Most likely the result of using a generic CMS.
Then pages with gaps... www.theirsite.com/htdocs/this is how you do it.php again can't see those being crawled..
The major search engines will crawl unescaped URLs, including those with spaces, or gaps as you call them :p
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Don't get me wrong, everything you've mentioned is pretty bad form and ideally they should be avoided. I certainly wouldn't create a site with these problems. However I don't think they're major problems.
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How do I explain with diplomacy, is what's troubling me lol ..
Use a step by step approach.
For each item state the issue of concern, then state why it is a concern then state how it should be resolved, then state the improvements that will be seen with your suggested resolution.
eg.
Dear Mr. Clueless Client,
Currently, the root document of your web site uses what is known as a meta-redirect [explain what a meta-redirect is in non-technical terms so Client can understand it]. This could cause problems with search engine indexing because [state your reasons]. I suggest that the root URI should serve the home page document directly [explain how you intend to implement this], this improvement will increase your rankings in a search engine [explain why].
I'd make sure you understand how their CMS works though. It's likely most of these problems are a direct result of a poor CMS. Don't say you can fix them unless you know you can.
They have no "DOCTYPE" at the head just a DWT (<HTML><!-- InstanceBegin template="/Templates/previewhomefinal.dwt" )
thats a dreamweaver template file, current versions of dreamweaver actually specify a doctype depending on the one you choose by default.
Redundent links hidden in the page, the anchors still there but no link text ...
Current versions of Dreamweaver also can clean up problems like this.
It is a php based site and I would have thought that having that information in the head doctype would be of value if not important?
I did a spider simulation on the site which is how I found it not following the redirect..
I can assure you the spider simulation you are using is nowhere near as advanced as the spiders used by the major search engines.
MSN, Yahoo and Google all follow links to URIs with unescaped spaces.
Using a spider simulator to determine how Google crawls a web site is like using Lynx to determine how Internet Explorer views images!
If you want to see how spiders crawl different types of links, you should set up a test web site for the search engines to crawl. You won't learn anything about the crawlers using a simulator. Use the real thing.
Why am I reading more about meta refresh being penalized by search engines, and in my normal design practice I would not leave gaps or have very long file names or not include a doctype..
Is what I'm being told here against every design practice I've learned? saying that it does not matter?
There are some minor search engines which will have problems with unescaped URIs. There are some older web browsers that will not handle unescaped spaces.
I don't know what problems people are having with meta redirects. They're most likely the same problems you get with any redirect.
As I said myself, it's not good web development practice.
If you can fix the problems quickly, then it'd be great to get them solved. However, if the problems are CMS based, it's going to take a lot of effort to fix the issues for very little gain. Your resources will most likely be better spent dealing with other issues and improving SEO in other ways.
Obviously I am looking to develope the site so as such I'm looking for points that need to be developed, it all helps to keep food on the table ;-)
So I guess that goes back to, how best to let them know these changes need to be done, telling them "it doesn't really matter" seems a little counterproductive..
Second, especially for fast meta refreshes (like 0 or close to it) this is the footprint of many low-level spammers who rank a given page ("doorway") with search engines but use meta refresh to switch that page out for the human visitor. So it's not a good idea -- it can raise a flag and trigger a hand check.
It is a best practice to resolve the root domain without any redirect whatsoever -- most other practices can cause troubles with search engine indexing. The biggest issue I've seen is that when people type your domain name in a search box (which many people do) they may not get any result at all unless the domain resolves directly.
