Which Page Should I See?

I'm confused about the home page

[AliceJ]

These are three different addresses that link to the SAME home page. These are the links:

1) www.example.com
2) www.example.com/home.and
3 www.example.com/index.aspindex.asplinkID= home&yym=1

The source code for the three of them are different, and I'm wondering which one spiders read. There are changes that need to be made, but I want to be assured that the spider will read the new information. If anyone knows the answer to this that would be great. Thanks!

[edited by: korkus2000 at 11:37 pm (utc) on June 27, 2003]
[edit reason] Examplified URLs [/edit]

[korkus2000]

I would think all three.

I am a liitle confused by these statements.

>>These are three different addresses that link to the SAME home page

>>The source code for the three of them are different

What do you mean?

[AliceJ]

The source codes are different but they are for the same homepage. Would either address be okay to submit? Thanks

[Ally_Cat]

Why is the source code different? Do you have three exact duplicates of the same page?

[AliceJ]

One of the pages when viewed doesn't show some of the frames and pictures. The other two link to the same home page. I don't know if there's a reason why there are different addresses for the same page

[tedster]

An address which just shows the domain, like [example.com...] depends on the server's settings to direct the request to an actual html document. Often there is a priority list -- first try index.html, if that doesn't exist try index.htm, then try default.htm and so on.

I gather from your comments that you've taken over from a previous developer who didn't document what these pages are all about on the site you're working with. In fact, some of those pages may even be leftover debris that they didn't delete but should have.

The thing I'd notice is what page gets served when a visitor enters the simple example.com address. Perhaps it's home.html when the browser finds cookies are turned off in the visitor's browser -- and index.aspindex.asplinkID= home&yym=1 when cookies are turned on. I can't say what it is for sure, because it could have been set up many different ways, so this is a guess. You should poke around until you are sure.

If my guess is right, then IF you submit at all, submit the address for a browser with no cookies. However, you don't really need to submit. If there are links pointing to a page, then the spiders will crawl them and find the page. If there are no inbound links, then even if you submit and get crawled and included, you may find the page falls out of the index on the next update.

[AliceJ]

Yes I have had to take over a developer so it is hard to tell what can be deleted and what can't. Thanks for your response it wasw very helpful.