Forum Moderators: phranque
This is happening only to Win 95 and Win 98 users. So, I need to know whether the new HTML tracking code is the problem or is it something else? Please help!
Thanks a bunch,
Supriya
I would suggest investigating the following issues:
Have you declared a DOCTYPE for your pages?
Have you declared the handlers for all applicable MIME-types?
Does the new hosting service default to serving compressed files, i.e. gzipped files?
Run a few pages thru the validators at w3c.org, and see if they flag anything.
HTH,
Jim
Thank you for your suggestions. As it turns out, the missing DOCTYPE was the problem. But even after rectifying that, the HTML validator found other errors with the site. Is that something to be concerned about, and more importantly, will that affect the site's search engine rankings?
As I mentioned earlier, we recently switched web hosting companies and I just noticed that most of our search engine rankings have dropped drastically. Is it because of the new IP address? if so, I'll resubmit the pages but do you think we have some other issue that we're overlooking?
Thanks for your help.
Supriya
I suggest you re-examine your philosophy concerning html errors. What good is a high search engine ranking if some of the people who click through on the SE listing can't view your site? In addition to using the W3C validator, check your site with current Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Opera browsers at a minimum, as well as Mozilla, and try it on both PC and Mac computers. You can download the browsers you don't have for free. You might also consider our friends in the *nix world and check it with Konqueror and a few others.
Pragmatically, fix all of the errors you can, and leave the rest. Do make sure you are validating to the correct version of HTML before deciding that your site is full of errors - Try removing the doctype, and let W3C "guess" at the version, then put that version in the doctype.
Badly-broken html can affect SE ranking, because the SE won't be able to parse the documents properly.
If you still have access to your old server, put a 301-Permanent redirect on it using the new IP address instead of the domain name. i.e. redirect to [123.45.67.89...] instead of [mydomain.com...]
Submitting to search engines is no longer really necessary - Get a listing in the ODP and some incoming links, and the major search engines will find you on their own. :)
Ranking loss due to moving a site to a new server is usually temporary - assuming the domain name is the same. Google has been reported to be rather slow at updating its internal DNS, and so can continue to spider the old IP address for some time. Do a search here on WebmasterWorld for "DNS Google" or similar for more info.
HTH,
Jim
