Google & Pop Up Windows

Sometimes it is Google's fault..

[Key_Master]

Click on the 'Quick Tour' button.

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Yet another reason not to allow Googlebot to cache your Web pages. ;)

[edited by: Marcia at 3:45 am (utc) on July 2, 2002]
[edit reason] Specific URL changed to example.com [/edit]

[meannate]

Interesting... I imagine they're both calling a generic name for the new window.

[buckworks]

Could someone please explain? I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. (Viewed the page on a Mac, using IE 5.1).

[mbauser2]

The title of this thread is disingenuous: Google never said they don't new links in new windows. (There's a user preference to open SERPS links in new windows, for crying out loud.) They said they don't do pop-up advertisements.

What appears to be happening: The cached page is using a Javascript OnClick event to open a window containing the relative URL "/tour/tour1.htm". MSIE (for Windows, anyway) doesn't use the BASE element when expanding URIs in Javascript, so MSIE requests google.com/tour/tour1.htm instead of example.com/tour/tour1.htm . By dumb luck, Googles does have a file at that URL, so the cached example.com link opens a Google page in the window.

(Google's cache adds a BASE element to every cached page, so that relative URIs resolve properly. Browser that do reference Javascript-generated URIs against BASE will open the correct window. Mozilla 1.0 under Windows opens the correct window.)

Real lesson here? Don't trust relative URLs in Javascript on MSIE.

[edited by: Marcia at 3:48 am (utc) on July 2, 2002]
[edit reason] specific company changed to example.com [/edit]

[Key_Master]

A pop up is a pop up, advertisement or not. If Google is going to continue to use the cache (citing fair use or whatever reason they use) then they need to make sure that the cached page resolves and operates as it was originally intended to be.

Real lesson here? If you can't trust relative URLs in Javascript on MSIE, don't cache pages that uses them.

[mbauser2]

A pop up is a pop up, advertisement or not.

Most people would disagree. Clicking a link that says "Take the tour" and getting a pop-up about the tour is significantly different from clicking on that same link and getting an ad pop-up about something else entirely. Normal people take the intent of the pop-up into account, and even find informational pop-ups useful when the information isn't worth replacing the parent window.

Real lesson here? If you can't trust relative URLs in Javascript on MSIE, don't cache pages that uses them.

Now your dislike of Google is affecting your logic. You just advocated designing the Web around Microsoft's second-rate implementation of a third-rate programming language.

[Key_Master]

Normal people take the intent of the pop-up into account.

I don't want to take a tour with Google. HELLO, that promotes Google.com! I want to take a tour with example.com. That's what the original intent of the page was.

Now your dislike of Google is affecting your logic. You just advocated designing the Web around Microsoft's second-rate implementation of a third-rate programming language.

Me, advocating Microsoft- you haven't been hanging around here long enough to realize how absurd that comment sounds. Anyhow, who said I disliked Google? :):):):):)

[buckworks]

Am I understanding this correctly: when some of you folks clicked the Tour link you got a popup with pages from Google or something? When I clicked it (using Explorer/Mac) I got the expected tour of example.com. I wonder what made the difference?

[Key_Master]

Yes, buckworks. Clicking on the Tour link sends us non-Mac folks on a tour of Google. ;)

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