Problem with my home page URL

Is this a Dreamweaver thing?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I have a successful site with about 100 pages and I noticed that recently it was dropping in the rankings. This morning I was checking the site and I noticed that all links to the home page were now pointing to the same, wrong page. I most certainly did not do this accidentally since there are several links to the home page on each page. This could only have been done intentionally or by some kind of software problem/

The site was set up using Dreamweaver and based on templates. Has anyone ever had any problem with this happening before? Is it possibly some kind of DW glitch or even worse, was I hacked?

[DerekH]

I've never seen Dreamweaver do that except on one spectacular occasion when I accidentally shot the mouse over the Site Files window and pressed the button as I did so. One file (and it wasn't easy to find which!) got moved, and all the links to it got updated.

Got hacked?
Well unless you're running a webserver at home, you have two copies of your website - one on the server and one on your hard drive.
Have a look at the local copy!

Once you can table a bit more evidence we should be able to divine what has happened here. I'm comfortable with Dreamweaver and templates, so have a look at your local site and tell us in more detail what you see. Also, have a look at the date stamps on the files that point to the wrong place - that will be your biggest clue.

Have you done something exotic with the htaccess file on the server recently? That can be quite spectacular too....
DerekH

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Derek I am afraid that I did not approach this very scientifically. When I saw the problem I immediately went in and fixed it. Unfortunately I didn't make a note of the dates the files had been changed but they had been changed on both the server and my local PC.

The problem was that on my templates I have a menu option in the right column repeated at the bottom of each page and the logo on the masthead all pointing to the home page. When I discovered the problem they had all been changed so that they were now pointing to the same internal page. What makes this stranger is that I have seven separate templates that I use on this site and they had aall been changed.

Hacking is unlikely and I would normally have said that this was an error of my own creation but I doubt that I would have made the same mistake by changing the home page menu option three times on seven different templates to make them point to a completely illogical page? Strange ...

[Lobo]

It's not a bug in DW I'v came across .. I find tiredness can be an issue

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Tiredeness?

Perhaps if it happened once but what happened here required the same error to have been repeated 21 times (deliberately changing the URL of the home page three times on each of seven templates).

I don't use the full URL for the home page, just the domain name, and there would never have been any requirement for me to change this deliberately.

I have been around too long to categorically claim that I was not responsible but I just cannot figure out how this could have happened. It's not something you do and forget about it.

[Lobo]

would not a simple find and replace, on 'Entire Current Local Site" do that very thing .. one click and it's done..

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Yes it would, but old as I am I think I would have remembered doing this.

[Lobo]

Hence the tiredness concept... we all make mistakes and my guess is that is a more likely option rather than a Dreamweaver bug that no one has heard of.

yip the old brain cells are going, the senile dementia is kicking in .. get this man a zimmer frame ;-)

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I don't think this can be dismissed as tiredeness. This is a site that was established more than four years ago. The menu structure is tried and tested and the last significant work on the site was about nine months ago. There would have been no reason for me to change or replace the address of any page far less the home page.

(BTW I don't take hallucinatory drugs either).