Javascript on page vs. calling js file

Big drop in SE refs

[jimbeetle]

Hi folks, I'm new to the board and wanted to share a problem/observation and see what feedback is out there.

I use Frontpage for one site and had been using its Include Page function to insert a banner rotation Javascript on each of the pages. I had the site set up so that the pages in Major Widgets called majorwidgetsbanner.htm, Other Widgets pages called otherwidgetsbanner.htm, etc.

It all worked fine. Then, as I started to read about smaller pages being better for a couple of SEs I figured I could kill two birds with one stone: slightly reduce page size and move the main content up on the page.

So, instead of using the Include Page function, which basically just includes as is, whether HTML, Javascript, whatever, I'd call an external js file, which spiders do not request.

The banner rotation script is about 50 lines and this would reduce the page size by this amount and move the main content up as well.

So I tried it on my Major Widgets section and within a few days most SE referrals for Major Widgets dried up. SE traffic for Other Widgets was and is still going strong. Hardest hit was traffic from MSN.

So my two birds with one stone really backfired. It's either that MSN/Inktomi really liked the main content 50 lines further down on the page or the file size. Or does any of this make any sense at all as a reason for a huge drop in SE traffic?

I'm muddled in Manhattan,

Jim

[ann]

There could be other factors involved in this...I too have noticed a drop in msn traffic but I feel it is a couple of things like, Mothers are signing up so their children can surf safer so you are getting quite a few youngsters on line with msn now (the butterfly push is on all over TV), and there is of course the pending Holidays...

Just a thought.

Ann

[Macguru]

Hi jimbeetle,

Welcome to WebmasterWorld. [webmasterworld.com]

>>and within a few days most SE referrals for Major Widgets dried up.

I dont think major search engines have such a short cycle to crawl and reindex your pages.
As ann mentionned, it could be some other thing. Has your search engine rankings changed? Did they moved lower?

[jimbeetle]

Thanks for the welcome.

It's all of those other factors that I'm trying to rule in or out and there's a world of coincidence out there. The drop for our Major Widgets section was across the board with MSN just being the most dramatic since that's where we pulled most of our referrals from. Major Widget referrals from MSN went from 6,000 to about 600 but there were similar drops for the other SEs. At the same time our Other Widget MSN referrals stayed about the same at around 6,000 and other SE traffic didn't change much either.

And as for crawling and indexing within a matter of days I think that might just be me coincidentlly making the changes to the Major Widgets section at the time of major crawls. As it is we serve at least a couple of hundred pages a day to each of the major spiders.

For SE rankings our main Major Widgets keywords are very, very, very competitive. Instead of concentrating on Major Widgets itself we've been working the edges and doing pretty good getting traffic from Major Widgets One, Major Widgets Two through say about Major Widgets Two-Fifty. Similarly with our other main section Other Widgets. So we really don't run checks on our main keywords that often and...

Ahah! Here's one of those 'other factors' at play and one that I missed -- MSN no longer uses Direct Hit results! (Boy, if there really was enough time to read all those webmaster newsletters.) Most of our top Major Widget listings on MSN were through Direct Hit. Problem explained.

Except that Inktomi has always liked our pages. Other Widgets One through whatever all still show up in the top 3 or 5 along with related Still-More Widgets pages. So I think I'm going to spend the day changing our Major Widgets pages back and see what happens.

It's really good having a place to talk things out. Thanks much,

Jim