Base Href set for directory

Shouldn't this be for home page?

[Lorel]

I've set up base hrefs many times but this is a new one. I've been asked to check out a website and found the base href tag on home page is set up for the directory that houses the shopping cart instead of the home page as follows (999 resembles the abbreviation of the cart name):

base href="http://www.example.COM/999/"

I"ve never seen it done this way for the home page. Can someone tell me what the reason for this might be?

I checked the home page in a server header checker and it timed out (did not produce a 200 code).

It seems to me this would destroy whatever rank the site had previously and value of all links coming into the site.

[tedster]

I'd guess it's a technical error - and that search engines will most likely ignore it. But yes, it should be fixed. The base href attribute is not essential any way - the site might do better without it!

[D_Blackwell]

The base href attribute is not essential any way - the site might do better without it!

I've watched 'base href' threads for years and never been persuaded from academic or practical posts which side of the fence to be on. Have never used them, but look into resources or follow a thread once in a while. The topic has lost a lot of steam; don't see much about it these days. Don't know if that means it's considered settled one way or another and I missed it - or if it is just of limited relevance and people have more pressing topics these days.

[Lorel]

I figured it must be a mistake. Thanks.

[incrediBILL]

I used to run a hosting company that provided a shared cert and the base href is often used to point to shared images and for a shopping cart to have a specific base href usually means it has a shared SSL cert, not a unique SSL cert.

The site may be:

http://example.com

but the HTTPS site may be:

[example.sharedhostingserverexample.com...]

There when the path becomes example.sharedhostingexample.com on the shared SSL server the base href points back to the absolute path with the images.

Changing the base href willy nilly could result in the cart template pages becoming broken

If the site has switched to a dedicated SSL cert, then the bare href would be redundant.

[Lorel]

This doesn't appear to be as you described as once I get into the shopping cart checkout page here is the url:

[example.com...] to page in shopping cart