Help! Front page links redirecting to...front page (sorry, long!)

[SulkyGirl]

OK, repost without my site info:

The links on my front page menu are just straight HTML, there's no js or anything else on the page. But I've been getting a lot of emails from people saying that sometimes when they click on one of my internal links, they get redirected back to my home page.

I tried myself, and it happens maybe 1 in 4 times: I click the link for, say [widgets.com...]

and I see that URL load in my browser bar thing, and the wheel spins, and everything appears to be well...

And then the URL in the navigation bar turns back to [widgets.com...] and the page remains the same. What could this be? I'm ever and ever so confused!

Here's a cut and paste sample of the code I have:

 ¦¦¦ <A HREF="http://www.widgets.com/index.html">HOME</A> ¦¦¦ <A HREF="http://www.widgets.com/topten.html">TOP
 TEN WIDGETS</A> ¦¦¦ 

Anyone have any thoughts? I'm pretty dense with this stuff, I'm a self-taught newbie, so...I'm sure it's something silly and easy. But what?

[tedster]

Nothing jumps out at me from that snippet. My first resort is always to validate the HTML. Go here and see what it says:

[validator.w3.org...]

When the W3C gives your page a clean bill of health, then see if you still get the same behavior. But if you don't validate first, you can spend a long time chasing your own shadow (been there MANY times.)

[SulkyGirl]

Wow! Um, the site validator hated me. It was VERY upset with my haphazard coding. I've fixed everything it specified, I can only hope it's fixed the problem. Everything seems to be working fine tonight, hopefully that will continue. Thanks! And if anyone has other thoughts as to what specifically it could be/could have been...

[SulkyGirl]

Help! It's still happening. I feel like I'm losing a bunch of business this way. Argh. If anyone has any thoughts....please!

[Alternative Future]

Hi SulkyGirl,

In a previous post you asked about redirecting, and were advised to place the following into your pages:

<script type="text/javascript">window.location.href="http://www.widgets.com/"</script>
and this in the meta-block (the top one)
<META HTTP-EQUIV=Refresh CONTENT="1; URL=http://www.widgets.com/">

You wouldn’t have this repeated in your affected pages would you? As the META TAG would cause a problem similar to what you are experiencing... (perhaps not with the time period between it happening and irregularity though)

-George

[SulkyGirl]

Yeah, no redirects or anything. I don't know, it's all very strange. The page has been up for about eight months now, and it's only in the last month I've been getting emails about it.

So I must have done SOMETHING recently, but I can't for the life of me figure out what it could be. I'm pretty sure the only changes I've made in that time frame have been pretty much cosmetic, so...grrr...frustrating!

[hlbuss]

Have you asked your web host? Something with your account could be configured wrong. I have very limited experience on the server admin side of things, but that's where I would go next.

Also, do you have access to log files for the site? If so, you may be able to see what error codes (404, 200, etc. etc.) your server posts when the
re-directs happen.

[SulkyGirl]

I suppose I'll ask my host next. I took a peek at the error logs: nada. Nothing, it's not even recording an error. Very strange. Thanks for all the input, I'll keep looking for the answer and let y'all know if I find it!

[richlowe]

Some suggestions:

a) it's probably not the HTML code.
b) Check the DNS settings for your site
c) Take the code and load it into a different site and see if you can reproduce the error. This would confirm or eliminate coding errors.
d) Server issues? Most especially too much traffic?

That's what comes into my mind...
Richard Lowe

[edited by: tedster at 12:36 am (utc) on April 17, 2004]
[edit reason] small fix [/edit]