Important article for ASP.NET 2.0 users

If you are having Google and Yahoo Indexing issues read this

[leo11877]

Hi
Some time ago I converted my site to ASP.NET 2.0 and noticed 500 Servererror messages in my logs. If I put the same url in my IE browser, they worked ok. Using Fiddler I found out that the problem was only coming up for GoogleBot and Yahoo (and similar Mozilla spiders). I found the below article during research and the solution worked for me.

dotnetslackers-com/WSE/re-43380_ASP_NET_2_0_Mozilla_Browser_Detection_Hole.aspx

Thanks
Leo.

[Ocean10000]

The reason listed in that referenced url might be the one of the factors triggering the problem you are experiencing. But without the exact error message it is impossible to tell if that is really the case or not. Can you capture the exact error message by using a global error trap, and post the error here so we can better help you in determining the exact cause of the error or at least help narrow it down.

[edited by: Ocean10000 at 9:31 pm (utc) on April 19, 2007]

[leo11877]

I posted this article so that it would help others.

Basically, in ASP.NET 2.0 if you are using freindly urls (URL Rewriting) then those pages would Error out when Spiders would try to hit them. There basic error message says

"Cannot use a leading .. to exit above the top directory."

See complete problem here on this blog

todotnet-com/archive/0001/01/01/7472.aspx?Pending=true

My problem is solved by creating seperate browser capabilities files for different groups of spiders.

Thanks
Leo

[Jimmy Turnip]

Thanks so much.

My event viewer was getting really full and I didn't know why at all. I thought there was something wrong with the way I was rewriting the url.

I've gone from having tens of messages an hour to none so far this hour since I added the App_Browsers folder with contents to all my .NET 2 sites.

Cheers!