Problem with "No Cache" tags Options

[eccbas]

I have an issue with Network Solutions regarding a change that they made recently to my website.(template driven) I've been with them for 5 years, and while they are not my primary site, the site is important nonetheless. Recently, for whatever reason, they added the tags below to my head, and I do not have access to remove it. I can think of NO reason for it to be there, but I want it GONE, and they "don't know if they can remove it". BS. The site use to be a page rank of 5 in Google,(now a 4, and falling in the index) and in the top 3-5 on every other search engine, and now, POOF. Gone. Because of the "no cache??

Does this tag have anything to do with that, as I think it does, since nothing else has changed?? Although, I also noticed that the title is further down in the head, not at the top. The meta keywords, and description are at the top. This I also have NO control over. I HATE them!! They have rendered my site useless, and if it is NOT fixed by the end of today, I will be cancelling the site first thing tomorrow.

Just thought I'd ask someone else. Here is the code;

META HTTP-EQUIV="CACHE-CONTROL" CONTENT="NO-CACHE"><META HTTP-EQUIV="PRAGMA" CONTENT="NO-CACHE"

[pandy]

If a paid host added anything to my pages I would be out of there faster than they could say invoice. So that's my advice. Maybe these google searches give a hint.
http://www.google.com/search?q=netsol+sucks
http://www.google.com/search?q=network+solutions+sucks

That said, if you can use server side techniques (I'm not familiar with their hosting) this is how to do cache control.
http://www.mnot.net/cache_docs/
If you can do this, their Meta tags should mean nothing.

[Christian J]

Not to defend netsol, but are you sure they added the no-cache tags?

The site use to be a page rank of 5 in Google,(now a 4, and falling in the index)

This could be due to things like fewer people linking to you, or the the sites linking to you have become less influential, or maybe a competing site has improved on your expense.

I also noticed that the title is further down in the head, not at the top. The meta keywords, and description are at the top. This I also have NO control over.

This sounds like if someone has manually edited your page, not like some server-generated junk like e.g. geocities ads automatically. What happens if you change the TITLE text and META description slightly, will they immediately be shuffled around? (META keywords are not used anymore so don't bother with them.)

META HTTP-EQUIV="CACHE-CONTROL" CONTENT="NO-CACHE"><META HTTP-EQUIV="PRAGMA" CONTENT="NO-CACHE"

These tags should not prevent search engine indexing, they just tell browsers and bots not to cache the content but are poorly supported: http://htmlhelp.com/faq/html/publish.html#no-cache However the sample code you posted lacks the beginning < and ending > characters, if it looks like that on your web pages too maybe it confuses indexing bots.

Moving around the TITLE and META content shouldn't matter either, possibly with the exception of BASE and META charset elements (these should appear before any content they are meant to affect).

Could you post the URL of your site? If not, could you post a sample of the HEAD section and also the complete robots.txt file (if there is one)?

See also http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/b...&topic=8523

[pandy]

I also noticed that the title is further down in the head, not at the top. The meta keywords, and description are at the top. This I also have NO control over.

This sounds like if someone has manually edited your page, not like some server-generated junk like e.g. geocities ads automatically. What happens if you change the TITLE text and META description slightly, will they immediately be shuffled around? (META keywords are not used anymore so don't bother with them.)

Maybe it's some kind of template setup.

[eccbas]

Not to defend netsol, but are you sure they added the no-cache tags?

These tags should not prevent search engine indexing, they just tell browsers and bots not to cache the content but are poorly supported: http://htmlhelp.com/faq/html/publish.html#no-cache However the sample code you posted lacks the beginning < and ending > characters, if it looks like that on your web pages too maybe it confuses indexing bots.

Moving around the TITLE and META content shouldn't matter either, possibly with the exception of BASE and META charset elements (these should appear before any content they are meant to affect).

Could you post the URL of your site? If not, could you post a sample of the HEAD section and also the complete robots.txt file (if there is one)?

See also http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/b...&topic=8523

Well, if they're telling a bot not to cache it, how does that not support what I said. Aren't search engines just BIG databases filled with cached pages? That's what I have always thought.....

As for the rest of what you said, yes, I suppose anything is possible, but this just started when they changed the site. A little too muc of a coincidence for me.

There is no robots text file, and while I do not want to give out the url, here is the name-edited(my edited text in caps) version of the head;

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow"><meta name="description" content="DESCRIPTION IS HERE, ABOUT 200 CHARACTERS">

<meta name="keywords" content="KEYWORDS ARE HERE, ABOUT 50 OR SO">

<META HTTP-EQUIV="CACHE-CONTROL" CONTENT="NO-CACHE"><META HTTP-EQUIV="PRAGMA" CONTENT="NO-CACHE">
<script language="javascript">
//-- These colors are used in design templates

var col_primary="#fffee2";
var col_secondary="#eef7d0";
var col_tertiary="#eef7d0";
var col_background="#ffffff";

</script>


<script language="JavaScript" src="scripts/user.js"></script>
<title>TITLE IS ALL THE WAT DOWN HERE, for no reason, since it displays at the TOP of the page</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" media="screen" href="scripts/template.css"><link rel="stylesheet" media="all" href="scripts/website.css"><link rel="stylesheet" media="print" href="scripts/print.css">
</head>
<body class="background" onload="processMenus()">
<script language="javascript">

var hexValues="0123456789ABCDEF";
var hexValuesComp=hexValues.toLowerCase();
function decimalHex(decimal) {
var hexv = hexValues.substr(decimal&15,1);
while(decimal>15) {
decimal>>=4;
hexv=hexValues.substr(decimal&15,1)+hexv; }
if(hexv.length==1) hexv="0" +hexv;

return hexv;
}

function hexDecimal(hexv) {
return parseInt(hexv,16);
}


var grad=new Array();
var colarr1=new Array();
var colarr2=new Array();
function getGradient(size,a,b) {
size-=1;

ud=1;
rng=256;

if (b>a) rng=b-a;
if (a==b) rng=0;
if (b<a) {
rng=a-b;
ud=-1;
}

grad=new Array();
z=rng/size;

c=a;
for (g=0; g<size+1; g++) {
ge=Math.round©;
grad[g]=ge;
c+=z*ud;

}
}

function getDecimal(hex,pos) {
hof=0;
if(hex.indexOf("#")!=-1) hof=1;
z=hex.substr(hof + pos,2);
return (hexDecimal(z));
}

function getGradientArrays(col1,col2,sz,arr) {

r1=getDecimal(col1,0);
r2=getDecimal(col2,0);
getGradient(sz,r1,r2);
grad1r=grad;

g1=getDecimal(col1,2);
g2=getDecimal(col2,2);
getGradient(sz,g1,g2);
grad1g=grad;

b1=getDecimal(col1,4);
b2=getDecimal(col2,4);
getGradient(sz,b1,b2);
grad1b=grad;

for (j=0; j<grad1r.length; j++) {
arr[j]="#" + decimalHex(grad1r[j]) + decimalHex(grad1g[j]) + decimalHex(grad1b[j]);
}

}

getGradientArrays(col_tertiary,col_secondary,25,colarr1);
getGradientArrays(col_secondary,col_tertiary,50,colarr2);

var wzone1='';

op=100;
for (j=0; j<25; j++) {

op-=4;

if(op<0) op=0;
op1=op/100;
wzone1+='<table cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 border=0 width=129><tr>';
wzone1+='<td style="height: 1px; opacity: ' + op1 + '; filter: alpha(opacity=' + op + '); background-color: ' + colarr1[j] + ';" >';
//wzone1+='<td style="height: 1px;" class="tertiary">';

wzone1+='</td>';
wzone1+='</tr></table>';

}



wzone1+='<table cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 border=0 width=129><tr>';
wzone1+='<td style="height: 54px;">';
wzone1+='</td>';
wzone1+='</tr></table>';


op=0;
for (j=0; j<50; j++) {

op+=2;

if(op>100) op=100;
op1=op/100;
wzone1+='<table cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 border=0 width="100%"><tr>';
wzone1+='<td style="height: 1px; opacity: ' + op1 + '; filter: alpha(opacity=' + op + '); background-color: ' + colarr2[j] + ';">';
wzone1+='</td>';
wzone1+='</tr></table>';

}

wzone1+='<table cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 border=0 width=129 height="100%"><tr>';
wzone1+='<td style="height: 100%;" class="tertiary">';
wzone1+='</td>';
wzone1+='</tr></table>';

</script>
<div id="nav-left">
<div id="headertop">
<h1 id="website-title" class="primary">THEN THE TITLS IS HERE AS WELL</h1>
<h2 id="website-slogan" class="secondary">NAME OF COMPANY HERE</h2>
</div>
<div id="inner">
<div id="navcontainer" class="tertiary">
<div id="nav-wrapper" class="tertiary">
<div><a href="home.html" class="tertiary"><h3>Home</h3></a></div>

Then just goes into the rest of the page......................................

I did leave the brackets out of the code above <>...............

Let me know what your thoughts are on this............thanks. Oh, I should also mention, that the ONLY parts of the head I even have access to are the keywords, description, and title. Nothing else. They are the ONLY ones that have access to my site.

[pandy]

Let me know what your thoughts are on this............thanks. Oh, I should also mention, that the ONLY parts of the head I even have access to are the keywords, description, and title. Nothing else. They are the ONLY ones that have access to my site.

So it is a template site? You can't upload the whole HTML for you site but just get to enter some paramers in a form?

[eccbas]

Let me know what your thoughts are on this............thanks. Oh, I should also mention, that the ONLY parts of the head I even have access to are the keywords, description, and title. Nothing else. They are the ONLY ones that have access to my site.

So it is a template site? You can't upload the whole HTML for you site but just get to enter some paramers in a form?

Yes, it is a template. As I said, it was never an issue before they changed their set up a few weeks ago. I don't have the capability to upload to it either. When I bought it years ago, I did so because I did not know how to build a website. Now, I do, and I am just thinking about scrapping the whole thing, and moving to a new site at Go Daddy or something. At least I can do my own coding!! BUt for now, is there anything that I can add to the head BEFORE the cache code, that would void it? (since I
can't take it out)

The sucky thing is, that I use to get a lot of traffic on that site. Now, I will have to start all over, putting a new site in a search engine, and that takes a long time to get indexed above a 5th place ranking.....sigh.

[Christian J]

Well, if they're telling a bot not to cache it, how does that not support what I said. Aren't search engines just BIG databases filled with cached pages?

AFAIK indexing bots don't pay attention to cache directives at all, and if they do it should probably only mean that they will download the whole document every time (rather than just checking the last-modified header). E.g., to stop Google from indexing your pages you should use the META ROBOTS tag, not cache control. See http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/b...py?answer=35303

CODE

<title>TITLE IS ALL THE WAT DOWN HERE, for no reason, since it displays at the TOP of the page</title>

The TITLE will always display at the top of popular browsers' windows, it's not part of the BODY content. Putting the TITLE element a bit down in the HEAD section shouldn't affect anything (with the exception of e.g. META charsets, but you don't appear to use that).

CODE

<h1 id="website-title" class="primary">THEN THE TITLS IS HERE AS WELL</h1>

That's the H1 element, a page's top level header. Its content can be completely different from the TITLE element's content, though I usually put more or less the same content in both.

Oh, I should also mention, that the ONLY parts of the head I even have access to are the keywords, description, and title. Nothing else. They are the ONLY ones that have access to my site.

In that case it's quite possible that netsol changed the way their online editor works, but I still don't see anything that would affect your SE rank from that (though it's odd that the editor adds "no-cache" elements without offering you a way to edit them).

It's certainly a good idea to change to a webhost that allows you to upload your own HTML documents, instead of relying on their editor.

[pandy]

The sucky thing is, that I use to get a lot of traffic on that site. Now, I will have to start all over, putting a new site in a search engine, and that takes a long time to get indexed above a 5th place ranking.....sigh.

Why? Since you use NetSol as your host, I assume you have your own domain. Am I wrong? If you have, you just move to another host. You won't lose a thing.

[eccbas]

The sucky thing is, that I use to get a lot of traffic on that site. Now, I will have to start all over, putting a new site in a search engine, and that takes a long time to get indexed above a 5th place ranking.....sigh.

Why? Since you use NetSol as your host, I assume you have your own domain. Am I wrong? If you have, you just move to another host. You won't lose a thing.

Yes, I do have the domain name, but I would also have to transfer the name, since I bought that from them as well. Here's where my knowledge goes away, LOL. I don't think I can just transfer the site? since it's their package....being a template and all....talk to me like I'm 2, LOL....

How would I go about doing it without losing ground?

I did something interesting with a head viewer? and for the site I have with no cache code in it, everything was there from the head. With this particular site, nothing showed up......

[pandy]

1. Transfer the domain to another registrar. You won't lose any money because additional time is added to what you have left from your own deal. If you register for a year and have 5 months left with NetSol, you won't have to pay again in one year and five months. This is the most important step - to take control of your domain.

2. Find a host. Build your site. Check that everything works.

3. Change DNS at your new registrar (that's what tells the whole InterWeb where to go look for your stuff when someone types your domain on the address bar). This isn't as complicated as it may sound. Your new host will give you the names of their name servers. At your registar their will be a place to change name servers. You just enter the names your host told you. Typically it looks something like ns1.host.com and ns2.host.com. It takes some time for the DNS change to propagate. Max 48 hours is still used as an estimate, but in reality it's much faster now, sometimes just a few hours. The time doesn't matter, because your site is at both hosts. Those that don't get to your new host get to NetSol.

4. When everything works and you are sure the domain resolves to your new host you can get rid of NetSol.

It's said that NetSol sometimes tries to look you in. I don't know if this is still true and I've never used them, so perhaps someone else can tell you if there are special procedures needed concerning them.

[Christian J]

I don't think I can just transfer the site? since it's their package....being a template and all....

What you could do is archive the finished HTML documents (i.e., the way they are seen by visitors). If there are lots of pages there are site-ripping programs that might do it automatically. Then you could upload these archived pages to the new host.

How would I go about doing it without losing ground?

Don't point the domain name to the new host until the pages are uploaded and work fine at the new host (you can use the IP number of the new host's account to view the pages before the domain is pointed there). That way the transfer should be seamless.

I did something interesting with a head viewer? and for the site I have with no cache code in it, everything was there from the head. With this particular site, nothing showed up......

Didn't undertand that part.

[pandy]

Oh, I think it's best to don't use the same company as host ans registrar. I'm not saying that all hosts that offer domain registration are crooks, far from. But if you don't know the companies and that you can trust them, letting them handle both gives them more power and incentive to lock you in.

[jimlongo]

You can simply leave the Domain Registration at Network Solutions and drop the WebHosting part of your arrangement with them. Hire another Webhosting company - upload your pages to them, then change the DNS listings for your DOMAIN at NETWORK SOLUTIONS.

I have domains registered at NETWORK SOLUTIONS but they are hosted elsewhere. I actually like their registrar functions, but would never use their hosting services.

This post has been edited by jimlongo: Sep 28 2006, 05:23 PM

[eccbas]

You guys(gals?) are the best. Thanks. I'll build the new site, then transfer the url. Won't Google know that though?? Or do they just go by the url? I thought I read that they know how long a site has been online, and that it also weighs into their ranking a bit?..........

In answer to Christian J;
I used the following " http header viewer" to see what coding/results would be found when a request was made to my url, and here is what it said(not sure if it's accurate);

http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/http-header-viewer.shtml

This is what it saw of the NS site;

HTTP Headers given when requesting your url

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Cache-Control: NO-CACHE
Connection: close
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 22:17:30 GMT
Pragma: NO-CACHE
Accept-Ranges: bytes
ETag: "246bdc-4903-45130522"
Server: Apache/1.3.37 (Unix) (Gentoo) FrontPage/5.0.2.2634 ApacheJServ/1.1.2 mod_auth_pam/1.1.1
Content-Length: 18691
Content-Type: text/html
Last-Modified: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 21:33:22 GMT
Client-Response-Num: 1
Link:

For my other site, it showed me all of the head, plus the meta, title, etc. I just ran a search enine spider simmulator, which takes out html I guess, and it only came back with like maybe 30 words from the entire page....not sure what that means......but I know enough to know that something is wrong with that page now.....best that I just dump them and put up a site that only *I* have control of.

[Christian J]

I'll build the new site, then transfer the url. Won't Google know that though?? Or do they just go by the url?

Just the URL.

I thought I read that they know how long a site has been online, and that it also weighs into their ranking a bit?..........

I've read that too, but it applies to the age of the domain name. Not sure how much it matters, if at all.

[Christian J]

I used the following " http header viewer" to see what coding/results would be found when a request was made to my url,
...
For my other site, it showed me all of the head, plus the meta, title, etc.

Others on this forum knows more about this than me , but anyway:

Note that (confusingly) the http header is not the same as the HTML document's HEAD section. It's not part of the actual HTML document, just sent along with it as part of the client/server communication. So it's nothing strange that the HTML content is not shown in a http viewer, e.g. with http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/http-head...%2Fhtmlhelp.com I just get the http header too. This has nothing to do with how indexing bots view your site (the actual http header content may, though). On some http header viewer services like http://rexswain.com/httpview.html you can decide if you want to include the HTML content in the request or not.

I just ran a search enine spider simmulator, which takes out html I guess, and it only came back with like maybe 30 words from the entire page....not sure what that means...

If the SE simulator works correct it means that only 30 words are read by indexing bots. Maybe the rest of the content is made up of images or javascript that bots cannot understand?

See also http://htmlhelp.com/faq/html/publish.html#index-better (except that the advice on META keywords is outdated).

[eccbas]

Thanks all. NS called me back today and said that they will not be able to remove the code, so looks like I'm outta there.

[jimlongo]

See also http://htmlhelp.com/faq/html/publish.html#index-better (except that the advice on META keywords is outdated).

There's this really good article about SEO on some website

[Christian J]

See also http://htmlhelp.com/faq/html/publish.html#index-better (except that the advice on META keywords is outdated).

There's this really good article about SEO on some website

Didn't see that link in the FAQ entry!

I notice that the article too encourages META keywords, but see http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2165061

Hm, I also notice that the Google ads at the bottom advertize two link exchange programs, which are adviced against both in the article and by Google.