HTML, CSS, Web Design

HTTP Status Code, Web Page Error Codes

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HTTP Status Code Definitions – Web Page Error Codes

We will discuss the common error codes associated with your website and web hosting account. The definitions for these status codes have been excerpted from the World Wide Web Consortium’s webpage; “HTTP/1.1: Status Code Definitions“. All credit for quoted information is assumed given to W3C. They are an excellent group. Visit the previously listed page for all HTTP status code definitions.

404 Not Found Error

404 Not Found Error Code“10.4.5 404 Not Found

The server has not found anything matching the Request-URI. No indication is given of whether the condition is temporary or permanent. The 410 (Gone) status code SHOULD be used if the server knows, through some internally configurable mechanism, that an old resource is permanently unavailable and has no forwarding address. This status code is commonly used when the server does not wish to reveal exactly why the request has been refused, or when no other response is applicable.”

You are used to seeing this in Internet Explorer and FireFox as “Server not found” or “Web page not found”. This status code means the filename or folder is not found; it does not (currently) exist. Depending on your server and hosting account, you may be able to modify or replace the templates used for these pages. Adding your company’s logo or a brief contact form or phone number is a great idea.

 

 

FOLLOW or NOFOLLOW?

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Should I use follow or nofollow for my internal links?

To follow, or not to follow… Links have several options that can be specified for search engines. One of those options is rel=”nofollow”, which instructs a search engine not to follow the link, but to continue on the current page. The questions has been asked “should I use follow or nofollow for internal links“? The quick answer is NO, you should not use rel=”nofollow”. Who says so, you may ask? See this video about Matt Cutts (from Google); he gives you an excellent answer in about 2 minutes. It is well worth the time to watch it about FOLLOW and NOFOLLOW links.

Why do some people suggest to use nofollow for internal links?

What is the reasoning behind using rel=”nofollow”? Some believe that using FOLLOW on internal links creates excessive searching and/or indexing for search engines. If this were the case, precious resources could be wasted having bots follow links that eventually all bring themselves back to the same pages. How would this benefit the website? It would seem that excessive searching within the same site would ensure a thorough indexing of it. This may not be the case, though. If there are flaws within the internal structure of your website, pages or entire sections of your website could be missed.

How important is a sitemap.xml for search engines to index my site properly?

Missing data is the last problem you want when it comes to your website. The best way to ensure that your site is indexed properly in Google, and other search engines, is to use a sitemap file–“sitemap.xml”, “page-sitemap.xml”, “post-sitemap.xml” and so on. The larger the website, the larger (or at least more thorough) the sitemap should be. One of the advantages of using a content management system (CMS) is that these files can be automatically generated and updated by the system.

What is HTML?

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The acronym HTML stands for “Hyper Text Markup Language”. HTML has been the publicly known standard web programming language since the early 1990’s. HTML has had many different versions, and the language as a whole continues to be developed and improved upon. HTML5 includes abilities now to do things that used to only be able to be done by using a cascading style sheet (CSS) file.