Re: Page redirect

Lori,

> I have the meta refresh tag on almost all of my web pages so people
> will get the updated copy and not one in their cache. I had never
> heard that some search engines won't list a site with them.

Well, no search engine actually drops your site from the index because of this
(usually, although it may if you do some more mistakes). Usually search engines
penalize your page (or the whole site) for using meta refresh. Meta refresh was
used on doorway pages to redirect users to the real site, SE's of course don't
like spamdexing and started to give lower positions for pages with meta refresh.
I, as did Paul, would recommend against using meta refresh tags.
Try the ones below to achieve what you want.

<SNIP from FAQ>
10. What does the <META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT='no-cache'> do exactly?
It tells the browser not to cache pages.
--
13. What does the <META HTTP-EQUIV="expires" CONTENT="Fri, 31 Dec 1999 23:59:59
GMT"> do exactly?
With this, you can set the date when the page in your cache is considered
outdated and a new version of the page will be requested rather than loading the
local on into the browser. The time/date should be entered exactly as in the
question.
</SNIP>

Note: people say that by http-quiv="expires" you can also enter the time as -1
which basically says that the page is expired on the very moment the client
receives it.

> Can you tell us which ones?

Well, Altavista for starters, Google and most other top search engines. Ok-ok
people can't say that for sure but some people have found that out.

> Must not be Yahoo because they have listed all
> but one of my sites that I requested.

Maybe your site got into conflict with some of their rules. Do you have the
office address, phone numbers and everything on the site? Do you have enough
UNIQUE content? Check Yahoo! for more information about their rules and check
your site against those.

> Is there another way to make sure viewers get the most up date page
> on a web site?

The two meta tags above could do it. You could also configure your server to
send the pragma='no-cache' as part of the HTTP header block (note: some, but not
all, servers automatically translate meta tags to http headers. Don't rely on
this though if you're not sure!).


Hope this helps.

Yours,
Lauri
--
(if you need more info, just shout!)

HTML: hwg-basics mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA