Posts by tgreer

This particular section of Daniweb is about coding, not SEO. The original poster said nothing about SEO, nor did he explain the scope/purpose of his application. Not every web application is designed around the whole SEO/AdSense paradigm that is spreading like kudzu these days - there are actual business applications out there.

So yes, while personal opinions about programming styles/methods are welcome here, blanket condemnations of valid HTML structure based on off-topic reasons (SEO), are not. There is a big difference between an opinion ("Frames are inferior to DIVs set to overflow...") and just plain bad advice ("Don't use frames.... ever!").

Anyone who "knows what they're doing" considers all possible approaches and picks the one that is best suited to the task at hand.

Of course, Daniweb has a complete section for Web Development, including discussion forums, code tutorials, etc.

Again, there is no reason not to use frames if that is what fits your application needs. Frames are valid HTML, continue to be part of the revised HTML and XHTML specifcations, are part of the DOM so are scriptable, etc. This blanket condemnation of frames, with no regard to the scope or context of the application is silly and unwelcome here.

Keep in mind, though, that "PageRanks" have very little to do with actual search engine results, the indexing of the pages. All search engines can and do index parameterized URLs, so there should be no excessive hand-wringing in regard to dynamically-generated pages with PHP and/or ASP.

It depends on what you mean by "web design", first of all. Are you talking about programming? Layout? Graphic Design?

Regardless, my advice to anyone who wants to work with the web, is to learn HTML. I've been a programmer for decades, and a web developer for as long as the web has existed, and have never needed a program like Dreamweaver or Frontpage.

You'd be missing out on nothing. PHP or ASP.NET, both simply generate HTML and/or JavaScript and CSS. The end result is the same. Both have server-side access to databases.

ASP.NET is more complex, and in my opinion, that is a bad thing. There is huge overhead in creating complex server objects that insulate the coder from the reality of the client-server nature of web development, and from the HTML that is generated.

ASP.NET vs. PHP then is not a debate about "capability".

If I were in your shoes, I think I'd be more concerned about the availability of good coders in either language. I think you'll find there are a great many more PHP coders than ASP.NET coders, but that the quality range is similarly much greater with PHP.

Based on what evidence? I know you use mod_rewrite here, but I don't on my forum, and when I do a targeted search for specific pages, there isn't an issue finding them. I think this is one of the great myths of SEO.

More is not always better. The choice for outsourced development, however, usually comes down to long-term maintainability. I find ASP.NET to be extremely burdensome from a support and maintenance perpsective.

That's simply not true. Bots can follow parameterized links just fine. Nor do they have access to configuration files. I'm sure you mean well, but spreading "SEO" rumors and mis-information is not helpful.

Please don't spread misinformation. Google has never published it's PageRank formula, nor explained how it relates to site indexing.

If you feel your site isn't being crawled "deeply" enough, you can use a Google tool called "SiteMap" which gives Google a detailed map of your site to make it easier for their bot to crawl/index your site.

Not possible; not part of the CSS specification.

There is an absolutely definitive answer: search engines see pages. Search engines do not see the code that produces pages.

I remember the day when "web developers" first concerned themselves about oh, performance, database connectivity, effeciency, code reuse... now we worry about search engine "optimization" before even learning the most fundamental first principles of web development, such as the difference between "client" and "server".

This is sad.

I believe "CSS" filters are an IE-only, non-standard, non-compliant "thing".

Regardless, you cannot change the CSS declaration itself. CSS Stylesheets are not part of the DOM. You can, however, use JavaScript to change the style of an individual HTML element. Since styles cascade, the element will use the original class/id declaration except when specifically overriden by an inline style.

So, rather than trying to get the "CSS element", get a handle to the actual styled HTML element, and interact with it.

The HTML is correct. The CSS isn't. You should declare the smaller container to use relative positioning. Study the differences between relative and absolute positioning.

I have no control over the asp.net website. In any case, you really need to update to .NET Framework 2.0. I understand that may not be under your control.

I have to apologize. I said "Graphics", when I meant "Drawing". Use the System.Drawing namespace.

There are a few articles on the topic, such as this one.

You're hopeless.

It's impossible to hide the affection with which you say that.

The point isn't whether a console application can be written. Please read the original question: how to start a DOS prompt and run an executable. Obviously this is impossible from HTML, and any non-DOS system. Can we please stop posting in this off-topic thread and let it die a natural death?

From some sitcom, Seinfeld, I think, where the advice was to name your company "Thank you for calling, how may I help you.". That way the person who answers the phone can say:

"Thank you for calling 'thank you for calling how may I help you', how may I help you?"

That's completely typical. I really wouldn't worry about it all. Users, as a group, are used to the way the web works and understand they have to wait for a page to load before it can be fully functional.

What I'd be more concerned about is, why is your page taking so long to load?

Orwell, definitely! I'm also struck by certain passages in Plato's Republic.

"If, though unjust, I acquire the reputation of justice, a heavenly life is promised to me. Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance tyrannizes over truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must devote myself. I will describe around me a picture and shadow of virtue to be the vestibule and exterior of my house; behind I will trail the subtle and crafty fox."

He even talks about SEOs and Matt Cutts:

"With a view to concealment we will establish secret brotherhoods and political clubs. And there are professors of rhetoric who teach the art of persuading courts and assemblies; and so, partly by persuasion and partly by force, I shall make unlawful gains and not be punished."

Someone at Google clearly knows the classics!

It's called "double-talk". If you can fill normal sentences/paragraphs with terms that you never define and that no one really understands, you can:

1. Satisfy the public's demand for answers without really providing any and,

2. Provide gainful employment for people who claim to understand the terms and for a small fee will put them into practice for you.

In all cases where you encounter double-talk, the proper interpretation is "this is something that makes us obscene amounts of money, and so we simply aren't going to explain it to you."

We'll see. Added to my forum. Thanks.

I too, am confused by this thread. Is the original poster asking a question? If so, please spell it out.

We definitely have evaluated the risk/reward ratio differently here. I see the RISK of privacy abuses by Google as a result of them caching everything they can get their hands on (not just the web, but emails, books, business documents, site traffic stats, buying habits, search terms), and then re-selling it for profit, far outweighs the rewards.

I don't know for certain (because they ain't saying), but I would be very surprised if what you say is true, that their cache IS their index. I've asked, and have had no reply. You're saying they search their entire cache in response to each and every web query? I really doubt it.

I'll ask again, does anyone know? If I add a 'no-cache' directive to my robots.txt, will my site still be indexed? If not, you're absolutely right: I'll have to decide if it's worth it to me, or not, to be indexed by Google.

A book, and a book's index, are separate things, Dani. If Google wants to index my site, and return my site's URL in response to a search on indexed topics (digital printing, PostScript, PDF, etc.) then you're right: this is a service to me and my site. Thanks.

Google is the only search engine that uses a complete, cached copy, of your pages, and then uses their local cache, to generate an index.

cache != index

Even that would be OK, but they then allow users to view the cache, rather than going to your page.

Moreover, they allow companies to bid on keywords, which completely bypasses the natural search engine mechanism.

The combination of caching content (from Web, from Gmail, from Print, and now with Google Apps, add in all your business documents, and with Google checkout, your user's buying patterns), plus monetizing that content, is the problem.

I certainly use robots.txt. I don't prevent googlebot, you're right, because it isn't clear to me that Google differentiates between caching and indexing. Their FAQ on the subject of caching contains instructions for removing a site from their "index". They are being purposely vague about the differences.

If there is an instruction I can add to robots.txt that will prevent caching but allow indexing, I'd certainly like to know what it is.

It isn't impossible. It's just impossible using the web. HTML cannot execute a DOS program. HTML cannot execute anything; it's interpreted by a browser.

In HTML? No. JavaScript is a web-client language, so has no access to the DOS console. I think you're in the wrong forum... and frankly, I have no idea what forum your request would go in.

You can't have a forum without a back-end database. You can't interact with a database except with a server-side langauge. The most popular, supported server-side languages are PHP, ASP, and ASP.NET.

You're leaving yourself little or no options.

There is a difference between indexing, and caching. There is also a difference between behaving as a legitimate search engine, vs. scraping the entire web for content, and then re-packaging that content as sales goods.

Google is like a virus that co-opts some mechanism in the organism to reproduce. Because of Adsense/Adwords, the web "content" these days is turning into pre-packaged, easy-to-digest, monetized content for Google. Hardly anyone puts out a site these days without excessive hand-wringing about SEO/Google: what keywords to pick, will using SiteMap or Analytics make them better indexed, and similar nonsense.

There was even a question on the forum here, about changing servers: "Will having a new IP address hurt my rankings?"

This is the new state of the web.

Of course it's the case. The entire Adwords/Adsense system is profoundly flawed. It's like Las Vegas, where the casinos always win.

Google scrapes the web for content, caches it locally on their servers without permission, and then sells keywords against that content (which they didn't generate).

The initial idea of PageRank was very good: that a site's popularity could be measured through backlinks, which can be considered as "votes". Back when the web was new, that was valid.

As soon as they started selling keywords, monetizing content, and leaking little tidbits about their practices to fuel the SEO craze, they lost all credibility, in my opinion.

No one knows. Google doesn't really provide any useful information on the matter - they simply pretend to. Then all the SEO folks pretend to understand the issue. In short: don't worry about it. Just let things take their (un)natural course.

It won't be 'indexed' as "Welcome". The overall impact of that is probably too small to measure, however, in terms of 'ranking'.

In the future, for questions about SEO and SERPs, etc., please post in the appropriate sections on Daniweb. This forum is for programming questions.

It could help quite a bit with text-heavy pages. It definitely helps with forums.

I don't understand your question. A Flash object is a Flash object. It requires the Flash plugin to play. To integrate it into your page, you need to use either the embed or object tag, depending on your doctype.

ASP.NET doesn't alter that. ASP.NET is a server-side language for producing HTML dynamically.

If I haven't answered your question, please try again with more detail.

Excel is not a server application. Asking it to be a "chart server" for your web application is not going to lead to a scalable application. I would suggest either:

1) creating your own charts directly, which is possible using the Graphics namespace. Create images based on form data, and stream them right back to the user, or

2) get an ASP.NET compatible charting component.

In my opinion, Google has been the ruin of the web. By monetizing content (which they don't even own), they've created an incentive to put up sites quickly, on the hot topic du jour, strictly to get traffic and therefore ad revenue. In fact, we call these "MFA", or "Made For Adsense" sites. It is nothing for some folks to own dozens of domain names, with every site looking virtually the same, yet spanning all sorts of different topics.

Then you have the SEO snake-oil salesmen, another industry prompted and inspired by Google, all selling the idea that with just the right magic incantation, plus their special insight into the inner workings of search engines, you could be the next internet millionaire.

So, yes, I share your concern about the state of the web and whether it's worth it to truly LEARN about it in the current climate. I would focus instead on general computer science/programming. The skills you learn there translate to the web.

The climate is shifting, slowly. While Google is still the giant, their practices are generating considerable backlash and anti-Google sentiment.

You might like this blog entry: http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry376.html

Someone who can slap together a site using pre-built templates and tools isn't a programmer, and a "site" is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to web-aware applications.

I use Visual C# 2005 Express. I too am glad it's free. I too would recommend it as a resource for C# developers. I fail to see the controversy here.

If it works, it works! I'm out of the habit of using tables for layout, so didn't immediately think of placing the image elements inside of a table.

It depends. There are a some CSS declarations for you to research:

First look at the 'overflow' properties, particularly overflow: scroll .If you're using tables, look at white-space: nowrap and also the min-width property.

The File Control presents a standard "File Open" dialog. You have no control over the user's OS. They can certainly navigate their own directory structure.

And, since multiple items cannot have the same id, you would typically use a class for styles that you wish to apply to several items.

Text in a DIV will automatically wrap.

I think you need to show us the code you have thus far.

That is really only suitable for an intranet application, and an IE-only browser environment.

Setting a page to 100% is easy. Designing a banner that does so is different. Essentially, you have to divide your image into 3 pieces, a left and right, and a center pieces that is a simple sliver of solid color. That is the piece that will "expand" to fit the size of the page.

Post in the HTML/JavaScript/CSS section if you need more detailed help.

You can size your frame. You can define "rows" and "cols", for example, inside your frame tag declaration:

A complete guide to all things frame-related:

http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-frames-970331

There's nothing inherently wrong with Frames. If you need to use them to accomplish your goals, then by all means use them.

Take any sentence or site with "SEO" in it with a grain of salt.

Focus on your content, learning HTML, etc. Search engines are built to find content, so the idea that you have to perform extraordinary contortions to make that happen is mostly self-serving nonsense and Google-inspired propoganda.

Simpler is usually better, so the idea of static pages with hyperlinks is just fine. To answer your other question, while there are JavaScript techniques to determine browser size and screen resolution, users generally find that very annoying. In other words, if I want to browse with a certain size window, then a site shouldn't change it.

Most users will have 1024x768, with the next largest group at 800x600. If you can design for 800x600, then don't worry about detecting resolution.

ASP.NET produces HTML. So, the standard HTML techniques will work just fine.

Why would a bot care about white-space characters or code comments? No, such a tool would have no adverse effect.