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Ben Nadel at the New York ColdFusion User Group (May. 2009) with: Gert Franz and Peter Bell and Mark Drew
Ben Nadel at the New York ColdFusion User Group (May. 2009) with: Gert Franz ( @gert_railo ) Peter Bell ( @peterbell ) Mark Drew ( @markdrew )

Search Engine Optimization and Error Catching

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I have been trying to build this site with good search engine optimization (SEO). The top item on the SEO list is the link hrefs. My site is built on a DAX string (Divide and Qonquer mentality - "daq's") in the form of:

"index.cfm?dax=blog:4.view

However, in order to make the site more SEO, I have retooled the links to be in the form of:

./blog/4-this-is-the-entry-title/view

which essentially gets parsed into the DAX string metioned above. The concern I have here is that this is actually throwing a 404 file not found error. However, I catch this in a custom error handler page and manually set the page status to 202:

<cfheader statuscode="200" statustext="OK" />

When I do a CFHttp to test the status of my pages, it does indeed come back as 200; however, I am seeing in my logs that spiders will hit the home page of my site, but then not hit anything else. I don't know if that is because it can somehow figure out that it's actually hitting a 404 page or what? But then again, even if they had to do a page grab to get the status code, my logs would have that as well.

So, why are search engines not moving past my homepage? More to come....

Reader Comments

4 Comments

Any problem on Google Site Map verification. I am not able to verify some of my site using customized 404 page for not found pages.

Thanks

1 Comments

Technologies: mod_perl php apache xml mysql mssql nt linux java ajax ant solr

Migrated relational data to SOLR for improved search functionality.
Initiated process to standardize AJAX development on Yahoo UI toolkit (involved leading a team to review existing systems, define requirements, identify integration points and impact of adoption, and propose adoption guidelines)
Worked with operations team to maintain and extend functionality of ticket tracking and CRM tools.
Reduced code execution through refactoring, code analysis and database optimization
Kept development blog to increase communication between coasts department structure.
Introduced testing procedures and tools for non-Java projects.
Introduced standard build process for PHP and Perl code using Ant/Java - reduced push time and associated push problems.
Identified stakeholders and managed communication between multiple developers and external stakeholders for multiple projects.

I believe in love. I believe in compassion. I believe in human rights. I believe that we can afford to give more of these gifts to the world around us because it costs us nothing to be decent and kind and understanding. And, I want you to know that when you land on this site, you are accepted for who you are, no matter how you identify, what truths you live, or whatever kind of goofy shit makes you feel alive! Rock on with your bad self!
Ben Nadel