Odd code?

[TXprogrammer]

sorry if this is not the right place to post this question.

Why would a web page have a form that only has hidden values and one of the fields be over 11,000 characters of what looks like garbage?

It looks like a normal web site on the surface but in looking at the source and I see the garbage at the top of the source.

[paulhiles]

Do you have a URL for us to take a look? The only thing I can think of that might take up so many characters, would be an encoded image of some description. As I said, it would be interesting to actually see what you're seeing! :o)

Paul

[TXprogrammer]

a friend asked me to look at his site and let me know what i thought. he just had it redone by someone. i am concerned about what i am seeing in the source code.

here is the site
http://67.137.147.19/Default.aspx

[paulhiles]

Eeeuurrkk!! Very ugly-looking code. Looks to me as though the page is made up of one huge form controlled by an ASP.NET component. An absolute nightmare to edit.. so your friend would be virtually forced to go back to the original coder to make any changes. Not good!

Paul

[speed]

To be honest I'm not 100% sure what the code does, it appears that the whole page is encapsulated in the form. I have a feeling that it's something to do with the navigation, possible the long data line is telling the script where it is.

The thing I'd be much much more concerned about is navigation when JavaScript is disabled, or to be more precise the lack of navigation. If I can't navigate with JS off Google is not going to get very far.

There's also 174 validation errors on the home page.

[TXprogrammer]

OK, I am also wondering how will this effect googlebot (and others), his ranking, and placement in all search engins?

[speed]

Turn JavaScript off and navigate around and that's what Google etc will see.

Also with all those characters I'd be worried about SE's reading that far.

As another issue the images are short on alt tags and there are some other problems with it meeting the accessibility guidelines.

[TXprogrammer]

thnx all, i will pass on the info.

[mikmik]

Ya, that navigation code is scary, made with a generator, and has tons of duplicate code for every link.
If you want a dhtml menu on a site, there are some with very little code and have the links coded in unordered lists so that they 1, degrade well if js is turned of/text readers and2, Spiders can see them!
One of the best I found is the one one my 'works in progress (my website)' from twinHelix. Every show/hide delay, plus other fanciness can be set, and all the styling is pure css, not in the javascript code.

That menu could've very, very easily be done in pure CSS, without any script. It is nice, though!