Google Webmaster Tools error

carlosleal · #1 (**permalink**) 09-04-2007, 02:27 PM

Hi,

I've add a site to Google Webmaster Tools about 2 months ago, but i always get the following error: "We can't currently access your home page because of an unreachable error." which is strange because my client website is online.

Another issue is that i've been in few websites that generate sitemaps, and all of them are saying that can not find my client website, but for example in the website SiteUptime - Website Monitoring Service, the status off the site is ok...

The website that i'm talking is http://www.vicaima.com

Can anyone help me?

Best regards
Carlos Leal

**wige** · #2 (**permalink**) 09-04-2007, 03:04 PM

Are other pages from the site getting indexed, or do they also show problems? How long has the domain been pointing to the current web host? Also, do you have access to your server logs? Unfortunately, I am not very familiar with IIS, but I don't see anything in the response headers that seems to be out of place.

Fitz · #3 (**permalink**) 09-04-2007, 06:53 PM

I note in the vicaima site you have a massive form encompassing virtually all of the <body> of the page. Surely Google will have a problem indexing anything on the page, because it's all in a form. Compare to the siteuptime site and the form you use there does leave some indexable stuff in the <body> of the page, i.e. outside the form.

Just a hunch; I'm no expert on this particular thing, but I would think about getting some info into the body of the vicaima site which *isn't* in the form - then Google will have something to "find". Thoughts on this anyone?

Tony_V · #4 (**permalink**) 09-04-2007, 07:04 PM

are you using google sitemap?
if so, you have to verify the site

don quichote · #5 (**permalink**) 09-04-2007, 07:17 PM

you redirect to Default.aspx while it seems to me its better to use the standard index type of name to the root. Asking for an index gives a 404 and Google is gone...

bj · #6 (**permalink**) 09-04-2007, 07:21 PM

You also have some validation errors, some whitespace above the doctype declaration, and no robots.txt file, any of which might stop a spider or two from parsing the site. Run the html through htmltidy (back it up first!) and add a robots.txt file.

Web Server Administrator's Guide to the Robots Exclusion Protocol

craigmn3 · #7 (**permalink**) 09-04-2007, 07:27 PM

The site is a prime example of what not to do get listed on search engines, I echo Fitz's comments, you given nothing for the Google Bot to do? There are no links, no text nothing. You have handed Google a brick and said eat it. Google has answered and said I can't eat this. It's pretty....but unreadable by the search bots

visio · #8 (**permalink**) 09-04-2007, 07:33 PM

the html code of the index page:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head><title>
PORTAS VICAIMA - Unexpected Harmony
</title><link href="Styles.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><meta name="author" content="XYZt" /><meta name="robots" content="follow" /><meta name="description" content=" A Vicaima é um dos líderes europeus no mercado das portas de interior, distinguindo-se pela qualidade superior dos seus produtos, design contemporâneo e soluções inovadoras que se adaptam aos mais elevados padrões de exigência do mercado." /><meta name="keywords" content="porta, portaro, madeira, corta-fogo, blindada, segurança, acústica, armários, roupeiros, acessórios, aros, puxadores" />
<script language="Javascript" type="text/javascript">
function MouseOn(obj)
{
var UrlString;
UrlString=obj.src;
var regex;
if (UrlString.match(new RegExp("[a-zA-Z0-9_]+\.gif")))
{
//window.alert("gif");
regex=/off\.gif/g;
obj.src=UrlString.replace(regex,"on.gif");
}
if (UrlString.match(new RegExp("[a-zA-Z0-9_]+\.jpg")))
{
//window.alert("jpg");
regex=/off\.jpg/g;
obj.src=UrlString.replace(regex,"on.jpg");
}
if (UrlString.match(new RegExp("[a-zA-Z0-9_]+\.png")))
{
//window.alert("png");
regex=/off\.png/g;
obj.src=UrlString.replace(regex,"on.png");
}
}
function MouseOut(obj)
{
var UrlString;
UrlString=obj.src;
var regex;
if (UrlString.match(new RegExp("[a-zA-Z0-9_]+\.gif")))
{
//window.alert("gif");
regex=/on\.gif/g;
obj.src=UrlString.replace(regex,"off.gif");
}
if (UrlString.match(new RegExp("[a-zA-Z0-9_]+\.jpg")))
{
//window.alert("jpg");
regex=/on\.jpg/g;
obj.src=UrlString.replace(regex,"off.jpg");
}
if (UrlString.match(new RegExp("[a-zA-Z0-9_]+\.png")))
{
//window.alert("png");
regex=/on\.png/g;
obj.src=UrlString.replace(regex,"off.png");
}
}
function over(obj,strng) {
obj.innerHTML = strng;
}
function BorderOn(obj)
{
obj.style.border="solid #A49E89 1px";
}
function BorderOff(obj)
{
obj.style.border="solid #FFFFFF 1px";
}
</script>
<script src="swf/flash.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
</head>
<body style="height: 100%;width:100%; margin: 0; padding: 0;">
<form name="aspnetForm" method="post" action="Default.aspx" id="aspnetForm">

<div>
<input type="hidden" name="__VIEWSTATE" id="__VIEWSTATE" value="/wEPDwUKLTkzOTM0Mzc0NWQYAQUeX19Db250cm9sc1JlcXVpcmV Qb3N0QmFja0tleV9fFgUFJmN0bDAwJENvbnRlbnRQbGFjZUhvb GRlcjEkYnRuRGVmYXVsdFBUBSZjdGwwMCRDb250ZW50UGxhY2V Ib2xkZXIxJGJ0bkRlZmF1bHRVSwUmY3RsMDAkQ29udGVudFBsY WNlSG9sZGVyMSRidG5EZWZhdWx0SVIFJmN0bDAwJENvbnRlbnR QbGFjZUhvbGRlcjEkYnRuRGVmYXVsdEVTBSZjdGwwMCRDb250Z W50UGxhY2VIb2xkZXIxJGJ0bkRlZmF1bHRPQwwv3DRE7LZBF3e 5SjwJoY2PVjiT" />
</div>

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="height: 100%;width:100%; margin: 0; padding: 0;">
<tr>
<td align="center" style="vertical-align: middle;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="width:870px;;height:596px;" >
<tr style="height:117px">
<td style="width:870px" valign="top">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="width:100%">

<tr style="height:20px">
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr style="height:47px">
<td align="right">
<a href="Default.aspx" id="ctl00_Top1_lnkDefault"><img src="http://www.webproworld.com/images/logotipo.gif" id="ctl00_Top1_imgLogo" style="border:0px;" alt="Homepage" /></a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height:21px">

<td></td>
</tr>
<tr style="height:29px">
<td></td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height:390px">

<td style="width:870px" valign="top">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="width:100%">
<tr>
<td>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td class="tbCBI2" valign="bottom" style="width: 254px;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
<tr>

<td rowspan="5" width="30px"></td>
<td height="18px">
<input type="image" name="ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$btnDefaultPT" id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_btnDefaultPT" onmouseover="javascript:MouseOn(this)" onmouseout="javascript:MouseOut(this)" src="http://www.webproworld.com/images/default-lang-pt_off.gif" style="height:14px;width:63px;border-width:0px;" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td height="18px">
<input type="image" name="ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$btnDefaultUK" id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_btnDefaultUK" onmouseover="javascript:MouseOn(this)" onmouseout="javascript:MouseOut(this)" src="http://www.webproworld.com/images/default-lang-uk_off.gif" style="height:14px;width:127px;border-width:0px;" /></td>
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td height="18px">
<input type="image" name="ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$btnDefaultIR" id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_btnDefaultIR" onmouseover="javascript:MouseOn(this)" onmouseout="javascript:MouseOut(this)" src="http://www.webproworld.com/images/default-lang-ir_off.gif" style="height:14px;width:144px;border-width:0px;" />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td height="18px">
<input type="image" name="ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$btnDefaultES" id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_btnDefaultES" onmouseover="javascript:MouseOn(this)" onmouseout="javascript:MouseOut(this)" src="http://www.webproworld.com/images/default-lang-es_off.gif" style="height:14px;width:63px;border-width:0px;" />
</td>

</tr>
<tr>
<td height="18px">
<input type="image" name="ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$btnDefaultOC" id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_btnDefaultOC" onmouseover="javascript:MouseOn(this)" onmouseout="javascript:MouseOut(this)" src="http://www.webproworld.com/images/default-lang-oc_off.gif" style="height:14px;width:124px;border-width:0px;" />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td height="30px" colspan="2"></td>
</tr>

</table>
</td>
<td id="tdPT"><script type="text/javascript">RunFoo();</script></td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>

</tr>
<tr style="height:89px">
<td style="width:870px"></td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

<div>

<input type="hidden" name="__EVENTVALIDATION" id="__EVENTVALIDATION" value="/wEWBgLKut21CgLpvuOGDQLkvpeGDQLwvvuGDQL0vveGDQLqvre GDRhJObWgE67kYJezeVBsVBq/qijU" />
</div></form>
<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
_uacct = "UA-2391287-2";
urchinTracker();
</script>
</body>
</html>

-------------
there is no navigation which search engines robots can understand or a site generator use to find other pages, that is why the site is not indexed or you cant generate a sitemap.

Also you must decide exactly what is your target, the meta keyword and description are in portuguese, but the title is in half english, half portuguese.
you are going for an international audience, then make the all site in english if you want the site for Portugal then buy a portuguese domain and make a site in that language.

And please the index page is very nice, but that's it, I couldn't understand if you sell sofas or doors-) So in fact it is useless, because in terms of search engines it is a zero and in terms of helping a consumer make a better choice, it is also a near zero.

I apologize for being so negative but I've noticed that sites designed in Portugal or Italy, majority are quite a load of rubbish, flash, flash, javascript and finally the result is a nice picture but with no content.

kellenltd · #9 (**permalink**) 09-04-2007, 07:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fitz

I note in the vicaima site you have a massive form encompassing virtually all of the <body> of the page. Surely Google will have a problem indexing anything on the page, because it's all in a form.

They use .NET framework, with ASP.NET Web Forms. There is nothing wrong with this, and Google doesn't have any problems with indexing .aspx Web Forms.

But there are problems with DNS configuration. For example, http://vicaima.com (without www) is not accessible at all (Error Code 11004: Host not found.)
W3C Validator gets the 500 Server Error trying to access http://www.vicaima.com (Validation Results - W3C Markup Validator).

I suggest to contact your hosting and ask them to fix your DNS records.

TrafficProducer · #10 (**permalink**) 09-04-2007, 07:45 PM

Quote:

unreachable error

I haven't checked you site, but some systems may give this if a page takes too long to load... (Times could vary from system to system).

You appear to have quite a bit of (Java), code in the page above... Some systems may fail on this as well.

Linknz · #11 (**permalink**) 09-04-2007, 08:41 PM

Hi I thought I would have a look or you, I run and own a New Zealand based search engine, so I just sent our web spider over to your website to see what results it cam back with.
It failed to find any links from your index page and even when I aimed the spider a page inside your website it failed to find the file.
It looks to me from here that your website is written using java and webspiders can't follow or locate any links that java gives to any pages.
You also appear to have some flash graphics running and webspiders can't index a flash images.
If I were you I would suggest that you also have content with html links, so when a web spider comes calling it will be able to read and then follow them, so what you need is a way of showing any crawlers where your files are and java doesn't mean tiddly squat to a webspider.

chris_g · #12 (**permalink**) 09-04-2007, 11:50 PM

Hi Carlos

The comments are all good but you also have some serious server issues. Search engine bots use GET HTTP 1.0 or 1.1 to retrieve pages for indexing. When I use a robots simulator I get 2 errors depending on which Bot we simulate.

Googlebot- sees this error which is consistant with what the Google Webmaster Tools is telling you "Invalid URL or server does not respond, HTTP return code: 302"

When I look at your site using GET HTTP 1.0 the header response is "HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request" When I tried GET HTTP 1.1 the header response is "HTTP/1.1 302 Found"

I would say you have a hosting problem that needs to be resolved. Your host has the server incorrectly set up to be read by a search engine.

The information from Google is good you just need to figure out how to fix the mess or move your website to more qualified web host to get the search engiens to read your website.

carlosleal · #13 (**permalink**) 09-05-2007, 07:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chris_g

Hi Carlos

The comments are all good but you also have some serious server issues. Search engine bots use GET HTTP 1.0 or 1.1 to retrieve pages for indexing. When I use a robots simulator I get 2 errors depending on which Bot we simulate.

Googlebot- sees this error which is consistant with what the Google Webmaster Tools is telling you "Invalid URL or server does not respond, HTTP return code: 302"

When I look at your site using GET HTTP 1.0 the header response is "HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request" When I tried GET HTTP 1.1 the header response is "HTTP/1.1 302 Found"

I would say you have a hosting problem that needs to be resolved. Your host has the server incorrectly set up to be read by a search engine.

The information from Google is good you just need to figure out how to fix the mess or move your website to more qualified web host to get the search engiens to read your website.

Thanks for your help, by the way anyone knows how to fix this error?

carlos_p · #14 (**permalink**) 09-05-2007, 08:07 AM

OT:

Quote:

Originally Posted by visio

(...) I've noticed that sites designed in Portugal or Italy, majority are quite a load of rubbish (...)

I take offense on the above statement. Please keep any subjective and offensive remarks based on unverified or non existent data to yourself.
And I must add I miss the point of replicating here the whole source of the page.

-----

Back on topic:

1-Major problem:
Using form INPUT elements for navigation - stick to the rules: use HYPERLINKS for your links. It's called HTML for some reason. If you try to reinvent the wheel, at least don't invent a square one.

2-Major bummer:
DNS quirks already mentioned.

3-Major annoyance:
Looks like in MSland, every page is named "Default"... You might as well name all your images "untitled1.jpg", "untitled2.jpg",... You should try to make every piece of information meaningful.

4-Minor annoyances:
White space before doctype declaration + no explicit document encoding.

I also suggest you'd put all the js in external files instead of embedding it.

carlosleal · #15 (**permalink**) 09-05-2007, 08:39 AM

I understand everything you said and i'm contantly improving the website, but the major problem that I have right know is, like "chris_g" said, the bot's can't find the site... I already spend hours googling this issue....

texxs · #16 (**permalink**) 09-05-2007, 10:15 AM

"I note in the vicaima site you have a massive form encompassing virtually all of the <body> of the page. Surely Google will have a problem indexing anything on the page, because it's all in a form. Compare to the siteuptime site and the form you use there does leave some indexable stuff in the <body> of the page, i.e. outside the form."

This is a requirement of the ASP.NET platform. The form tag should be inside the body tags and encompass everything in the body tag. MS is sooo stupid....

"You also have some validation errors . . ." ya all good sites do.

And everyone is right about your site sir. There is not one word of readable content (for a SE or vision-impaired human) on your index page. Google thinks it's a blank page. What do you think google will do w/ a blank page?

Flash intros and sites are nice but Google killed them off years ago by being very republican (out of touch w/ reality), about it. They've said, in essence, "Don't use a flash intro or we will penalize you in our ranking, perhaps even dropping you altogether, unless, of course, you happen to be 'connected' in which case it won't hurt you at all."

So in short <b>you wanna do better in the SE's? Then loose the flash Intro.</b> Try a flash header instead.

kmredo · #17 (**permalink**) 09-05-2007, 10:59 AM

My understanding of Google's BOT is that it can't read Javascript or what is inside Flash... Your whole index page is half of each. I have this problem on my own site (all the navigation is in Javascript) and the Google bot gets here, reads the page title only and then leaves when it gets to the Javascript. There is nothing for Google to spider because it can't read your Flash links - so it just leaves. I teach this stuff, but am no way an SEO expert, but I still tell my students don't ever use Flash as your site, but only use it sparingly to enhance your site, but not as the site itself. I tell them to use CSS menus and navigations too, because the Bots can read and follow them without a hitch. Good luck!

**wige** · #18 (**permalink**) 09-05-2007, 11:38 AM

First, I notice your error message page (requests for / get 302 redirected to http://www.vicaima.com/ErrorPage.asp...=/Default.aspx) triggers a server error. This needs to be corrected.

Second, the virtual hosting is improperly configured on this server. You will not be able to be spidered because your site improperly responds to requests. This is something you have to take up with your web host.

Conversation Transcript:
GET http://www.vicaima.com/ HTTP/1.0
User-Agent: Opera/9.21 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en) Paros/3.2.13
Host: www.vicaima.com
Content-length: 0

HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Connection: close
Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2007 14:35:03 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
X-AspNet-Version: 2.0.50727
Location: /ErrorPage.aspx?aspxerrorpath=/Default.aspx
Cache-Control: private
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 160

Also, this error page returns a code of 200, when it doesn't crash, which could cause spidering and indexing issues as well.

carlosleal · #19 (**permalink**) 09-05-2007, 12:21 PM

I think i'm almost getting the solution... it's a asp.net 2.0 bug.... I think so... or no

incrediblehelp · #20 (**permalink**) 09-06-2007, 02:06 AM

So Carlos you have access to the logs and you have verified that you are getting no spidering activity?

carlosleal · #21 (**permalink**) 09-06-2007, 05:32 AM

Yes, all off them comes to my site, the problem is that they can't find the site... I think that is a configuration problem on iis, or some asp.net 2.0 bug, but i didn't find the solution yet... I have a lot of sites in that server and all are ok!

incrediblehelp · #22 (**permalink**) 09-06-2007, 05:46 AM

So they are spidering the website, but not seeing it? And how was that validated again?

carlosleal · #23 (**permalink**) 09-06-2007, 06:08 AM

The problem, is that the site isn't find by anyone, see in this link: Check webserver resultcodes and HTTP headers :: oyoy.eu search engine tools

The first page is redirect to the error page, and after that the error page is not find...

**wige** · #24 (**permalink**) 09-06-2007, 11:40 AM

Basically the spiders come to the site, but the server does not give the spider a valid page. The request is being misinterpreted because of a configuration or server issue. The spider requests differ enough from browser requests that the browsers do get the correct page. I verified the issue on my end by hacking my request headers to mimic Googlebot's request headers.

incrediblehelp · #25 (**permalink**) 09-06-2007, 11:46 AM

Yup, hopefully they can get their host to help.

jrb@w3f.com · #26 (**permalink**) 09-06-2007, 08:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by carlosleal

Thanks for your help, by the way anyone knows how to fix this error?

I have a simple idea, but not very tasteful.

1. get rid of asp junk
2. get rid of flash junk
3. get rid of java junk.
4. get rid of javascript junk.
5. code home page in trditional html.
like index.html and not default.aspx
6. use stylesheets correctly, minimally.

(Never did like .net at all, nor IIS either, but then thats just me. Anything IE based is so full of security holes and non-complient to the standards, it becomes more troublle to deal with than warrents the "assumed" cuteness and top level programming ease(?).)

I know it isn't very nice to say this, but trying so hard to be cute and pretty makes your home page un-indexabe. There is no advantage except to show off skill in fancy coding languages, and really provides no advantage to your visitors. (tough truth)

If you want to impress your friends, then you may have accomplished that, but you have wasted a lot of time and talent on everyone else. (customers?) What is your site for? Never forget that question.

That is my opinion.

Aside from all that, there are a few people out there that can use some of these features to make a visitor and searchengine friendly site, but they are few and far between. Most get too hung up on some "easy" or "impressive" tool, and forget that the customer could care less, in fact too much of it will actually drive him away. Example, how many people have background music on an e-commerce web site that actually makes money? I have never seen one. That does not mean that background music does not have its place, or that it is not impressive to the proper audience, just that things like this do not help sell normal products.

Many of the other tips on language and format above are great ideas, but it may mean that you will have to abandon the "cute" stuff. Tough to re-write it all, but you may just have to.

craigmn3 and bj give great advice.
And as texxs says: "Google thinks it's a blank page. What do you think google will do w/ a blank page?"

Good luck,
-John

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