Announcement

**David** · Apr-27-2008, 10:32 PM

It might be a syntax error in the HTML on the page. i.e. invalid HTML
What is the URL for the page in question?

**Hondo69** · Apr-28-2008, 12:18 PM

I did a "validate HTML" on several of the pages in question. Although some errors were returned, none related to the <table> tag. One such page is:

http://usbuildersupply.make-a-store.com/cgi-bin/item/6910/6900_Series/Norton%2DPull%2DSide%2DDoor%2DOperator

**Ray** · Apr-29-2008, 12:21 AM

That page is not the one you gave in the original post, since the word "candy" does not appear here at all.

We tested indexing this page, and we were unable to produce any behaviour as described in your original post. No HTML code appeared in the search results. What search word did you use for this page, that produced such behaviour?

Please give us a specific test case to ensure that we can reproduce the problem. That is, a specific page that you indexed, a search word you used, and the actual result/description that was produced. Or give us a link to your search page, and tell us what to search for.

Also - just because the <table> tag appeared in the results, does not mean that the validation error have to be with the <table> tag. An unclosed tag from before it, a problem with Javascript syntax, and many other scenarios could lead to a cascading effect where the cause of the error does not appear as part of the symptom.

**Hondo69** · May-03-2008, 01:44 PM

I've discovered part of the problem, but still can't fix it. Certain product pages have popup windows providing ordering tips for our customers. These popups load automatically and are causing the problem.

Below is a link to a category page. Once there, click on "8301 Series" and it takes you the 8301 page and it's associated popup.
http://usbuildersupply.make-a-store.com/cgi-bin/category/Norton

When I search for the term "8301" from my search page, I get results like this:
8301 Series <table width="600" border="0" cellspacing="10" cellpadding

The HTML code shows up because the popup is not a true HTML page as it does not contain the normal tags such as: <title> <body> </html> etc.

My attempts to fix the problem include changing the configuration settings so as not to include "pl" files. The popup file for this page is:
http://usbuildersupply.make-a-store.com/cgi-bin/popup.pl?category=8301_Series

Next, I tried disabling the popup. After re-indexing the pages I found the results were still the same. This is where it gets really strange. I know the popup is disabled but it still appears in search results. I then went online to see if I could reproduce the popup but it would not appear. Makes sense since it was disabled. But I couldn't understand why the popup HTML would appear in search results when I could not reproduce the popup online.

It was as if the Index was not being updated when I re-spidered the pages. The next logical step was to use the button that allows you to "View or delete pages from the existing index". When I clicked the button I received an error message that says "Could not find existing index files in the output directory specified". Now I'm really stumped.

Why would the software store the index in another folder? Seems logical it would put that file with the other files it generates, right where I specified the output to be. But it definitely is not there with the others.

So now the search is on to discover where the software stores the Index file. I've looked in various locations on my hard drive and can't find it anywhere.

**David** · May-03-2008, 09:19 PM

Your popup is a HTML page. And therefore you should use valid HTML to construct the page.

But regardless the text "8301 Series" doesn't appear on the popup page. So your claim that the popup is due to the HTML on the popup page doesn't make any sense.

Your popup also don't work. They are blocked by both Firefox and Internet Explorer and the Google toor bar. Even after taking steps to unblock the popup, the popup will only appear once, probalby due to a cookie. Which I assume is not what you want as the popup contains the specifications for the part in question.

The page you referenced is also not vaid HTML. See,
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...Inline&group=0

Manually looking at your code I can see silly HTML mistakes that will cause Zoom a problem, like this.

Code:

<a href="http://usbuildersupply.make-a-store.com/cgi-bin/category/0">
Home</a> >
<a href="http://usbuildersupply.make-a-store.com/cgi-bin/category/Norton">
Norton</a> > 8301 Series</span>

Note the double > >

And I couldn't find the search function you are refering to. The search box on the page referenced doesn't use our product.

Why would the software store the index in another folder?

The index is created in the output directory you enter into the output directory field in Zoom. No where else.

**Ray** · May-05-2008, 02:06 AM

As explained above, a popup page is just a HTML web page opened in a new window. It still needs to be a valid HTML page, and your broken HTML is a cause of concern and likely culprit of other problems you are not yet aware of.

But I think I've just tracked down the root of the table HTML problem and it is not actually anything to do with your popups. I just took a look at this page:
http://usbuildersupply.make-a-store....ry/8301_Series

The problem is in your meta description tag. Load up this page in Internet Explorer, and click on "View Source".

You have actually, somehow, inserted HTML source code in your meta description. But not as code, it is actually encoded in HTML content, thereby you actually have a meta description which is specifically saying "<table ..." etc. I don't know how you managed this, I suppose an accidental copy and paste in a WYSIWYG web page editor such as Dreamweaver or Frontpage. Or just broken code on your backend and/or placing the wrong data in your database.

Here is your meta description, quoted verbatim from the source code of that page:

This is actually a meta description containing HTML source code. Note those HTML entities, > is the ">" sign, and < is the "<" sign. This is what you do if you want your HTML to show up as actual content. And this is why Zoom is treating them this way.

Your meta keywords has the same issue.

Announcement

HTML Code Showing in Results

HTML Code Showing in Results

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment