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View Full Version : statcounter script prevents search engine spiders from worki

bikeman
02-13-2005, 10:51 AM
I probably should have suspected statcounter from the outset when I received the following message

2 - http://c4.statcounter.com/counter.php?sc_project=510179&java=0 External link.
WARNING: This link has too many parameters and might cause problems with search engines!

After much pulling my hair out I discovered that my low search engine rankings on all my sites is due to the statcounter script preventing the search engine spiders from seeing my page content.

I have tried several spider simulators and they all have a problem with the statcounter script.
Try the one at http://tools.summitmedia.co.uk/spider/

Here is a site without the statcounter script - all 118 words of the body text are seen - http://www.asiaplus.co.uk/test/index_no_statcounter.html

And here is the same site with the statcounter script - only 4 words of body text are picked up - http://www.asiaplus.co.uk/test/index.html

This is obviously a serious issue and will mean that I will have to stop using statcounter - or does anyone have a solution?
:cry: [/b]
02-13-2005, 11:11 AM
Don't put the StatCounter code at the top of your website after <body>!!!!

but it at the very end just before the </body> tag.

regards,

Aodhan.
Arne
02-13-2005, 11:45 AM
The StatCounter script is not your problem! See this report about your pages, same report for both (with or without the SC script). There is no differnce even if you can see more body text in the report in one of them.

Comments Overall grade 15/24 (63%)
Body text doesn't contain credible amount of content
No H1 tags
High number of images (38)
Some images don't have descriptions
Page is large (21k)

Compare that with the report I get for my site:
Comments Overall grade 24/24 (100%)
No immediate problems

First of all, do as Aodhan (Webmaster) advice above. Then optimize your page for Search Engines. There is a lot of "tag soap" (useless html tags) and very little that really feed the SE's.
bikeman
02-13-2005, 11:54 AM
Ok Arne so the rest of the page is not perfect but my issue is not with alt tag text, H1 tags etc but with the comment "Body text doesn't contain credible amount of content".

Statcounter was the cause of it seeing only 4 of 118 body text. Moving it to the end of the page has done the trick - so thanks webmaster.
Arne
02-13-2005, 12:35 PM
Ok Arne so the rest of the page is not perfect but my issue is not with alt tag text, H1 tags etc but with the comment "Body text doesn't contain credible amount of content".

Statcounter was the cause of it seeing only 4 of 118 body text. Moving it to the end of the page has done the trick - so thanks webmaster.

My point was that the "Body text doesn't contain credible amount of content" was given in the reports from both pages, not only the one with the SC script. That has nothing to do with the lack of alt tags or heading tags. But it has a major difference to the Search Engines.

About the SC script, I tested to have it on the top of my page (directly under the <body> tag), and it worked very well even then. The report from http://tools.summitmedia.co.uk/spider/ shows all my body text and gives only a minor difference in the "Overall grade" (23/24 (96%)) and "No immediate problems".

So my guess is that there was something wrong in the script you had (have?) pasted on your page. Maybee some "tag soap" left from your HTML editor?
webado
02-13-2005, 02:09 PM
Not sure what you guys are seeeing but I am getting errors accessing eithr of the links:


Multiple Choices
The document name you requested (/test/index_no_statcounter.html) could not be found on this server. However, we found documents with names similar to the one you requested.
Available documents:

/test.php/index_no_statcounter.html (common basename)
Please consider informing the owner of the referring page about the broken link.



Multiple Choices
The document name you requested (/test/index.html) could not be found on this server. However, we found documents with names similar to the one you requested.
Available documents:

/test.php/index.html (common basename)
Please consider informing the owner of the referring page about the broken link.


So I assume that both were deleted while I was sleeping :lol:

When I go to your current index file at http://www.asiaplus.co.uk/index.html I see the counter ok in the code.

There are broken links acording to that same spide simulator. At least one is due to a typo

http://wwwasiacards.co.uk/
slwebsolutions
02-15-2005, 06:08 AM
Spiders work fine, just checked my page. Ran with flying colors.
linkot
02-17-2005, 01:27 PM
How would I go about running this site report on my website?
Thanks, Linda



The StatCounter script is not your problem! See this report about your pages, same report for both (with or without the SC script). There is no differnce even if you can see more body text in the report in one of them.

Comments Overall grade 15/24 (63%)
Body text doesn't contain credible amount of content
No H1 tags
High number of images (38)
Some images don't have descriptions
Page is large (21k)

Compare that with the report I get for my site:
Comments Overall grade 24/24 (100%)
No immediate problems

First of all, do as Aodhan (Webmaster) advice above. Then optimize your page for Search Engines. There is a lot of "tag soap" (useless html tags) and very little that really feed the SE's.