+ in URL causing problems

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Terry Burns - 17 Feb 2006 20:03 GMT

Hi i have noticed in my IIS logs that there are 404 errors when crawlers use
+ signs to delimit search strings, this is only more recently.

IE

/courses/NET+Framework+Course.htm ' causes errors

if they use spaces

/courses/NET%20Framework%20Course.htm

Then no problems.

Is there a setting I need to make to enable this kind or url format ?

Cheers

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Terry Burns

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blackstaronline.net - 17 Feb 2006 20:09 GMT

How many pages of yours have spaces in them? Would it be easier to
rename them without spaces?

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Terry Burns - 17 Feb 2006 20:15 GMT

Good point, but there are thousands of indexes already out there which do
make it, but there are more frequently failures lately. Is there no
solution, it seems a bit odd to me.

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Terry Burns

> How many pages of yours have spaces in them? Would it be easier to
> rename them without spaces?

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blackstaronline.net - 17 Feb 2006 20:27 GMT

How are the links on your pages set up? When you link to the spaced
pages is it;

/courses/NET%20Framework%20Course.htm

or

/courses/NET Framework Course.htm

I know your looking for a simple "flip a switch" on the server and make
it work. I don't know of any setting that will make that happen. (I'm
not saying there isn't one, I just don't know of any)

I would think if your links contain '%20' in them, when the crawlers
follow the link it should work. The only scenario I can think of is if
your link has physical spaces in it so some specific crawlers
automatically enter a '+' in the string. But I'm not sure.

I'm interested to see what other people have to say about this.

Jeremy Reid
http://blackstaronline.net/hgtit

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Terry Burns - 17 Feb 2006 20:45 GMT

Well, I bit the bullet and changed them to spaceless links. Better safe than
sorry, I will probably miss a few hits, but what the hell. The links did
have %20 in them, its just that 'SOME' crawlers seem to translate this to a
+ sign which does not work on my server.

Thanks for trying to help anyway, much appreciated. ( I would still like to
see if there is a switch tho )

Cheers

Signature

Terry Burns

> How are the links on your pages set up? When you link to the spaced
> pages is it;
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
> Jeremy Reid
> http://blackstaronline.net/hgtit

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George Ter-Saakov - 17 Feb 2006 21:02 GMT

2 Tips.
1. Make a custom 404 error. So you will not miss hits.
2. Use '-' minus sign to separate words. Not spaces. Search engines do
actually take it as separator.

George.

> Well, I bit the bullet and changed them to spaceless links. Better safe
> than sorry, I will probably miss a few hits, but what the hell. The links
[quoted text clipped - 28 lines]
>> Jeremy Reid
>> http://blackstaronline.net/hgtit

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blackstaronline.net - 17 Feb 2006 21:58 GMT

Ya, the custom 404 error is a great idea. That way they still have
access to your site without getting the generic page not found error
message. Removing the spaces is the best way and it's only a matter
of time before all the crawlers come back around and update their
indexes with the new names.

Jeremy
http://blackstaronline.net/hgtit

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+ in URL causing problems

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