css works only half the time in NS
I'm testing out a new page layout. I'm using css to determine font face and size. It works in both IE and NS - except for one section. Can anybody explain why it works in parts with NS but not all?
The test page is http://www.pstvalumni.com/pstv-template.php (I'm still fiddling with lots of stuff so please excuse the mess). If you first look at it in IE you'll see how it was intended to look. Now in NS 7 you can see that the font size tags (ex: for font size 9px) seem to be ignored everywhere except in the links (red). What's up with that?
But of special interest I'd like to focus on the long list of names at the bottom. Complain all you want but I want to list all the names in the database for search engine food, but not really bother anybody with actually seeing it (that's a different subject). In IE I use font size 2px and it looks fine, just an illegible mess of little lines is what I want and get. But why in Netscape are all the names full size? That's my main question but anybody can add other pearls of wisdom too. Thanks!
disaster-master posted this at 15:22 — 23rd April 2003.
She has: 2,154 posts
Joined: May 2001
I am getting a "page cannot be displayed" error.
Suzanne posted this at 16:35 — 23rd April 2003.
She has: 5,507 posts
Joined: Feb 2000
moi aussi
fifeclub posted this at 16:44 — 23rd April 2003.
He has: 688 posts
Joined: Feb 2001
I'm getting a page from the link. Maybe it was a temporary outage? Are you still not getting a page?
disaster-master posted this at 17:56 — 23rd April 2003.
She has: 2,154 posts
Joined: May 2001
Remove the following from your style sheet:
leave everything in between
-->
I believe that if you change the following, it will fix that.
body, p, td {color: #000000;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: normal;
text-decoration: none;
font-size: 12px;
font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;}
Suzanne can probably verify.
Suzanne posted this at 20:59 — 23rd April 2003.
She has: 5,507 posts
Joined: Feb 2000
Daymn, that fine print is mighty fine! What's the point!?
Definitely get those HTML bits out of the CSS file, though -- those should only be on an HTML page, not in an external (global) css file.
Also, you might want to take the advice given repeatedly and validate your code...
The fonts shouldn't be smaller than 10px, please. Smaller is illegible. I had to zoom up to 675% to get that fine print showing -- that's just ridiculous. If you need those names on the page, put them in properly, don't make them spam.
N7 seems to be showing the 9px stuff for me.
For links:
a.classname:pseudo-class-value
NOT
a:pseudo-class-value.classname
element.class:pseudo-class
element#id:pseudo-class
***
Instead of making classes called what they are specifically made up of, you should call them by their purpose.
Instead of .nine, you should have .copyright or .disclaimer -- then you have better control over the page and the stylesheet and also know what will be affected when you change things.
fifeclub posted this at 21:03 — 23rd April 2003.
He has: 688 posts
Joined: Feb 2001
Awesome. It worked. Thanks! I'm surprised but hey, whatever it takes to make it work. I learn new stuff all the time here.
fifeclub posted this at 21:14 — 23rd April 2003.
He has: 688 posts
Joined: Feb 2001
Yeah, my code doesn't validate yet. But since I'm working on revising a new version of the site I'm going to try to tidy all that stuff up and do it right (I hope).
As for why I put that tiny print there... here's my logic: It isn't intended to be read by any humans. In fact I'll soon be making it white so it blends in. I get more than half of my visitors from search engines looking for people who are listed in my database. Now that I'm revising my site, I want to secure the database a little bit with a robots exclude file so that spiders can't farm emails and stuff like that straight out of my directory. But I certainly don't want to cut off the main method people find my site. So I figured to put that ultra-small text at the bottom of just the home page so that search spiders can find and index those names, but point towards the home page rather than directly into the database section. (I'll then use some sort of human check like 'digits-on-an-image' to keep spiders out of the directory). Does this make sense? It may not be the most sophisticated solution but I think it will help me. If you can think of another solution that's easy enough even for me to implament, let me know what you had in mind.
Thanks again everyone.
Suzanne posted this at 21:21 — 23rd April 2003.
She has: 5,507 posts
Joined: Feb 2000
If you make it white, it's spam. If it's not intended to be read by humans, you shouldn't have it on the page.
If you have a database, what you need to do is have a page that spits out the names only -- a list, human readable, of all the alumni.
Not only would this be a nice resource for the people coming to your site, it would also prevent your site from being banned from the very search engines you're trying to attract.
You can generate this page dynamically, or you can generate it from the database monthly, for instance, and have it a static page.
You need to differentiate between the database (which is not able to be spidered) and the pages that display information FROM the database (which are). Spiders can only get the information you leave links to -- so if you have a page that pulls email addresses and displays them in the browser, it can get that. If you have emails in the database and no display, it can't (there's more to it, obviously, but most spiders/search engines cannot just go get things out of a database).
It's fine to have the search features that will reveal email addresses behind more secure protection coding, of course.
The Webmistress posted this at 06:56 — 24th April 2003.
She has: 5,586 posts
Joined: Feb 2001
I agree with Suzanne, what you are doing is spam! SEs are now getting very sophisticated and putting a spamming list like this will not do you any favours at all.
Julia - if life was meant to be easy Michael Angelo would have painted the floor....
Suzanne posted this at 16:24 — 24th April 2003.
She has: 5,507 posts
Joined: Feb 2000
Split thread off re: search engine discussion to: http://www.webmaster-forums.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21113
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