Forum user mini-profiles banjaxed

[gazlannathai]

Thanks Kimbo - is that on all users, regardless of their location?


edit - based on the declared locations of all posters so far in this thread, you should be seeing 3 in UK, 1 in USA, 1 in Thailand .... not all in UK.

I suspect the country code in the start of the URLs is an automated call from the users IP address, setting their (same country) ebid server to access the rest of the URL. As I'm in Thailand, and there is NO th.ebid.net, it's simply giving me a http:404 and dumping me to the highest level site page.

Wakey wakey G&M - This can do you some serious damage with Google for delivering so many 404 errors - remember I'm a multi-site webmaster too, and use a lot of Google webmaster tools and forums. Even just me clicking links in here and getting dumped to the home page is going to start affecting your page deliverability ratio. Google doesn't like that to get too high before they start slapping you.

Gaz

[bykimbo]

Thanks Kimbo - is that on all users, regardless of their location?

Yep.

[gazlannathai]

oops - sorry Kimbo - cross-posted when editing my last one

Thanks for the update - it confirms what I said in the edit.

[bykimbo]

What I don't quite follow is why you think the location is causing your errors? I can view any user's about me or feedback page via the UK site, regardless of where they are. If I click on the US user above I see the appropriate about me page, viewed via UK, showing their US map.

I've missed a step, I expect?

[gazlannathai]

yup - if you hover on mine or the US user's links, the site is giving you a URL that begins with UK ... and you're in the UK.

What it's doing, is it's querying your browser to get your IP address from your ISP. Then it's doing a geo-ip lookup to see which country you're in based on the IP address of your internet connection, and from that, it's then pre-pending the URL with the two-letter internet code for that country (for example UK, US, or TH) and delivering that 2-letter country code as the server name.

example uk.ebid.net = country/servername then domain name then top-level-domain

That only works if you have a server named after each of every country, state, or territory that has a country code. If you don't, then you need to create http:403 redirect rules (tech speak warning) usually via either the htaccess file, or through the xNIX mod-rewrite module in Apache.

The type of function eBid are using to delivery the country-coded server name is normally used for display language setting (e.g. French / German etc) or for redirection to site sub-domains, not to server names, unless you're a Microsoft / Google / IBM etc.

That's why it's working for you in the UK and the US members, but not for me in TH (because eBid don't have a TH server / site) and it also explains why, when bounced to the ebid.net top level home page, it's offering me th.ebid.net as a site to visit - even though that site does not exist.

My surmise is that this indicates one of two possible things -
- Either the developers of the new site version thought that eBid was a truly global site with a server in each country, or
- eBid are planning such a massive rollout of new territories and the codse was put there to allow for it.

Alternatively, the code was for testing only (might even be part of an anti-hacker obfuscation of server-farm and site structure) and should have been replaced before the new site version went live.

Either way, there is most certainly an incomplete http:403 (permanent) redirect table missing or corrupt somewhere - the site should not be delivering http:404 page-unknown errors from something as fundamental as this .... which then makes me wonder if it's coming from some 3rd-party plug-in for the vbBulletin script that runs the eBid forums (although the fact it shows on the site top home as well, would seem to say it is a planned piece of programming as that has nothing to do with the forums).

I think it needs file under "glitches" rather than bugs, as I'm sure everything worked fine during testing, and simply no-one thought about out-of-territory users. I might dive over to Buildaskill and email the Libyan and Pakistani eBid members who lurk over there, and ask them to test if they're seeing the same thing as me - at least it'll confirm whether it's my browser or the site + my location that's causing it.

Hohum - never a dull moment.

[bykimbo]

I'd have settled for a shorter answer, but thanks.

[gazlannathai]

p.s. - this is what I'm seeing -
- http://th.ebid.net/perl/normal.cgi?u...heir-all-about

Copy it into a new browser tab or window, and see what you get - it SHOULD be a http:404 (maybe a 403) but let's see if the UK part of the 403 table is working properly.

Thanks


poo - got to do this the old way so you can see all of it - here goes -

http://th.ebid.net/perl/normal.cgi?u...heir-all-about

http://th.ebid.net/perl/normal.cgi?user=bykimbo&mo=their-all-about

[bykimbo]

Resolves to http://www.ebid.net/?user=bykimbo&mo=their-all-about and shows the .net front page.

[gazlannathai]

So starting the " link-hopping " with the TH prefixed version (wot I see) is bouncing you to the site home page too?

Not just me going dotty in my old age then?