Mar
31Missing Images - the real reasons
Posted in: Tech Talk
In a post earlier this week I asked if there was a reliable PHP function to check if an image exists. In a comment on the post I showed the code I currently use. After a bit more investigation I think my code pretty much works OK but that all Google Webmaster errors that were suddenly appearing were for different reasons altogether. It turns out that there are really two errors being flagged up …
The first are genuine missing images. However, these errors are very old - as early as July 2008 in some cases - and pre-date when I actually added the missing image PHP function into my website’s code. Google Webmasters is just being very slow for some reason in flagging up the errors.
The second error is that in some PAD files, the JPGs or GIF URLs corresponding to the package screenshots actually show web pages. Whether these are coming up due to 404 errors I’m not sure.
So the remedy for me is simply to wait for Google to realise that there aren’t any links to missing images any more. Also, I’m going through the errors and deleting the listings that have package screenshots bringing up web pages. I’m then adding the URLs for offending PAD files to my blacklist.
I’m quite glad I found the true causes of the errors since now I don’t have to risk adding more code and slowing down my page load times.
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Right cool.
If only SoftTester worked on your banned list on old pad records too. Guess after my search script improvements that has to be next on my list.