RE: New danish survey - Web standards

> >Hi Soren
> >  Another question about the methodology.
> >  Did you validate the page that the end user would view or 
> the entry 
> >point of the Web site?  I've sometimes found that redirects 
> (which can 
> >be implemented in several ways)can mean that these aren't 
> identical and 
> >this can affect the results of validation checks - i.e. you end up 
> >analysing a HTTP redirect message and not the final page 
> which the user sees.
> >
> >  
> >
> Hi Brian
> 
> Since it's the main entry point like www.db.dk, www.kb.dk etc 
> I have been testing. I don't think there is any HTTP redirect 
> so often. So I am almost 99 % sure that the validation survey 
> shows the final page which the enduser sees.

Hi Soren
   I'm finding an increasing number of Web site which have redirects from
the main entry point.  For example:
http://library.newcastle.gov.uk/
goes to
http://library.newcastle.gov.uk/cgi-bin/newcastle-cat.sh?

> >PS I also think it would be useful to record the MIME type 
> of the entry 
> >point - especially for XHTML documents.
> >
> You mean here if the XHTML documents has been served as 
> "text/html" or as (application/xhtml+xml)?

Yes - although I've also found a small number which send incorrect HTTP
headers / MIME types (typically due to a misconfigured Web server).
 
For example the (non-existent) resource at
http://www.peoplesnetwork.gov.uk/foo

aends
HTTP/1.1 404 Object Not Found
Server: Microsoft-IIS/4.0
Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 16:09:28 GMT
Content-Length: 17093
Content-Type: application/octet-stream

as described at:

http://www.somis.dundee.ac.uk/cgi-bin/fetchhead?query=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.peopl
esnetwork.gov.uk%2Ffoo%2F&action=+++Get+Header++


Brian

> /Soren
> 
> 

Received on Tuesday, 7 December 2004 16:10:09 UTC