Extra '/' on links and other lines

[prodesk]

As you can see in the snippet of source code (below) from my home page, something is causing an '/' to be appended to many lines including meta keys as well as other code lines. This is a problem for several programs such as SEO and submission programs that hiccup with that extra '/' in the url's...

Any info on what,why, where and how to fix would be greatly appreciated...

Best Regards

<meta http-equiv="imagetoolbar" content="no" />
<meta name="author" content="The Zen Cart&trade; Team and others" />
<meta name="generator" content="shopping cart program by Zen Cart&trade;, http://www.zen-cart.com eCommerce" />
<base href="http://survivabilitynw.com" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="includes/templates/classic/css/stylesheet.css" />

[Pixxi]

If you mean the /> bit at the end of the lines, that's supposed to be there (it closes the tag)

[prodesk]

So you are saying that it is supposed to be there in lines like

<base href="http://survivabilitynw.com/" />

Problem is that this is causing problems with numerous SEO, submission and spider programs... Here is a sample of the responses I have been getting from support departments referencing this line in the header...

[FONT=Arial]Sorry for making you wait. We have studied the issue and found out that the problem is caused by the peculiarity of your site's code. This tag[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]<base href="http://survivabilitynw.com/" />[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]confuses the Submission tool while scanning your site for pages. This tag is useless in the code, so if you remove it, this will solve the problem and make no changes to your website.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Hope I was helpful. Should you need any help, feel free to ask.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Sincerely,[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Zarina Sattiyeva,[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Web CEO Support[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]http://www.webceo.com[/FONT]

Please advise at your earliest possibility as this is holding up the final selection of ZEN-CART for our commercial use...
Best Regards
Prodesk

[Pixxi]

No that isn't normal - that likely means you have a trailing slash in your configure.php file(s) that shouldn't be there.

But your original post did not show that problem:

 <base href="http://survivabilitynw.com" /> 

You need to post an actual example of the problem you're asking about ...

[prodesk]

Simply go to www.survivabilitynw.com and then display a source code listing and you will see what I (and the vendors) are referring to...

Also, while I have your ear, can you offer any explanation as to why the general site meta keys are appending my meta keys (as per config.php) with items of (apparently) zen carts choosing? and if possible point me to where the zen cart appendings are being added and how to stop this...

Zen car is apparently appending keywords with a space rather than a ',' as a delimiter and I am told this is a problem with several spyders as they will see all of the words delimited with a <space> as a single long phrase...

in like manner the zen cart auto apendings are making the title and description quite long...

Thanks for your help on this... I do appreciate it...
Zen Cart looks to be very promissing, but I have purchased the only (apparnetly) book on the product and find it severly lacking and the appendix hopelessly misleading, and the on-line documentation appears to assume that one understands the underlying concepts and teminology of the product... something a newbie to zencart can only guess at thru the long learning curve that results from such a lack of decent documentation....
Anyway, thanks again in advance...

Best Regards
Prodesk..

[Kim]

Please post your includes/configure.php without your password

[prodesk]

config.php as requested

<?php
/**
*
* @package Configuration Settings
* @copyright Copyright 2003-2006 Zen Cart Development Team
* @copyright Portions Copyright 2003 osCommerce
* @license http://www.zen-cart.com/license/2_0.txt GNU Public License V2.0
*/

/*************** NOTE: This file is similar, but DIFFERENT from the "admin" version of configure.php. ***********/
/*************** The 2 files should be kept separate and not used to overwrite each other. ***********/
// Define the webserver and path parameters
// HTTP_SERVER is your Main webserver: eg, http://www.yourdomain.com
// HTTPS_SERVER is your Secure webserver: eg, https://www.yourdomain.com
define('HTTP_SERVER', 'http://survivabilitynw.com');
define('HTTPS_SERVER', 'https://survivabilitynw.com');
// Use secure webserver for checkout procedure?
define('ENABLE_SSL', 'false');
// NOTE: be sure to leave the trailing '/' at the end of these lines if you make changes!
// * DIR_WS_* = Webserver directories (virtual/URL)
// these paths are relative to top of your webspace ... (ie: under the public_html or httpdocs folder)
define('DIR_WS_CATALOG', '/');
define('DIR_WS_HTTPS_CATALOG', '/');
define('DIR_WS_IMAGES', 'images/');
define('DIR_WS_INCLUDES', 'includes/');
define('DIR_WS_FUNCTIONS', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'functions/');
define('DIR_WS_CLASSES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'classes/');
define('DIR_WS_MODULES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'modules/');
define('DIR_WS_LANGUAGES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'languages/');
define('DIR_WS_DOWNLOAD_PUBLIC', DIR_WS_CATALOG . 'pub/');
define('DIR_WS_TEMPLATES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'templates/');
define('DIR_WS_PHPBB', '/');
// * DIR_FS_* = Filesystem directories (local/physical)
//the following path is a COMPLETE path to your Zen Cart files. eg: /var/www/vhost/accountname/public_html/
define('DIR_FS_CATALOG', '/home/survive/public_html/');
define('DIR_FS_DOWNLOAD', DIR_FS_CATALOG . 'download/');
define('DIR_FS_DOWNLOAD_PUBLIC', DIR_FS_CATALOG . 'pub/');
define('DIR_WS_UPLOADS', DIR_WS_IMAGES . 'uploads/');
define('DIR_FS_UPLOADS', DIR_FS_CATALOG . DIR_WS_UPLOADS);
define('DIR_FS_EMAIL_TEMPLATES', DIR_FS_CATALOG . 'email/');
// define our database connection
define('DB_TYPE', 'mysql');
define('DB_PREFIX', 'zen_');
define('DB_SERVER', 'localhost');
define('DB_SERVER_USERNAME', 'survive_zc1');
define('DB_SERVER_PASSWORD', '*******);
define('DB_DATABASE', 'survive_zc1');
define('USE_PCONNECT', 'false'); // use persistent connections?
define('STORE_SESSIONS', 'db'); // use 'db' for best support, or '' for file-based storage
// The next 2 "defines" are for SQL cache support.
// For SQL_CACHE_METHOD, you can select from: none, database, or file
// If you choose "file", then you need to set the DIR_FS_SQL_CACHE to a directory where your apache
// or webserver user has write privileges (chmod 666 or 777). We recommend using the "cache" folder inside the Zen Cart folder
// ie: /path/to/your/webspace/public_html/zen/cache -- leave no trailing slash
define('SQL_CACHE_METHOD', 'database');
define('DIR_FS_SQL_CACHE', '/home/survive/public_html/cache');
?>

[DrByte]

Zen car is apparently appending keywords with a space rather than a ',' as a delimiter and I am told this is a problem with several spyders as they will see all of the words delimited with a <space> as a single long phrase...

If you wish to change the space to a comma, you may adjust the divider in your
/includes/languages/english/YOURTEMPLATE/meta_tags.php file

[DrByte]

<base href="http://survivabilitynw.com/" />

The trailing slash at the end of the URL in the base href tag is normal behaviour.

You might even be familiar with other dynamically-generated website or systems besides Zen Cart such as Joomla! and Yahoo.com ... these sites build their "base href" tags the same way.

Perhaps the SEO system you've employed isn't as efficient as it claims... ?

[prodesk]

Thanks for the quick response...

I too thought this typical, but I have received essentially the same response from WebCEO, WebPosition4 (WebPositionGold), traffic seeker and several others.... when I query them regarding their products failure to scan/spyder this ZenCart based site.

These programs run fine on all my other sites, without exception. But everytime I try to run one of them on this zen cart site, they all sit and spin their wheels while trying to scan/spyder this site to include the zen cart pages as well as import them for analysis...

I am going to go back to the SEO support groups and push this back on their plate and see what they come up with this time around...

Thanks again...