Perplexing Problem

[mphmi]

Here's my directory: http://www.meetporthuron.com/directory

There's one link in the Shopping category, but from looking at the front page, you wouldn't know it, because it doesn't show a "(1)". I did some testing, and it seems that the only categories where this is a problem are the ones with the parent Shopping>Home & Garden Products. I'm at a complete loss as to why. Any ideas on how to fix this?

[mphmi]

This is really bugging me. It's absurd. What could possibly cause links not to be counted in just one category?? And it even counts them next to the sub-parent-categories, just not on the main page. I could really use some guidance here. I don't know where to begin to look.

[David]

Looking...

[David]

First, I would highly recommend you turn off compression (in admin). Some browsers can't open it and MSN can't spider it (believe it or not).

With regard to showing number of links per category, this does not seem to be default phpLD behavior. I will admit that sometimes even I discover something new in phpLD that I didn't realize. But normally, I was thinking it shows number of subcategories in parenthesis, not links.

Also, have you recently joined the 3.0 Supporters Forum.
If yes, please let me know you paypal email address so I can check (PM this)
Once you are in the Supporters Forum, if we can't solve in the forum, I can assign someone to take a look, though we will have to decide whether we are "modding" versus "fixing".

[mphmi]

Thanks for the reply, David, and the info about compression (I've turned it off). I was able to solve it on my own. I would've had no problem paying for supporters' forum access if I was asking for an addition or change to the script, but I couldn't see paying $10 to fix a bug. I'd forgotten that it was a mod I added that made it count links instead of subcategories. I went back and looked at the mod's code, and just on a whim changed a "1" to a "0", and that worked.

[mphmi]

Hey Dave... I've been researching gzip compression and can't find anything supporting what you said about it. What I've read says that if the browser doesn't support gzip, it will simply load the pages normally, without compression. And I've found nothing saying MSN can't spider compressed pages either. So I'm just wondering if you (or anyone reading this) can point me to any sources backing up those assertions.

[anon]

Content visible to registered users only.

It completely hampered one of my directories and nothing but malformed and obscure characters were representing not only my description, but my cache as well. My ranking went from #2 to non existent. MSN cannot seem to handle the compression and you don't need it on anyway.

I researched it myself and brought it to David's attention. Now, you have two choices; Take mine and David's word for it or keep compressing what you don't need to compress.

[David]

@mphmi
Yes, the supporters forum is certainly not required, and there is more info about what it is here:
http://www.phplinkdirectory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5846
Unfortunately, the MSN search engine cannot properly read and parse compressed pages. Better yet, our new spidering capability when validating reciprocal links is better than MSN. :)

[anon]

I also want to say that it could possibly be php related and the version in which you are using.

Do not take what I said above the wrong way. believe me, i was very very frustrated, because that site was doing well.