Need help with Headers and Footers

[Blueone]

bigblueheaven.proboards.com/

I went to my Headers and Footers to change the wording at the bottom of my main page. It's a disclaimer that some sports boards use. The wording is on the bottom of all the pages BTW. I went to both the main page and the global page but couldn't find the entry. I need some direction in order to change the wording a bit so it will read more favorable on search engines. For some reason, the search engine is using the disclaimer to describe my board which could confuse potential visitors/members.

[Tumbleweed]

Sept 28, 2016 21:27:53 GMT -8 Blueone said:

bigblueheaven.proboards.com/

I went to my Headers and Footers to change the wording at the bottom of my main page. It's a disclaimer that some sports boards use. The wording is on the bottom of all the pages BTW. I went to both the main page and the global page but couldn't find the entry. I need some direction in order to change the wording a bit so it will read more favorable on search engines. For some reason, the search engine is using the disclaimer to describe my board which could confuse potential visitors/members.

I can't be sure but did you add it in your forum wrapper template?
Admin Home> Themes> Layout Templates>Wrapper Template

It would be at the bottom-ish if it were there.

That said, I do see a lot of javascript codes in your headers and footers and they are defunct. Old codes for V4 so I'd get rid of those. But to be safe in case you added a javascript code that is a current working code, I'd save them in notepad or in a post and then delete them and check your site to make sure all is o.k. as I didn't check them all to see if they are outdated and non-functioning bu the ones I did are definitely old, non-working. But no sense slowing down your browser having it try to find those things targeted in the code when they no longer exist.

And it could be you are just missing that line of code because of all the javascript you have in there.

[Blueone]

I'm not having any trouble with a slow browser and if they're not hurting anything I'd rather not take the chance of removing something I need. I assumed that a lot of the codes were of no use but not to the extent of which ones. Thanks for the response, I'll take a look at the forum wrapper template.

[Tumbleweed]

Sept 29, 2016 11:12:47 GMT -8 Blueone said:

I'm not having any trouble with a slow browser and if they're not hurting anything I'd rather not take the chance of removing something I need. I assumed that a lot of the codes were of no use but not to the extent of which ones. Thanks for the response, I'll take a look at the forum wrapper template.

Well, you do have to think of your members too about slow load time but that is up to you, of course. Hope you can find it.

[Kami]

For whatever it's worth: having javascript on your forum that no longer functions is not just a resource hog (slower connections will take a longer time to process the javascript codes, even if you are not having difficulties others may be / future members might turn away because they do, which is pointless if the scripts don't function), but can potentially cause other problems by conflicting with other codes that do work, potentially conflicting with updates, etc.

From a developer's perspective, as well, leaving code in that both is a) outdated and b) does nothing is just bad practice. Even if you don't have any problems currently, there is zero guarantee that it will stay that way. I understand it's time consuming to go through each and every code to figure out what is and is not defunct, but there is a reason that any codes inserted in the headers & footers prior to v5 conversion wound up being automatically deleted; is there a reason you added v4 codes after the conversion?

Also, if there are codes you used prior to v5 that you'd still like to use, the Plugin Request Board board and Template Request Board can generally fulfill those needs in converting old v4 javascript to be v5 compatible, or showing you where in your templates you can adjust things (some results from js codes in v4 are now easily accomplished with HTML in the templates).

[Blueone]

Thanks for the inputs on the codes I don't need, sometimes the old brain doesn't think about all of the potentially negative angles. BTW, I hadn't added any codes since the addition of V5 except help from the Mods on a few things.

[Blueone]

I followed the directions of Tumbleweed and couldn't find the particular code I was looking for. I also went back to my Headers and Footers to see if I could find it and could not. My question is, if I can't find it, why is a search engine finding it ... unless it is injecting (for lack of a better word) an old form of my board? I spent many, many, many hours creating my board and do not feel like going through the process again which in turn makes me hesitate to eliminate the codes even though many are nonfunctional.

[Kami]

If someone hasn't helped you by this Sunday, Id be more than happy to go through and help you out! I understand it's a daunting task especially if you're not familiar with coding, so I'm willing to lend a hand if you like if someone else hasn't gotten to it first. (:

[Tumbleweed]

Sept 30, 2016 9:06:58 GMT -8 Blueone said:

I followed the directions of Tumbleweed and couldn't find the particular code I was looking for. I also went back to my Headers and Footers to see if I could find it and could not. My question is, if I can't find it, why is a search engine finding it ... unless it is injecting (for lack of a better word) an old form of my board? I spent many, many, many hours creating my board and do not feel like going through the process again which in turn makes me hesitate to eliminate the codes even though many are nonfunctional.

If the search engines are picking it up then that is likely your meta tags, which also aren't really needed and I forget the reason why but I've heard staff here say it can actually be a bad thing. How about you just post your global and main headers and footers here and either I or Kami (whoever wants to help) can go through and tell you which codes you can keep and meanwhile, we can look for that one at the bottom too. It sure looks to me like it is in your global footers and I see only one code that is a v5 code that you'd need to keep, but I need to look more closely. Anyway, would that work for you to just post your global and main headers/footers here? (Put the codes between code tags.)

[Kami]

Okay, hi, sorry this took me so long.

I'm going to offer a few little bits of information to clarify what's happening:

1. The disclaimer text is most definitely on your current webpage. Search engines cannot 'inject' cached content onto a live version of the site; Google in particular refreshes their cached pages very frequently, usually within 24 hours, so it would not be that.

2. In addition, new visitors such as myself and tumbleweed, would not be able to see any cached content as there is nothing in our respective caches that would indicate what it used to look like.

3. Meta tags -- particularly meta keywords, as tumbleweed mentioned, are rapidly becoming obsolete due to changes in the way search engines operate. A majority of them now actively crawl forum content and generate keywords for your forum automatically, so adding meta keywords will frequently result in negative consequences as it is interpreted as attempting to add keywords to your site that don't belong and could, if severe enough, get your content marked as a spam or untrustworthy site.

==================================================

First things first, let's clean up your coding. The following codes can be removed in their entirety, because they do not target any elements that exist on the forum (as they are remnants of v4). The reason I brought up that you must have added them back after the v5 conversion is because all headers & footers were automatically cleared. If these v4 codes are still in your site, then they must have been added post-conversion, whether you sought them out, or if you simply transferred them from the temporary cache of your v4 headers/footers to the v5 headers/footer. You may not recall doing so, or perhaps someone else did it for you, but it is literally impossible for v4 codes to appear on v5 forums without them being manually inserted; no v4 coding was preserved after the transition.

Please find and remove the following codes; for brevity's sake I will not post them in their entirety and instead just the name or first line of the code, but make sure to remove starting at all opening <script>, <script type="text/javascript"> OR <style type="text/css">, <style> tags and ending at all </script> OR </style> tags, depending on whether or not the code is CSS or javascript.

The following codes should be located in your Global Headers and need to be removed:

- /* Remove "Hey, X" and ? Home ? */
(javascript)

- document.getElementsByTagName("TABLE")[0].width="588px";
(javascript)

- <div id="wel"></div>
(this is HTML but it's used in conjunction with a js code you will also remove)

- var welcomeTable = document.getElementsByTagName("table")
(javascript, this is just one line of a bigger code)

I cannot tell if the next few codes are in Global or Main headers, but they were meant to go in Global Headers during v4; based on placement, however, there is a chance they might be in the Main headers if you cannot find them in global. You will note that I skipped a few things -- This is intentional.

- P M Notifier v1.5
(javascript)
IMPORTANT: This script is missing the closing > bracket, AND the external host for the referenced .js file is no longer working. Even if you do nothing else, it is imperative you remove this code.

- var td2=document.getElementsByTagName("td")[2];
(javascript)

- /* PM text in Menu Bar by california */
(javascript)

- /* Separate Menu From Welcome Table */
(javascript)

- Modify image size to fit forum
(javascript)

Let me know when you have finished with this, and we'll move on to the main headers.