[thelist] Site check: Staples.com

Tue Sep 20 07:27:36 CDT 2005

Shawn K. Quinn wrote:

>
>The fact that I got a blank page. Thus, it's broken.
>
This discussion has been quite interesting, and in general I am in 
agreement with Ken's position regarding pragmatic web design.

However, it cannot be argued that the code delivered as the staples 
default page is acceptable practice;

<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title></title>

<script language="JavaScript">
function doIt() {  	    	  	  
    window.location = "http://" + window.location.host + "/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/home?storeId=10001&langId=-1";  	  
  }
  doIt();	
</script>
<body>

<a href="http://www.staples.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/home?storeId=10001&langId=-1"></a>

</body>
</html>

Note the empty anchor element, that could have linked to the real home 
page, allowing search engines and users without JavaScript to enter the 
site with one extra action. Even keeping the JavaScript redirection - 
(why on earth not server side or even META refresh?), the empty anchor 
element is a rather serious mistake.

Shawn is perfectly correct, IMO, in that this should have been handled 
on the server side, not in client side scripting.

Cheers

Ian