The banner space is all over the page. Somebody changed something.
As bad as Sultanstheme is on desktop, it’s even worse on mobile. Makes it nearly unusable. Anything but mobile friendly.
Haven’t heard back yet from my inquiry. Are you still seeing this? Is it always coming up like this or are you only seeing it intermittently?
Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
I keep seeing this thread with TubaDiva as last poster and misreading it as her having created the thread and thinking ***YESSS!! Kill it dead! ***
I thought Sultanstheme was someone’s user name.
Thank God its not just me; I did the same thing.
“Kill him? What the heck kind of posts has he been making? ** Kaylasdad** doesn’t usually react like that to even the real serious assholes.”
:smack:
changes name to SultanTheme
Reports Post
Wow, a poster turning himself in to the Board authorities. That’s an new twist! LOL
You should be able to do a 301 redirect on the server which will make all http calls be served as https links. This is how we did it when I worked at an ISP and the customer added SSL to their domain. This was done globally so no page edits need be made.This would solve the old bookmark issue.
It used to be set up that way. But it changed, for some reason.
Personally, I’m a big fan of allowing an HTTP version of every site exist, just without being able to log in. (Obviously sites where logging in is the point would be pointless, but otherwise, it’s useful.) It still bugs me that there’s no HTTP Wikipedia that you just can’t edit, allowing people with old devices to still always get info.
It’s fun surfing the SDMB on my 2nd Gen Kindle with free cellular Internet.
Really, how is it done now? I see rece nt artilces still telling people how and why to do them. It doesn’t negatively affect SEO functions. All is does is permanently redirect from one url or domain to another permanently .
I am not involved in this as a business anymore but I like to keep current. What has replaced the 301 redirect then?
PS: This is an article from october that discusses them.
Here’s one from november
This was an essential SEO tool. Apparently it’s still in use to some degree but if there’s something newer yeah, hit me with it.
Maybe by PM so we don’t hijack?
PS: I searched google for “alternative to 401 redirect” and they’re not coming up with anything in the top few links. and as this directly affects their bottom line, I’d think they’d push those results higher as it would affect any existing SEO work done and that’d be a game changer
It’s not a matter of redirect. It’s a matter of “Google punish.”
https://hosting.review/tips-tools/google-ssl-update/
Jenny
Still don’t get it. Here’s an article from last August which is after the change mentioned above and google is recommending
Here’s a post from this year which addresses why this won’t run afoul of google.
One more from after the google update you linked to,
Note that this article states that there might be some effect from redirects google itself is saying that it won’t but in either case I wouldn’t say the effect would be considered punishing.
What your article points out is that a site must feed out SSL pages not unsecured one and a 301 redirect achieves that.
Finally, I just tested and the straight dope already has some redirects. I just tried http://straightdope.com and it auto redirected to https://straightdope.com but the link to this thread https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=873373 does not redirect when you drop the s so anyone who visits the site from an old link like that would actually penalize the site ranking as you’d be serving up an insecure page whereas with a redirect they would land on a secure page.
That’s how I understood it. What am I missing?
All I can do is mention this to management.
Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Sounds good. I wasn’t actually complaining but just trying to add a bit of my experience to the board I quite enjoy. I’ve never encountered the problems mentioned in this thread.
Has anyone actually determined what it is about the Sultantheme that is detected as “mobile-friendly” and hence elevates the SDMB’s page rank?
The reason I ask is that making this abomination the default seems to me to be deeply ironic. So a casual user doing a Google search is more likely to be directed to the SDMB because of Sultantheme being the default. And what does that user then experience? Putting it bluntly, she experiences a half-assed broken UI*, and for added effect, it’s infested with obnoxious ads (a completely different issue, granted – but just saying). We who have signed up here know how to subscribe or otherwise block ads and how to set the original theme as the default, and frankly to me those are prerequisites to the site being usable. What the first-time visitor experiences must truly be a horror. When corresponding with friends I’m often reluctant to give them direct links to the site for fear of what they’ll experience, not just because of the Sultantheme but perhaps even to the point of getting their browser hijacked or their computer infected by a rogue ad!
I say this not to be ornery but to try to be helpful. I’m suggesting that first-time visitors here probably don’t get a very welcoming experience, and that’s not conducive to having them stick around and growing the membership. I’m fully aware that it costs money to run a message board, and admittedly I haven’t a clue about the economics of this one, but I do know that some boards that are essentially just small-time one-man operations have managed just fine with minimally intrusive ads and a perfectly ordinary desktop-oriented vBulletin interface.
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- Yes, I know some people like and use the Sultantheme. There are some matters of subjective preference here. What is not subjective is the general trend that whenever some site feature is discovered to be broken, it’s usually only in the Sultantheme. And many aesthetic aspects of it are really pretty bad.
wolfpup: It’s simply the fact that it resizes to fit different sized screens.
This site is practically unreadable on my iPhone using the standard theme. If I turn it to landscape then manually zoom I can read text but it’s a pain. That is the only reason I use Sultantheme.
Does having used Sultantheme (briefly) have anything to do with the board software now forgetting where I am in a thread?
For a week or so, basically since around the time this thread was started, if I click to ‘view first unread’ post, I’m not taken there.
Sorry. I was unclear. I meant that the SDMB used to redirect to the HTTPS site if you used the HTTP URL anywhere on the site. Now it no longer does so. (I do not know what method they used to accomplish this.)
I then added that I personally like having access to the HTTP version of sites–at least, as long as you don’t have to log in. (When you need to log in, it makes sense to be more secure.) I wish there was a read-only HTTP version of Wikipedia, for example.
The reason why is simply so it would still work on old devices, particularly the Amazon Kindle. This xkcd comic illustrates the reason why.