Greetings Ace,
Last year you were kind enough to comment on this question
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=197995
Well sadly things have gone from bad to worse and now I don't think
that the big G has the site in the first 20 pages when searching for
transcranial doppler. (Although it has a page rank of 2). Reviewing
your comments and your answers to similar questions, I understand that
the big G wants to see lots of text and not a lot of java. I also
understand that I should take the java, put it in a text file, label
it blahblah.js, put it on the server and create a anchor link to it
thus changing the ratio of text to script in favor of text. The
question is how? I have tried to do this but all that seems to happen
is that I lose the top and bottom banner as well as the menu, so
clearly the links are not linking. After several attempts I gave up
but I know that this will bother me forever until it is resolved, so
over to you. Can you explain in fairly small words how to get the
three pieces of script out of www.dwldoppler.com/index.html and into
*.js files and where to put them? Alternatively if you were so
inclined and you have the time and resources, perhaps you could just
do it and I would reward your efforts by increasing the value of this
question with a tip.

Thanks and best regards

---

Request for Question Clarification by aceresearcher-ga on 21 May 2004 13:56 PDT

Welcome back, dgp, and thanks for asking for me by name!

<I know that this will bother me forever until it is resolved...>
Hee. You know that you asked the right person, don't you??? Can I
introduce you to Paul?
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=345127

I'll try to make the time to look at your code this weekend and do
some playing around with it.

In the meantime, if you still have it, could you post here the html
code for your home page as it appeared in your attempt at removing the
javascript (or upload the file to your website under a different name,
such as http://www. dwldoppler.com/temp.html)?

Thanks,

ace

---

Clarification of Question by dgp-ga on 22 May 2004 09:01 PDT

Hello Ace,
Thanks for picking up the question. There is no need to introduce me
to Paul as I already read his question and I think that was the final
piece of evidence to suggest that if you cannot fix this then it is
not worth fixing. BTW there is no great rush to resolve this although
I appreciate that you will have your own agenda. For me it is more a
question of curiosity and some frustration that I cannot find a single
source of information that says do a then b then c and it will work.
In answer to your question, I cannot direct you to a script as in a
fit of manly pique I deleted it all after the umpteenth attempt to
make the wretched thing work. However this is what I did.
There are three sections of java script, one that controls the banner
at the top, one that controls the banner at the bottom and one that
controls the sliding menus. So I cut out this (which is the top
banner) and using wordpad put it in a text file that I called
doppler1.js. (The plan being that I should have three files,
doppler1.js, doppler2.js and doppler3.js)



<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,0,0"
width="705" height="60">
    <param name=movie value="header.swf?text1=DWL Transcranial
Doppler&amp;home=http://www.dwldoppler.com/index.html">
    <param name=quality value=high>
    <embed src="header.swf?text1=DWL Transcranial
Doppler&home=http://www.dwldoppler.com/index.html" quality=high
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="705" height="60">
    </embed>


I then uploaded this to my server and placed it in the folder public_html

I then placed this line in the same place as I had cut out the code above.


<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" SRC="doppler1.js">
</SCRIPT>

When I ran it the top banner had disappeared. After much wailing and
gnashing of teeth I thought time to ask Ace, so here we are.

Does that give you the information you need? As I have already said
there is no rush on this so if you would rather enjoy your weekend
then that works for me

Best regards
dgp

---

Request for Question Clarification by aceresearcher-ga on 24 May 2004 02:48 PDT

dgp,

What server software does your system use? (Apache is the most common)

Does your server support SSI (server side includes)?

Thanks,

ace

---

Clarification of Question by dgp-ga on 24 May 2004 06:41 PDT

Good Morning Ace,

From ipowerweb's information sheet I see that they use Linux / Unix
with Apache web server. They also support SSI.

best regards

dgp

PS. CeeJay, thank you for your helpful comment, I shall play with this
if time permits, however I have an obligation to see this through with
Ace as last year she provided me with some great advice for free so
this time it is her turn to reap the rewards of her endeavors

That's good news!

Your embedded Flash objects don't really involve JavaScript, and SSI
(server-side includes) are a much better way to do what you need to
do.

Using SSI "include"s will give you a couple of benefits:
1) It will simplify your html pages, both for maintenance
(programming) purposes, and for making your pages more friendly to
search engine spiders; and
2) If you change all of your pages to contain these "include"s, in the
future, if you decide to change your page header, footer, or
navigation menu, you will only need to make the change(s) in the
"include" files, and the changes will be instantly propagated
throughout all the pages on your site.


One change you will need to make is to change the extension on all of
your web pages to ".shtml":
"By default, the server does not bother looking in HTML files for the
SSI commands. This would slow down every access to a HTML file. To use
SSI you need to tell Apache which documents contain the SSI commands."
http://www.apacheweek.com/features/ssi

The syntax for this statement is
<!--#include file="filename.html"-->

where "filename" in your case might be "header", "footer", or
"navmenu", and it is located in the same directory as the page which
is including it.

To include a document from a higher-level directory, the syntax is
<!--#include virtual="/higher_directory/filename.html"-->


Here is Apache's Tutorial on Server-Side Includes (SSI):
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/howto/ssi.html


I have another recommendation for you as well. Not everyone will have
the Flash player -- or the right version of it -- installed on their
system. So if you are going to make Flash such an integral part of
your website, you really need to include at the bottom of your pages
something like:

"This site requires Flash [lowest version number which will work properly]
Get the FREE download now."

Scroll to the bottom of this site's home page for an example:
http://www.cosmogirl.com


My personal preference is not make the menu -- a **critical** part of
your website -- in Flash. Why? Because search engines, including the
Googlebot, can't index text in a Flash presentation. So by setting
your menu up this way, you have denied all of your pages the
opportunity to be indexed by the important words which appear in your
menu. You may want to consider defining your menu with html instead
(if you do so, be sure to include "alt" tags for each of the items,
because "alt" tags get indexed as well).


Once you've had a chance to pull the embedded Flash objects out into
separate files and change your home page to contain "include"s, if
you're still having problems, let me know, and we'll get them worked
out.


I hope that this Answer provides you with exactly the information you
needed to simplify your pages for the Googlebot!

Again, thanks for requesting my services,

ace

I'm assuming that you are doing this to satisfy the EULA requirements
that were imposed upon Micro$oft and the ActiveX technology.  To
overcome this ruling, you must write all Flash embeds through
javascript which you have already attempted to do.  Being a flash
developer I have done this tweak so many times that I can probably do
it in my sleep.  I will include the code that you need to add into a
.js file and just call the functions 'inline' inside the '<body>' tag
in your page.

I tried to read your clariafication in an attempt to figure out what
you were doing wrong but if you ran the inline javascript in the exact
same location as your flash embeds then you were doing it correctly. 
You may have just overlooked a minor detail in the docuemnt.write
process.  I couldn't find your old javascript files on yoru web server
@ 'doppler1.js'.. etc..

Listed below is the code you need to include into a .js file and
include it inside your '<head>' tags or anywhere before the '<body>'
tag to be safe.

Then just cut out the '<object>...</object>' tags and replace with the
following code like you originally were..

"<script>writeTopBanner();</script>".. where the code was for the top banner..
do this for all three flash objects with the corresponding function to
write that chunk of code to the browser.

Below you can find the code for the .js include..


Code pasted below..
_____________________________________________________________


function writeTopBanner() {


	document.write("<object
classid='clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000'
codebase='http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,0,0'
width='705' height='60'>");
	document.write("<param name=movie value='header.swf?text1=DWL
Transcranial Doppler&amp;home=http://www.dwldoppler.com/index.html'>");
	document.write("<param name=quality value=high>");
    	document.write("<embed src='header.swf?text1=DWL Transcranial
Doppler&home=http://www.dwldoppler.com/index.html' quality=high
pluginspage='http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash'
type='application/x-shockwave-flash' width='705' height='60'>");
    	document.write("</embed></object>");


}



function writeSideNav() {

	document.write("<object
classid='clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000'
codebase='http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=5,0,0,0'");
 	document.write("width='200' height='438' id='nav1' align='top'>");
	document.write("<param name=movie value='nav1.swf'>");
        document.write("<param name=quality value=high>");
        document.write("<embed src='nav1.swf' quality=high 
width='200' height='438' name='nav1' align='top'
type='application/x-shockwave-flash'
pluginspage='http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer'>");
        document.write("</embed></object>");

}


function writeFooter() {

	document.write("<object
classid='clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000'
codebase='http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,0,0'
width='705' height='60'>");
	document.write("<param name=movie value='footer.swf'>");
	document.write("<param name=quality value=high>");
    	document.write("<PARAM NAME=wmode VALUE=transparent>");
    	document.write("<embed src='footer.swf' quality=high
pluginspage='http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash'
type='application/x-shockwave-flash' width='705' height='60'>");
	document.write("</embed></object>");

}


________________________________________________________________________

Let me know if you run into any other problems.. ill check back tomorrow.
-CJ <flashGuru/>