URL-Minder

[Grant Young]

Hi

A cautionary tale.


I put an URL-minder form on my personal Geocities pages a couple of
years ago and encouraged friends to sign up for it.

It seemed to be running okay, until Geocities asked me to carry an
advertising banner on my page. I duly obliged - but carefully placed
the banner code in the tags designed to shield the checker from
counters (which will register as a change).

Nonetheless, from then on, every week or so (which I suspect is the
frequency of URL-minder's checking), there'd be a message to say the
page had changed. The content hadn't changed for months. It became a
bit of a running joke, with people saying to me "now URL-minder has
become my most regular correspondent."

I removed the URL-minder form and then the whole page - but this
hasn't stopped the notices. Am still being notified about a page that
hasn't existed for months! Obviously I could unsubscribe from the
service, but I'm curious how long it will take for it to recognise the
change.

:)

----------
Grant Young
SORT Directory Project Co-ordinator
grant.young at ort.org
http://www.campus.ort.org/Library/Docs/about.htm