[WEB4LIB] Erratic Bounce Back - for lack of better terminology

[Sheila V. Fehlman]

Ron,
I too have been struggling with exactly this same issue-- 
the browser back button brings me back to strange places 
on the previous page-- often, near the top of the page, but 
not quite the top. In addition, some users have reported a 
similar erratic placement in using anchors -- links to 
other parts of the same page seem to get misaligned, 
dropping the user into the targeted section, but missing 
the heading to the section. This is the first time I have 
heard anyone else mention the problem, which is a great 
relief. Does anyone know more about what is going on?
-- Sheila Fehlman

On Tue, 4 Apr 2000 09:31:12 -0700 (PDT) 
rhutchin at mail.mdanderson.org wrote:

> I have noticed a web behavior that I can not find an answer for.  On some sites
> when you are on a very long page and click on a link to another site when
> you come back to the original page using the back button you will return to
> almost exactly where you left from.  An example of this is the list of health
> sciences libraries at :  http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin-www/hslibs.html
> 
> On other long pages when you leave and return via the back button you will be
> returned to the top or near the top of the page you left from.
> 
> Does anyone have an answer to why this happens and, more importantly, is there
> anything one can add to a web page that will cause this erratic
> bounce back not to happen.  I have looked very closely at the html for pages
> that do not have erratic bounce back and can find nothing in the
> code that looks unusual.
> 
> Also, in experimenting I have found that some pages that exhibit erratic bounce
> back in Netscape do not exhibit this in IE.  However, I have found that
> some pages exhibit this behavior in both Netscape and IE.
> 
> Your help will be greatly appreciated
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Ron Hutchins
> 
> 

----------------------
Sheila V. Fehlman
fehlmans at bc.edu
Boston College