[PLUG] Googling for Linux WAS: Scanned text...

Jeme A Brelin jeme at brelin.net
Sat Jul 20 20:12:42 UTC 2002


On Fri, 19 Jul 2002, Sandy Herring wrote:
> Non-canonical URLs cause a redirect to create a canonical URL (one
> that can serve as a base for future requests). This is an unnecessary
> load on the server. That's why http://foo.com/bar/ is preferred over
> http://foo.com/bar - just what Google is doing is a puzzle.

There's no puzzle at all.

The "linux" portion of <URL: http://www.google.com/linux > is not the name
of a directory.  It is the name of a CGI program.

When you add a trailing slash, you're telling the http server that you are
looking for a directory.  Many web servers are configured to either show
directory contents or choose some particular file in that directory as the
default to display when no file is specified.  In this case, there is no
directory called linux, so you're given an error.

Note the following URL:
<URL: http://www.google.com/linux?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&q=foo >

See how the command line arguments are passed to the linux program rather
than some "index.cgi" or whatever in a directory called "linux".

J.
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     Jeme A Brelin
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