What's up with The Independent's website?
January 22, 2008
Did The Independent online have technical problems this morning? Some ten minutes ago I only got error messages like site not found, site unavailable or too many incoming HTTP requests if I tried to access articles from my newsreader or via bookmarks on my work PC, same thing earlier this morning when I was unable to access even the main site via my laptop. Too busy chasing other deadlines to investigate, but strange... The Indy is probably the site I most frequently get error messages from when I try accessing articles from my newsreader, usually site unavailable or site not found, but nothing on this scale....
Update 23/01: what a (not so) perfect time to finally blow off some steam about this, turns out we got a brand new Independent online as of today, at least a new layout with what looks like improved RSS-navigation. Don't like the brown banner much, but I'll stop being grumpy, even about the 75 old Indy media articles that showed up in my newsreader today, and try to find some time to test it over the wknd (long day, need some sleep, might be over the moon if I find a much improved site when I'm more rested).
Seems to be working now, but like you I used to get constant 'page not found' or pages just wouldnt load at all. I just gave up and unsubscribed from their feeds and don't visit any more!
Posted by: James Laidler | January 22, 2008 at 11:03 AM
Hmm.. just unsubscribing has been tempting at times, but need to keep an eye what's happening on my beat (means I only subscribe to the business and media feeds). Another funny thing about the Indy: they frequently hide their best, or at least what I find the most interesting, media stories in the business section. In general I quite like its business section, but too little 'news' in the Indy's media section...
Posted by: Kristine | January 22, 2008 at 09:18 PM
Down again this morning Kristine.
Perhaps they should give up on the web and just give the papers away at bus and train stations
Posted by: Nigel Barlow | January 23, 2008 at 09:58 AM
Ha, ha.. No, shouldn't laugh, bet it's frustrating for them, I hope it is and that they're working to improve it, certainly frustrating for readers... O'Reilly just denied that they'd turn the Indy into a freesheet though, so that doesn't sound like a likely option..
Just looking at media shares now: Mecom up, the Indy website down, hmm, wonder if there's a hidden meaning there...
Posted by: Kristine | January 23, 2008 at 12:41 PM
What do you think of the new website Kristine?
For some strange reason it keeps freezing my computer.Perhaps too many graphics to load up
Posted by: Nigel Barlow | January 24, 2008 at 11:27 AM
They've borrowed the template from the Irish Indepedent, but they've blown it big time and broken all the permalinks to the News Section.
See:
http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/2008/01/25/independent-website-update-some-numbers/
They've lost 250 visitors a week from me as the archived articles have all been moved elsewhere and the links from my site don't work any more.
Also, Kristine, I'm now doing a "Daily Papers" podcast - see my sidebar.
Matt W
Posted by: Matt Wardman | January 25, 2008 at 11:58 AM
Thanks for the input, Matt. I do read your blog on pretty much a weekly basis, so I've noticed the podcast, just haven't had time to listen yet (I do get too busy for my own good some times, mostly chasing deadlines). I haven't had time to look at the Indy's new site much, will do this wknd, in general I get most of my news via RSS, rarely stop by the actual sites.
It's awful whenever a site screws up the permalinks when they redesign, that's so annoying for bloggers who find that all the good stuff they've spent time building a kind of an archive of, linking to, is gone - which creates a whole domino effect of broken links.
That might mean the permalink for last article I wrote for the Independent is broken as well, which would be a major disaster, or at least a big nuisance for me:-)
Posted by: Kristine | January 25, 2008 at 12:20 PM
It's the old news urls that are broken.
They've tried to "do a Wordpress" and put Google friendly words into urls, but forget their redirects.
btw podcast feed is now:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/dailyroundup
Matt
Posted by: Matt W | January 27, 2008 at 12:29 PM