The Verify Bookmarks Report

During its verify process, Bookdog receives replies from your Mac, from internet name servers and from the websites themselves.  Each reply comes with a numbered "status code"; those from the internet have been defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force.  If a website is working normally, Bookdog receives a "200" status code, which means "OK".  Other codes indicate various errors.  The status codes "301" and "302" indicate a "redirect" and send Bookdog a new url to use instead of the old url you have.  Webmasters are supposed to send a "301" status code if the url has been moved permanently, or "302" if the url is changed temporarily. 

In developing Bookdog we found that many webmasters incorrectly use the 302 status code to indicate permanent moves, when they should be using a 301.  Therefore, we have trained Bookdog to sniff 302s and classify them into three categories:

  1. Probably a correctly-used 302.
  2. Probably a 302 which should be a 301.
  3. Not sure.
In the report, you choose how Bookdog treats 302 in the last two categories by punching radio buttons (bullets).  In each case, your choices are to treat them as (a) good bookmarks (leave them unchanged) (b) accept the redirect and use the new URL or (c) include them in the bookmarks that you will consider on a case-by-case basis and fix manually.  You may punch the buttons back and forth because Bookdog remembers what it did and dynamically fixes and un-fixes bookmarks as commanded.

A list of the bookmarks automatically fixed by Bookdog are shown in a list when you click "Show" at the bottom of that column, and the bookmarks that you should review and fix manually are shown when you click "Fix..." at the bottom of that column.