DD -

There are lots of tricks in web page setup that I haven't even thought of looking at. One of our people who actually does page setup would be more likely to have thought about it.

Web pages I've noticed with links that don't show the target URL on the IE status bar usually seem to be ones that use jscript to describe where your browser should go to look up where to go. That seems to be the case with the Google ads although I'm not sure it's jscript. The "passed parameters" may be in some language that only Google knows how to translate.

In IE, I can right click on the Google ads "link" and "Copy Shortcut," but when the shortcut is pasted (e.g. in Word) it's 543 characters of garbage. The "URL" - if you can say there is one - is always to "http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/" but the rest of it is something that doesn't have any obvious "structure" that I can make out.

I have noticed that when opening Mudcat, when the page "hangs" and I get the "waiting for reply" message it always shows "Waiting for reply: http://pagead2" on the status bar. In other words, the mudcat page can't open until the google ads are found(?). Usually the refresh button, or just closing IE and reopening (mudcat of course is my home page) will break through the traffic jam at Google and bring the page up instantly as usual. That's a small inconvenience for the bit of support the 'cat gets from the ads, IMO.

John