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Waterstones uses HTML comments to market books

zooboole

Published By zooboole

This is a strange thing. After Google used their Robots.txt to exclude the creators of the site from Robots invasion, it's the turn of Waterstones to use HTML comments to make some announcement.

What you are about to see will surely surprise you.

Waterstones is a bookshop that's well known in selling books online via www.waterstones.com. Recently the site added some strange HTML comments pointing out some particular books.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<!--[if lt IE 9]>      <html class="no-js no-touch lt-ie9 lt-ie10" lang="en"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 9]>         <html class="no-js no-touch lt-ie10" lang="en"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if gt IE 9]><!--> <html class="no-js no-touch" lang="en"> <!--<![endif]-->
<head>
    <!--  Waterstones E-Commerce Platform Version :  1.0 -->
    <!--  ServerID = 9-->
    <!--                        -->
    <!--  Interested in code, web design and web development?  Check out our bestselling books on Web Programming: -->
    <!--  HTML & CSS by Jon Duckett :  https://www.waterstones.com/book/html-and-css/jon-duckett/9781118008188 -->
    <!--  Python in Easy Steps by Mike McGrath : https://www.waterstones.com/book/python-in-easy-steps/mike-mcgrath/9781840785968 -->
    <!--  JavaScript & JQuery by Jon Duckett : https://www.waterstones.com/book/javascript-and-jquery/jon-duckett/9781118531648 -->
    <!--  PHP & MYSQL in Easy Steps by Mike McGrath : https://www.waterstones.com/book/php-and-mysql-in-easy-steps/mike-mcgrath/9781840785371 -->
    <!--  Javascript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford : https://www.waterstones.com/book/javascript-the-good-parts/douglas-crockford/9780596517748 -->
    <!--  Learning Python with Raspberry Pi by Alex Bradbury : https://www.waterstones.com/book/learning-python-with-raspberry-pi/alex-bradbury/ben-everard/9781118717059 -->
    <!--  AngularJS: Up and Running by Shyam Seshadri :  https://www.waterstones.com/book/angularjs-up-and-running/shyam-seshadri/brad-green/9781491901946-->
    <!--  Transcending CSS by Andy Clarke  : https://www.waterstones.com/book/transcending-css/andy-clarke/molly-e-holzschlag/9780321410979 -->
    <!--  Jump Start Responsive Web Design by Craig Sharkie : https://www.waterstones.com/book/jump-start-responsive-web-design/craig-sharkie/andrew-fisher/9780987332165 -->

You may ask me what this is?

Actually, HTML comments are used to isolate some parts of source codes of web pages from HTML parser, such as your browser. Normally, any thing that's commented with the comment tag, will never be displayed on your browser. Look at the following example:

<!--This is a comment. Comments are not displayed in the browser-->

<p>This is a paragraph.</p>

Here you ask yourself why would they then advertise through HTML comments?

Unluckily that's what everyone is asking. Few people check page source codes. Meaning, that only a few people can detect such activity on a website. Or this may be some kind of hidden information from the team. Something they temporally added there for next use. (^;^).

Want to check it yourself?

Just go to www.waterstones.com then press CTRL + U if you are on Windows, or CMD + ALT + U on Mac OS.

if you are on Google Chrome, just enter this: view-source:https://www.waterstones.com