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Westford search engine |
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Westford search engine |
| The Westford
Web runs a search engine that scans linked directories under www.westford.com,
along with all linked pages under the Town Hall, Schools, Library and
Roudenbush web sites. These pages are compiled into a Westford web site
index. When visitors enter in key words into the search field, they will
receive a list of documents that contain information based on the word(s)
they entered.
You can help direct visitors to your web page by providing specific information in two locations on your web page. Those locations are 1) the page title and 2) a hidden meta description tag used by the search engine. Page Title If you look at bar at the very top of this window, you will see the words "Westweb - Search Info". That information is known as the page title. To modify the page title using Netscape Composer, choose Format, Page Colors and Properties, and enter an appropriate title for the page in the Title line. In Front Page, select File, Page Properties, and edit the title line. It would probably be good to have part of this title be the name of you organization. For example, the title could be "Westford Fishing Club - Calendar Page". The information that you put in the title line will appear as part of the search results in the Westford search engine and on other web search engines. Description Tag If you would like, the search results can print a summary of your web page. To do this, you will need to edit the "description meta tag". To do this in Netscape Composer, select Format, Page Colors and Properties, click on the Meta Tag tab, then click in the User Variable box (should have a blue selection line appear) then click in the name box and enter the word description. In the value box, enter about 25 words that would describe your web page. Click on Set. In Front Page, choose File, Page Properties and click on the Custom Tab, and under User Variables, add or modify your tag. Have the name be description and the value be about 25 words describing your web page. If you want to add the meta tag using HTML, the tag line would be <meta name="description" content="Your 25 word description of your page - keep the quotes."> Without the Description Tag in place, the search engine will display the first 25 words or so from your web page. These words may not be a good indication of the content of the whole page, especially if the words are Javascript or comments. Keyword Tag You can use the keyword meta tag to help users find your page based on particular words that they may enter into the search box. For example, if you think users that enter the word homes would be interested in the information on your web page, then add the word homes to your keyword meta tag. The keyword meta tag is added the same way as the description meta tag, but use name="keyword" instead. Using about 10 to 25 keywords might be helpful. Page Hiding To keep a page from being indexed in this search engine, add the tag <meta name=Robots content=NoIndex> at the top of the page in the heading section right after the <html> tag. This will keep all search engines from indexing that page.
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