Google's Search Engine - Adding to Website 1

[haydn]

I've added the code given by Google to include their web search as well as searching the web site I'm responsible for. However, I thought I'd done everything they said, but it doesn't work. It accesses the

http://WWW OK,

but not my local website. Could it be something to do with the 'encoding' which they say I might have to alter (they have UTP-8 as the default). Rather than cut and paste the code, my website is

http://www.deveresociety.co.uk

- perhaps looking at my HTML source code alongside Google's may throw some light on my shortcomings.

Thanks

 

[cian]

Try adding encoding to your site, for example:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />

then replace UTF-8 with ISO-8859-1, maybe it'll help

http://www.ssi-developer.net/

 

[cian]

By the way ... does Google need to index your pages first for this to work?

http://www.ssi-developer.net/

 

[ChrisHirst]

Yes, the Google site search will only look for pages they have already indexed.

Heard of this a couple of times now and in both cases it started to work ok after a couple of days.

Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Woo Hoo! the cobblers kids get new shoes.
People Counting Systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

 

[haydn]

Cian:

Thanks for the tip, but it didn't change anything.

Chris:

This site has been live for at least 6 months, so I would have thought all it's pages were indexed by now, but is there anything I can do to 'force' Google to index all the pages - just to be sure ?

 

[ChrisHirst]

Not at 6 months, your site will more than likely still be in the "aging delay".



Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Woo Hoo! the cobblers kids get new shoes.
People Counting Systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

 

[haydn]

Well, I've decided to say goodbye to Google. Thanks everyone for helping, but I've included a simple engine from 'FreeFind' which worked first time.

 

[cian]

Even though you've given up on the Google search:

"This site has been live for at least 6 months, so I would have thought all it's pages were indexed by now"

Is your site linked anywhere?
Have you submitted your site to search engines?
If not then submit your site to the top search engines and get it linked to from other sites ... it could still take a number of months for your site to be indexed. Also, consider making a site map linked to from the front page ... for the spiders.

http://www.ssi-developer.net/

 

[ChrisHunt]

The FreeFind search seems to work OK. I'd make a couple of suggestions:

1) Get rid of the "search the web" option. Nobodys gonna come to your site to search the web, we go to Google for that. Those radio buttons are just needless clutter.

2) Make sure all your pages have a meaningful <title> element. Viewing the site map should make it clear why this is an issue:

The De Vere Society

* The De Vere Society here
* The De Vere Society
o The Real William Shakespeare
* The De Vere Society
* The De Vere Society
* The De Vere Society
* The De Vere Society
o here
o here
* The De Vere Society
o The De Vere Society
* The De Vere Society
* The De Vere Society

Not very useful, is it?

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[haydn]

Chris,

Thanks for the advice. You are quite right - the page titles were amazingly boring. You know what it's like, you build one page successfully then copy it to make others, forgetting to change the titles. They are changed now and make a bit more sense. I agree with you about the search options and will change these shortly.