I am in the Webmaster Club in my school, and I have a slight problem. The URL of my school website is very long, and often it's hard for me to remember (and probably other people). I'm the only one in the club, and in my school, who really knows a lot about source code editing. Anyway, the website for my school home page is <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.b-bp.k12.ny.us/jwy%20web%20pages/JWY%20home%20page.html">http://www.b-bp.k12.ny.us/jwy%20web%20p ... 0page.html</a><!-- m --> . Whenever I try to search for this, say using MSN (try the search query <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://search.msn.com/results.asp?q=James+Wilson+Young&origq=James+Wilson+Young+MS&RS=CHECKED&FORM=SMCRT&v=1&cfg=SMCINITIAL&nosp=0&thr=">http://search.msn.com/results.asp?q=Jam ... osp=0&thr=</a><!-- m --> ), I never see the home page come up. In fact, the first (and only) thing that comes up is the school librarian's page!!! () To fix this, I looked up using META tags on the internet and put them in. If you click the link to my school home page, you can view the source code. Note the META tags "keywords" and "description" were put in by me. When I search for the school website, it should now come up earlier, and display a description (unlike when it just extracts a part of a page without a META description tag). However, my school librarian's page (<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.b-bp.k12.ny.us/jwywebpages/Library.html">http://www.b-bp.k12.ny.us/jwywebpages/Library.html</a><!-- m -->) is still the first thing to come up, and it has no META tags! 
And, when the home page does come up, its link is "Untitled document", and the description does not appear! I'm perplexed. 
I'm thinking of maybe using META robots tags to keep the librarians page from coming up. I would make an error page, but our site does not have its own domain. If anyone needs to see where my school district's page is, if it will help, <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.b-bp.k12.ny.us/">http://www.b-bp.k12.ny.us/</a><!-- m --> (Bayport-Blue Point School District). Can anyone look at the source codes of my school's home page and help me, please? Input is much appreciated; I would really like to make it easier for parents to find our website. 
<!--content-->Originally posted by MarkE <br />
I would really like to make it easier for parents to find our website. <br />
<br />
Why not go to <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.blomp.com">www.blomp.com</a><!-- w --> and register eg webclub.blomp.com from free to redirect to the difficoult adress?<!--content-->Thank you for your reply, but I doubt that my teacher will let me do that. I'm not allowed to do things with manipulation of the the school website and such. I'll show this post to her at a Webmaster Club meeting, but I'd rather fix a problem with the HTML code so it comes up as a search priority, even before the librarian's page, than make a new site URL. Can you please give me any suggestions on the source code? Once again, the URL for the homepage is <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://b-bp.k12.ny.us/jwy">http://b-bp.k12.ny.us/jwy</a><!-- m --> web pages/JWY home page.html (<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://b-bp.k12.ny.us/jwy%20web%20pages/JWY%20home%20page.html">http://b-bp.k12.ny.us/jwy%20web%20pages ... 0page.html</a><!-- m -->).<!--content-->You may want to read:<br />
<br />
Death Of A Meta Tag<br />
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/02/10-meta.html">http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/02/10-meta.html</a><!-- m --><br />
<br />
Google Information for Webmasters<br />
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/">http://www.google.com/webmasters/</a><!-- m --><!--content-->I feel a sense of frustration here Mark!<br />
<br />
I suspect Miss Archer has been listing her page with the search engines, which you could do with your home page too. Or you could get into her page and put a redirect on it to the home page!<br />
<br />
meta tags really should relate to what is on the page, which includes the 'alt' tags (which you don't have). If you put in meta tags that dont relate to what is on a page you could get penalised. Well so they say.<br />
<br />
But apparently the metas are dead and that nasty librarian hasn't got any as you say.
<!--content-->This doesn't solve your problem either, but something you should do is name any subfolder, or html file without using spaces. You name your sub directory "jwy" and then have your home page be named index.html. This is assuming index.html is the default name that's looked for on your server. If it's something like home.html, then use that. This way your URL looks like this. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.b-bp.k12.ny.us/jwy/">http://www.b-bp.k12.ny.us/jwy/</a><!-- m --> It's not pretty, but at least it will be cleaner.<!--content-->The whole site could do with a Spring clean, Mark. You have spaces and a mix of upper and lower case etc throughout the code. <br />
This won't help with the search engine results, but it should make it work better.<br />
I have found <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.searchenginewatch.com">http://www.searchenginewatch.com</a><!-- m --> a useful resource for learning about how the darn things work.<br />
One thing I do know, nothing works overnight . . it can take months.<br />
<!--content-->#1. I didn't make up the name for the folder, but I can suggest it to my teacher.<br />
<br />
#2. There are lots of other people that are in the club that work on this, too.<br />
<br />
#3. I did not create, nor am I allowed to change, the site name, page name, file name, directories, etc. (Although I will ask suggest it to my teacher).<br />
<br />
#4. The teachers we make pages for do not edit their pages, only our club does. There is no special thing Miss Archer could have done to do that. How can I list the home page with search engines? (Although I probably won't be allowed to do that, either).<br />
<br />
#5. What are ALT tags (and how do I use them)?<br />
<br />
#6. Can a ROBOTS meta tag solve the problem of Mrs. Archer's page coming up?<br />
<br />
#7. How do I make the title of the page appear on the search engine results, even though I already have a META title tag and a TITLE tag?<br />
<br />
#8. How will cleaning up up the filename make it search any better?<br />
<br />
I'll show my teacher these posts to my teacher. Thanks for input.<!--content-- Did you bother to read the pages I linked to above? If you did you should have realized by now that META tags won't drive any traffic to your site. Good content, proper HTML structure (including alt texts!) and inbound linkage will.<br />
<br />
Ask the librarian lady to link to your club pages to start with.<!--content-->#1. I didn't make up the name for the folder, but I can suggest it to my teacher. <br />
<br />
That's a start.<br />
<br />
#2. There are lots of other people that are in the club that work on this, too.<br />
<br />
They also need to learn.<br />
<br />
#3. I did not create, nor am I allowed to change, the site name, page name, file name, directories, etc. (Although I will ask suggest it to my teacher). <br />
<br />
Teach the teacher too.<br />
<br />
#4. The teachers we make pages for do not edit their pages, only our club does. There is no special thing Miss Archer could have done to do that. How can I list the home page with search engines? (Although I probably won't be allowed to do that, either). <br />
<br />
Go to google.com (one of the best) and follow the links to 'add a site'. You can do this with most of the engines. It takes time! Months! Ms A may have done this herself . . .<br />
<br />
#5. What are ALT tags (and how do I use them)? <br />
<br />
The alt tags are seen when images are loading. They are the type that comes up first (if the tags are present). Robots read them, too.<br />
example:<br />
<IMG SRC=http://www.webdeveloper.com/forum/archive/index.php/"images/logo.gif" WIDTH="432" HEIGHT="47" ALIGN="BOTTOM"<br />
BORDER="0" ALT="James Wilson Young middle school logo"><!--content-->
And, when the home page does come up, its link is "Untitled document", and the description does not appear! I'm perplexed. I'm thinking of maybe using META robots tags to keep the librarians page from coming up. I would make an error page, but our site does not have its own domain. If anyone needs to see where my school district's page is, if it will help, <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.b-bp.k12.ny.us/">http://www.b-bp.k12.ny.us/</a><!-- m --> (Bayport-Blue Point School District). Can anyone look at the source codes of my school's home page and help me, please? Input is much appreciated; I would really like to make it easier for parents to find our website. <!--content-->Originally posted by MarkE <br />I would really like to make it easier for parents to find our website.
<br /><br />
Why not go to <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.blomp.com">www.blomp.com</a><!-- w --> and register eg webclub.blomp.com from free to redirect to the difficoult adress?<!--content-->Thank you for your reply, but I doubt that my teacher will let me do that. I'm not allowed to do things with manipulation of the the school website and such. I'll show this post to her at a Webmaster Club meeting, but I'd rather fix a problem with the HTML code so it comes up as a search priority, even before the librarian's page, than make a new site URL. Can you please give me any suggestions on the source code? Once again, the URL for the homepage is <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://b-bp.k12.ny.us/jwy">http://b-bp.k12.ny.us/jwy</a><!-- m --> web pages/JWY home page.html (<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://b-bp.k12.ny.us/jwy%20web%20pages/JWY%20home%20page.html">http://b-bp.k12.ny.us/jwy%20web%20pages ... 0page.html</a><!-- m -->).<!--content-->You may want to read:<br />
<br />
Death Of A Meta Tag<br />
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/02/10-meta.html">http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/02/10-meta.html</a><!-- m --><br />
<br />
Google Information for Webmasters<br />
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/">http://www.google.com/webmasters/</a><!-- m --><!--content-->I feel a sense of frustration here Mark!<br />
<br />
I suspect Miss Archer has been listing her page with the search engines, which you could do with your home page too. Or you could get into her page and put a redirect on it to the home page!<br />
<br />
meta tags really should relate to what is on the page, which includes the 'alt' tags (which you don't have). If you put in meta tags that dont relate to what is on a page you could get penalised. Well so they say.<br />
<br />
But apparently the metas are dead and that nasty librarian hasn't got any as you say.
<!--content-->This doesn't solve your problem either, but something you should do is name any subfolder, or html file without using spaces. You name your sub directory "jwy" and then have your home page be named index.html. This is assuming index.html is the default name that's looked for on your server. If it's something like home.html, then use that. This way your URL looks like this. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.b-bp.k12.ny.us/jwy/">http://www.b-bp.k12.ny.us/jwy/</a><!-- m --> It's not pretty, but at least it will be cleaner.<!--content-->The whole site could do with a Spring clean, Mark. You have spaces and a mix of upper and lower case etc throughout the code. <br />This won't help with the search engine results, but it should make it work better.<br />
I have found <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.searchenginewatch.com">http://www.searchenginewatch.com</a><!-- m --> a useful resource for learning about how the darn things work.<br />
One thing I do know, nothing works overnight . . it can take months.<br />
<!--content-->#1. I didn't make up the name for the folder, but I can suggest it to my teacher.<br /><br />
#2. There are lots of other people that are in the club that work on this, too.<br />
<br />
#3. I did not create, nor am I allowed to change, the site name, page name, file name, directories, etc. (Although I will ask suggest it to my teacher).<br />
<br />
#4. The teachers we make pages for do not edit their pages, only our club does. There is no special thing Miss Archer could have done to do that. How can I list the home page with search engines? (Although I probably won't be allowed to do that, either).<br />
<br />
#5. What are ALT tags (and how do I use them)?<br />
<br />
#6. Can a ROBOTS meta tag solve the problem of Mrs. Archer's page coming up?<br />
<br />
#7. How do I make the title of the page appear on the search engine results, even though I already have a META title tag and a TITLE tag?<br />
<br />
#8. How will cleaning up up the filename make it search any better?<br />
<br />
I'll show my teacher these posts to my teacher. Thanks for input.<!--content--
Did you bother to read the pages I linked to above? If you did you should have realized by now that META tags won't drive any traffic to your site. Good content, proper HTML structure (including alt texts!) and inbound linkage will.<br /><br />
Ask the librarian lady to link to your club pages to start with.<!--content-->#1. I didn't make up the name for the folder, but I can suggest it to my teacher. <br />
<br />
That's a start.<br />
<br />
#2. There are lots of other people that are in the club that work on this, too.<br />
<br />
They also need to learn.<br />
<br />
#3. I did not create, nor am I allowed to change, the site name, page name, file name, directories, etc. (Although I will ask suggest it to my teacher). <br />
<br />
Teach the teacher too.<br />
<br />
#4. The teachers we make pages for do not edit their pages, only our club does. There is no special thing Miss Archer could have done to do that. How can I list the home page with search engines? (Although I probably won't be allowed to do that, either). <br />
<br />
Go to google.com (one of the best) and follow the links to 'add a site'. You can do this with most of the engines. It takes time! Months! Ms A may have done this herself . . .<br />
<br />
#5. What are ALT tags (and how do I use them)? <br />
<br />
The alt tags are seen when images are loading. They are the type that comes up first (if the tags are present). Robots read them, too.<br />
example:<br />
<IMG SRC=http://www.webdeveloper.com/forum/archive/index.php/"images/logo.gif" WIDTH="432" HEIGHT="47" ALIGN="BOTTOM"<br />
BORDER="0" ALT="James Wilson Young middle school logo"><!--content-->