Search engines finding forum posts

[Michele Rushworth]

Thanks, Jeff. This is very helpful. Any more information on this topic that you can think of would be greatly appreciated too, I'm sure!

[Mary Reilly]

I agree that it could be awkward to have a client happen upon entries on this forum when looking doing a google search. I know and accept that if someone visits the forum they will see my comments. However I would prefer if they weren't "google available". Last year I had some complaints about a difficult client, and I would be embarrassed if she happened upon them by searching my name.

A good way to prevent google and other search engines from selecting a page is to put the following meta tag in the header.

<meta name="robots" content="noindex">

That basically tells the search engines to ignore the page.

Mary

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

Thanks to all for the contribution!

Jeff, I'll sit down and try to follow your suggestions, thank you very much for taking the time to explain.

I have recently changed my website so that I could work on it from my apple laptop, and I have to figure up how to do it.

Ilaria

[Jeff Fuchs]

Originally Posted by Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco

Thanks to all for the contribution!

Jeff, I'll sit down and try to follow your suggestions, thank you very much for taking the time to explain.

I have recently changed my website so that I could work on it from my apple laptop, and I have to figure up how to do it.

Ilaria

Ilaria, I see that you eliminated your url from your signature. That's not what I meant. You need to link your name to your site. Look at my post again. I didn't just type your name, I linked it to your website. This is how Google associates your name with your site.

Here's the code...

<a href=http://www.ilardt.com/> Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco</a>

[Jeff Fuchs]

BTW: Be sure to verify your links. I just noticed that one of the senior members here on SOG has a bad link on her SOG signature. Don't just put your link on a page, confirm that it really works.

[Cindy Procious]

Originally Posted by Jeff Fuchs

BTW: Be sure to verify your links. I just noticed that one of the senior members here on SOG has a bad link on her SOG signature. Don't just put your link on a page, confirm that it really works.

Shoot - I've been meaning to tell her that for a while. Sharon K - it's you. Check your link.

[Cynthia Daniel]

Originally Posted by Jeff Fuchs

BTW: Be sure to verify your links. I just noticed that one of the senior members here on SOG has a bad link on her SOG signature. Don't just put your link on a page, confirm that it really works.

When you say SOG, I assume you mean SOG Forum? They are not one and the same. SOG refers to the main site only.

[Cynthia Daniel]

This topic is being temporarily closed until the two topics can be appropriately split. The topic about search engine optimization is a second subject and needs to be under Computer Software.

I'm also changing the subject of this topic to "Search engines finding forum posts" since the current topic doesn't really tell the reader what the thread is about.

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

Thank you Jeff!
I have one more question for you: I changed the name of my homepage as you suggested, but the browser would not accept file names that contain spaces.
I am very grateful for your help!

Ilaria

[Jeff Fuchs]

Originally Posted by Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco

Thank you Jeff!
I have one more question for you: I changed the name of my homepage as you suggested, but the browser would not accept file names that contain spaces.
I am very grateful for your help!

Ilaria

Your site seems to forward to a subdirectory in your server. You need to edit the title tag of the page that it lands on (/ilaria_rosselli_del_turco/home.html)

Warning: If you don't know how to edit html, see if you have a friend or family member who knows how to do it. You can make a mess of things pretty easily. Absolutely don't do anything until you create a full backup of all your files. Don't work from the backup files. Keep them separate in case you need to restore them.

On your main page, the title tag has not been changed. It still is <title>Home</title>. Just replace the word Home with the title of your choice. If you edit your files on your computer, be sure to save and upload them, using the same file names and addresses as the original. If you can edit them online, be sure the files are writable first. When you finish editing, make them un-writable again, to protect them from hackers.

Looking at your page sources, it seems you used a web authoring program of some kind. It's likely that you can change the settings in the software so that it autoamatically enters your chosen title in all of the pages.