discuss: Review of GNU/Linux Tools Summary
Subject:
Re: Review of GNU/Linux Tools Summary
From:
David Lawyer ####@####.####
Date:
14 Dec 2003 19:15:52 -0000
Message-Id: <20031214191511.GB450@lafn.org>
On Sun, Dec 14, 2003 at 10:45:08AM +0000, Chris Karakas wrote:
> To Guru (and everybody who might be interested):
>
>
> >I've changed order and grouping many many times.
> >I'll try again to re-arrange them thats not a bad idea.
> >
>
> There is one thing to keep in mind when regrouping: Chapter and
> section labels - DON'T change existing ones! You may change their
> position, but please not the label. Subsection and Subsubsection
> labels can be changed without problem.
>
> Why? Because Chapters and sections will become separate HTML
> documents.
Not always so. The text format is a single doc. Also, LDP provides
html docs in both in multiple pages (separate HTML docs) and single
pages. Search the Internet for HOWTOs and you'll find single page ones
also (in text, html, pdf).
> That's a DSSSL stylesheet setting which controls how deep a level will
> still produce a separate HTML document. The name of the documents
> will be the label of the chapter and section respectively. Obviously,
> you can move a section around, without affecting the HTML name of the
> resulting file, IF you don't change its label. You can of course
> change its contents, put it somewhere else as a section of a different
> chapter etc., but please leave the label untouched.
> The problem is that the document is already on the Web and is
> receiving a lot of visits. Most of them from search engines. If you
> change the section label, the HTML name changes. Consequently, the
> link from the search engines is no longer valid. The same is true for
> private bookmarks, or public bookmark lists.
Google has cashed versions so if one can't find something due to a
change in the link, then they can always look at the (old) cashed one.
But the most common case may be where one reaches the wrong chapter,
etc. But since each chapter has a link to the table of contents, then
they can still find what they are looking for.
> But there is more to it: it's not only a matter of waiting 2-3 months
> for the new HTML document that contains the old (a bit reorganized)
> content to be indexed by the search engines.
The waiting is often only weeks, not months. It may take months for an
initial listing of your site however.
> It's that the old name might have been at place 1 of Google (say) for
> some keyword, because a lot of other people linked to it. Now, with a
> changed label and, consequently, a new HTML file name, those links do
> not reference the new document, and it gets a ranking close to
> "nowhere" (because Google takes links to a document to mean "votes"
> for that document and weights that document accordingly) - and nobody
> finds it. ;-)
Even "nowhere" will be found if one uses the exact search terms and if
you have something unique to offer. But if it's at LDP, then it will
get a high ranking. Thus I don't think much about search engines when
writing or revising a doc. However, since some search engines don't
consider key words much I'm told, then I try to put synonyms into the
body of the doc to help people find it.
[snip]
David Lawyer
