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Search engines not recognising site

Please let us know about any technical problems you encounter.
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Brunes08
Posts: 44
Joined: 14 Jun 2020, 23:09

Search engines not recognising site

Post by Brunes08 »

I can access the Forum using Safari on my i-Pad. However, I cannot access it from my laptop using Edge, Explorer, Bing, DuckDuckgo etc. These searches bring up all sorts of sites, many not even related to genealogy. Help!
paulr1949
Posts: 147
Joined: 02 Jun 2020, 18:25
Location: North West Kent

Re: Search engines not recognising site

Post by paulr1949 »

I *think* it is a case of the search engines not having caught up with a new website yet. I can view the site on Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera, it's just searching for it which is a problem - not ideal. We will look into it
Paul
Mick Loney
Posts: 371
Joined: 15 Jun 2020, 07:27

Re: Search engines not recognising site

Post by Mick Loney »

If you can get to the site via Safari, just make a note of the address which is shown in Safari Search bar.
Then you just type in the same address into your web browser! i.e. www.whowhenwheregenealogy.org.uk Once you reach the site, bookmark it for future use.
Searching is only necessary when you don’t have the address, which in this case you already have!

NB link corrected, sorry for original error
Last edited by Mick Loney on 16 Jun 2020, 18:52, edited 2 times in total.
KayFarndon
Posts: 34
Joined: 14 Jun 2020, 13:19

Re: Search engines not recognising site

Post by KayFarndon »

I thought it was only me having problems, so glad I am not on my own. The only way I can access the site is by clicking on the link in the email I was sent, to say it was up and running. It opened up in Firefox, so before I logged out I clicked to bookmark it. However this did not happen, so I put the full address into Google which I am still using more frequently and it came back as address unknown.

I have just put the whole address into Firefox and am repeatedly timed out, so have not yet managed to view from there, apart from when it opens up from the email.

I have to make sure i don't delete that very precious email.
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petergroves81
Posts: 4
Joined: 01 Jun 2020, 19:43
Location: Somewhere in England
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Re: Search engines not recognising site

Post by petergroves81 »

KayFarndon wrote: 16 Jun 2020, 16:35 I thought it was only me having problems, so glad I am not on my own. The only way I can access the site is by clicking on the link in the email I was sent, to say it was up and running. It opened up in Firefox, so before I logged out I clicked to bookmark it. However this did not happen, so I put the full address into Google which I am still using more frequently and it came back as address unknown.

I have just put the whole address into Firefox and am repeatedly timed out, so have not yet managed to view from there, apart from when it opens up from the email.

I have to make sure i don't delete that very precious email.
Kay, we are aware of this and taking steps to improve things. Google, and other search engines, will have to index the site and that is clearly taking a while. The more people visit the better, and the more links people put in their own websites (if they have them) the better too. We've put all our effort into getting the site going, and I've already learned a lot - now it seems I will be embarking on a study of the black art of search engine optimisation. In the meantime, you should find that Firefox remembers addresses that you have typed in, so after a few characters of "whowhenwhere ..." it should complete it for you.

If anyone reading this knows about SEO, I'd be very pleased to hear from you! Similarly if you know about CSS! (That's cascading style sheets, but if you didn't know that much I don't suppose you will be able to use them to change the appearance of the site!)
Mick Loney
Posts: 371
Joined: 15 Jun 2020, 07:27

Re: Search engines not recognising site

Post by Mick Loney »

My bad! I should have just stuck to my original idea, to just suggest you copy address from safari and type it into the search bar in your web browser!
Being too helpful has its disavantages at times, but no excuse, I should have tried the link myself, sorry😡

NB Search engines should only be used when you don’t know where a site is. Even then, you have to be VERY careful of the results, as people pay to have their results listed first, so are not always where you want to go.
Mick Loney
Posts: 371
Joined: 15 Jun 2020, 07:27

Re: Search engines not recognising site

Post by Mick Loney »

KayFarndon wrote: 16 Jun 2020, 16:35 It opened up in Firefox, so before I logged out I clicked to bookmark it. However this did not happen, so I put the full address into Google which I am still using more frequently and it came back as address unknown.
Kay, I opened site in Firefox and bookmarked it and it saved it with no problem, however I did have trouble finding it afterwards!
I clicked on show bookmarks, and had to click "Show all Bookmarks" (Ctl+Shift+B) before it appeared at bottom of list.
To make it more accessible, I then dragged it from there, and stuck it in the left column to a more suitable location. In my case I placed it in the "Bookmarks Toolbar" where it works fine
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Guy
Posts: 135
Joined: 01 Jun 2020, 19:14
Location: Wakefield
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Re: Search engines not recognising site

Post by Guy »

It takes between 4 days and 6 months for search engines like Google to crawl a site, but more commonly between 4 days and 4 weeks
Cheers
Guy
As we have gained from the past, we owe the future a debt, which we pay by sharing today.
Jethro Tull
Posts: 37
Joined: 13 Jun 2020, 21:14
Location: East Anglia

Re: Search engines not recognising site

Post by Jethro Tull »

Just a quick one from me on Google and online searches etc., if any of the Admin would like to email me or PM me please I have a suggestion but would prefer to discuss offline if thats ok. I can't PM as not enough posts yet.

Cheers

Dan
"So many ancestors; so little time"
Brunes08
Posts: 44
Joined: 14 Jun 2020, 23:09

Re: Search engines not recognising site

Post by Brunes08 »

Thank you for suggesting using Firefox to access the site. I have now logged on using Firefox so am happy again.
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