Todays Lineup

1
Todays Lineup

• August 4th
• The Web and HTML, part IV (Kreuz)
• SIRS evaluation
• Getting the most from search engines (Link)
• SuperLab vs. PsyScope (Yetman, Marineau)

2
The Final Class

• Next week (August 11th)
• Dreamweaver (Stewart)
• Xtrain and a little Flash (Craig)
• Poster presentation creation (everybody)

3
Im Makin my List...

• ...Checkin it twice
• Naughty Nice
• Durrence Craig
• Kellogg DiPaolo
• Klettke Link
• Weeks Pomeroy
• Yetman (White) Rajan
• Stewart
• Whitten

4
The Web and HTML, part IV

• Search engine news
• Moving pages
• Web counters
• Link checking programs

5
Search Engine News

• Article in July issue of Nature
• Study of 11 search engines
• The Web in February 1999 consisted of 800 million
  pages...
• and search engines were indexing a diminishing
  fraction of the Web

6
Search Engine News II

• The most comprehensive engine
• Northern Light (16 of the Web)
• Followed by Snap and Altavista
• HotBot (the most comprehensive 18 months ago) had
  fallen from 34 to 11
• It now takes about six months for a new Web page
  to show up in an engines list

7
Search Engines III

• So search engines are becoming less comprehensive
  and current
• No obvious solutions to this problem
• Even more important to try a variety of search
  engines, and to know how to use them (Link)

8
Checking the Currency of a Page

• Many pages will have a last modified date,
  typically at the bottom
• Fairly useless -- many people forget to update
  this line when they change their pages
• One technique -- View -gt Page Info shows last
  modified date (Navigator)
• Doesnt always work - server issue?

9
Moving Pages

• At some point, youll want to move your pages to
  a different server, or rename or delete them
• Problem deleting, renaming, or moving a Web page
  will break any links that point to that page
  (including search engine indices)
• Solution META tag

10
META Tag to the Rescue

• Real world Example
• COE booklet sent out with the wrong department
  URL
• http//www.psyc.memphis.edu/psych.html
• The actual address
• http//www.psyc.memphis.edu/psych.htm

11
META tag II

• So I created a dummy page at the wrong address
• Designed to inform the viewer of the error, and
  transport them to the right page
• http//www.psyc.memphis.edu/psych.html

12
Wrong Address code

• ltHTMLgt
• ltHEADgt
• ltTITLEgtWrong Address!lt/TITLEgt
• ltMETA HTTP-EQUIV"refresh" content"12
  URLpsych.htm"gt
• lt/HEADgt
• ltBODY BGCOLOR"FFFFFF"gt
• ltCENTERgt
• ltIMG SRC"uofmblue.jpg"gt

13
Anatomy of the META tag

• ltMETA HTTP-EQUIV"refresh" content"12
  URLpsych.htm"gt
• refresh content tells the browser to load a new
  page
• 12 tells the browser to wait for 12 seconds
  before doing this
• URL is the address of the new page (in the same
  directory)

14
Immediate Transporting

• Its also possible to make this change
  transparent to the user
• An example
• www.psyc.memphis.edu/faculty/kreuz/default.htm
• Takes the user immediately to
• www.psyc.memphis.edu/faculty/kreuz/kreuz.htm

15
The Code

• ltHTMLgt
• ltHEADgt
• ltTITLEgtRoger Kreuzlt/TITLEgt
• ltMETA http-equiv"refresh" content"0
  URLhttp//www.psyc.memphis.edu/faculty/kreuz/kreu
  z.htm"gt
• lt/HEADgt
• ltBODYgt
• lt/BODYgt
• lt/HTMLgt

16
Web Counters

• Keep track of how many times a Web page is served
• Often shown to the viewer at the bottom of the
  page (but can be hidden)
• Useful for measuring a pages popularity

17
Internal Counters

• Logged by the server that serves the page
• More complex to set up
• More accurate
• Free

18
External Counters

• Handled by an external Web counter service
• Less complex to set up
• Less accurate
• Free

19
External Counter Problems

• Accuracy
• Sometimes the counter services are overloaded and
  dont process all visits
• Counters can count differently
• Multiple visits from the same user
• Serving of graphics
• So between-counter comparisons are problematic

20
Examples of External Counters

• WebCounter
• http//www.digits.com/
• Link Exchange
• http//fastcounter.linkexchange.com/
• NedStat
• http//usa.nedstatbasic.net/index.html

21
Steps to Create a Counter

• (1) Go to the counter Web site, and give the URL
  and your e-mail address
• (2) The site will send you a snippet of code via
  e-mail
• (3) Insert the code on the Web page

22
WebCounter Example
http//www.psyc.memphis.edu/faculty/kreuz/kreuz.ht
m The code This page has been viewed ltIMG
ALIGNBOTTOM WIDTH75 HEIGHT20 BORDER0 HSPACE2
VSPACE0 SRC"http//counter.digits.com/wc/-d/5/-r
/-z/-c/9/-f/FFFFFF/-e/FFFFFF/RJKhits"gt times
since 12-Jun-96.
23
NedStat Example

• www.psyc.memphis.edu/POL/POL.htm
• The code
• lta href"http//usa.nedstatbasic.net/cgi-bin/views
  tat?namePOLhits"gtltimg
• src"http//usa.nedstatbasic.net/cgi-bin/nedstat.g
  if?namePOLhits"
• border0 alt"" nosave width22 height22gtlt/agt

24
Preventive Maintenance

• Keep your pages current (e.g., add new
  presentations and papers to your professional
  page as theyre accepted)
• Be sure to update the last modified date at the
  bottom of pages
• Check external links occasionally to make sure
  they havent become broken

25
Link Checking Programs

• On-line Services
• NetMechanic
• www.netmechanic.com/link_check.htm
• Programs
• LinkScan (Windows)
• http//www.elsop.com/linkscan/dleval.cgi
• Big Brother (Mac version 1.2)
• http//pauillac.inria.fr/fpottier/brother.html.en