"Along Those Lines" 4/18/2003 Strategies for Accessing Sites Whose Addresses May Have Changed – George G. Morgan (reprinted with prior permission of Juliana Smith, Editor of Ancestry Daily News) In the course of your online research, you are certain to encounter websites with a message that says, "File not found," or something similar. Some of the sites may have been discontinued, some may have moved, and still others may have restructured their websites and changed the organization (and Web page names) of some or all of their resources. Typically your browser will display an error of some sort. These may include: HTTP 404 - File not found Error 404 - File not found The page cannot be found You are not authorized to view this page Access denied Don't despair! All is not quite lost. In this week's "Along Those Lines . . " column, let's discuss some strategies to help you locate and access websites which may have 'gone missing.' Strategy 1: Websites Whose Addresses Have Changed A responsible Webmaster will usually make certain to leave a trail behind if their website moves to a completely new address. This would be similar to leaving a forwarding order with the post office when you move. However, in the event that the Web page author has not been so accommodating, you may have to search a bit. In some cases, however, a Web address may simply have changed. This is especially applicable in cases where there is a lengthy URL, which may include a directory and/or a Web page document name in its address. In that case, there's a simple methodology you can employ to try to locate the desired content again for yourself. Let's say that we are looking for a recipe for an apple pie cheesecake in a ginger crust that we found at http://www.thatsmyhome.com/cheesecake/applepie html at the "That's My Home Web" site at one time. When you head to that website today, you'll find that it's not a valid URL. Now, we could certainly use Strategy 2 below, but if we didn't remember the right text to search, another approach may work better for us. There are several options available to use. 1. Try typing the URL again, and delete the letter 'l' in .html. The Webmaster may have simply changed his/her filename extension naming conventions for the site. In this case, (URL might be 2-Lines) http://www.thatsmyhome.com/cheesecake/applepie.htm now locates the recipe page. 2. If that didn't work, start subtracting portions of the Web address, gradually heading back to the root URL. For example, by entering the URL www.thatsmyhome.com/cheesecake/, that takes us to the cheesecake directory of the "That's My Home" Website. Here we find many other recipes for cheesecakes. 3. If option #2 didn't work, subtract the directory name of /cheesecake/ and go to the Website's root URL at: www.thatsmyhome.com, which is their site's home page. If going to the home page itself at thatsmyhome.com didn't quite do it, remember that all Websites' main page are titled index.htm or index.html. You could try entering either http://www.thatsmyhome.com/index.htm or alternately enter http://www.thatsmyhome.com/index.html and see if that gives you a viable link. Strategy 2: Discontinued Sites If you think a site has been discontinued or moved without leaving a forwarding address, you may use a search engine to try to locate it. However let's say for now that you can use a search engine to locate a website by entering the title of the page. What you need to understand is that, in conducting searches with a search engine, the engine itself is using its own self-compiled, mechanized index. There are three areas used by all search engines in compiling their index: 1. The Title of the Web page (the text that is seen in the blue title bar at the top of your browser); 2. The invisible keyword text that a Web page author may embed in his or her Web page that is known as Meta-tags; and 3. The text that appears anywhere in the body of the Web page (and this includes file names of graphics, sounds, and other files in the page). Therefore, when you enter a single word for a search, it may be located anywhere within these areas of the Web pages. The Advanced Search facility of many search engines may allow you to specify where in the Web page the word or phrase is to be sought. This might be included in the Page Title, which is that text which appears in the blue title bar at the top of your browser window. Perhaps you want to locate the text within the body of the Web page. Perhaps there is a word that appears as part of the Web address itself, or in the text used as a hotlink to this page. Whatever you can remember about your 'lost' website may be the vital information you need. However, for now, let's just say that you will use the Simple Search facility of any Web search engine to locate information that might have been in the Web page you are seeking. Let's use one of the currently popular search engines called Google, which can be located at www.google.com. For purposes of searching, you will enter either a single word/keyword in the search box of the search engine. To enter a word, simply type it in the box in all lower case letters. (Never use upper case or mixed case. Also, never use a plural if you can avoid it. We'll discuss this in the next lesson. However, both of these rules of thumb can help increase your chances of successfully locating more search results) To enter an exact phrase (two or more words which must be contiguous to one another in the precise order you have typed them), enclose them in the double quotation marks as follows. "beauregard olivier smith" For our example, let's say we are searching for a Web page about genealogy for the WILSON surname that may have moved. In this case, we will enter an exact phrase as follows: "wilson genealogy web page" In google.com, this search produced two results: Wilson Lineage Storme's Genealogy Page You may use the Find function of your browser on the menu bar under Edit/Find to rapidly locate the text in question.(A shortcut to the Find function can be done on your keyboard by pressing and holding the CTRL key and simultaneously pressing the F key.) Search both of these Web pages for the text we used above (wilson genealogy web page). (Don't include the quotation marks this time in the Find box or you won't find anything.) In the first Web page, the text appears at the bottom of the page. In the second Web page, you will find a link to the Matt Wilson Genealogy Web Page and it is a scanned image of an obituary. (Notice the text we used is part of this link's title.) If the text for which we were searching was only included in an otherwise invisible' Meta-tag in the Web page code, we could perform a Find function on the Web page and would not locate that text anywhere in the Web page. This is the reason why sometimes, when you use a search engine, there appears to be no reason why a certain Web page is included in the search results list. To see where the 'invisible' text is located, you can go to your browser's menu bar, and select View and then Source. Your computer will open another window (either another browser window or a word processor such as Notepad). The HTML code used to create and format the Web page will be displayed. By using pressing the CTRL and F keys, and entering the text you re seeking in the Find window, you can locate and view that 'invisible' text if you are so inclined. Summary Both of these strategies can be used in any situation where you have a URL and the Web page isn't coming up. If the search engine you use 'suggests' another Website or URL, you can always try that as well. There certainly will be Web pages which, as I often say, are "Here today, and gone this afternoon." That seems to be the nature of the Web. However, if you're sure the page once existed and may simply have moved or undergone a name or address change, you may be able to locate it after all. Happy hunting! George Editor's Note: Occasionally when you search for a page and locate it using a search engine, the page may have been taken offline between the time it was indexed and the time of your search. You will get one of those same dreaded error messages when you try to access the page. If you are using a search engine that maintains a cache you may still be able to view the page as it looked when it was indexed. Google.com keeps a cache and you can access the cached version of the webpage by simply clicking on the little gray link following the URL and page size that says "Cached." George will be teaching several online classes at MyFamily.com in upcoming weeks. For details, see today's Fast Fact. George G. Morgan would like to hear from you but, due to the volume of e-mail received, he is unable to answer every message. Please note that he cannot assist you with your individual research. Visit George's website at www.ahaseminars.com/atl for information about speaking engagements. Copyright 2003, MyFamily.com Inc. All rights reserved. Sally Rolls Pavia Sun City, AZ [email protected] List Owner: [email protected] "Today is tomorrow's history." All incoming and outgoing email checked by Norton Anti-Virus 2002 .