A question for html coders

[Lyn and Malcolm]

I have started to clean up our website a bit, and hopefully make a little more search engine friendly.

Our wpg used to be linked from a navigation button on our home page, to a web page, on which was a link to the wpg.

I have now got rid of that web page, and now have a link on the navigation button direct to the wpg.

It works ok. But if the person browsing the wpg, hits the close button, they don't automatically come back to our website.

I have put this code on the navigation button

a href="http://www.plantguide.lynandmalc.co.uk" target="_blank"> Guide&nbsp;to&nbsp;plants&nbsp;in&nbsp;the&nbsp;garden[/url]</nobr>
<nobr

But it still works as described above.

Have I got the code wrong, or am I trying to link back to the navigation button.

Hope you can understand my description. If you go to our website you can do a view source on the home page to see the code, it is in the 20th line from top

http://www.lynandmalc.co.uk/

The code on the website is a bit messy, as it is generated by Front page express, with some intervention by me.

Malcolm

[ideasguy]

I think what you have done is the best under the circumstances, unless someone can advise differently.

RE:

target="_blank

This is opening your Plant Guide in a new Browser window, as per your design.

You probably know the following but its worth showing here.
a)
The advantage in using that code is that your lynandmalc.co.uk home website remains open.
One point to note is that when the Plant Guide web site appears, its Back button is disabled.
That to me is OK as its not required as, when the user closes the Plant Guide browser window, your Home website is open and visible and they can resume exploring.

b)
If you omit the target=blank code, then the Plants Guide website opens in the SAME browser window.
There are a number of ways back to your lynandmalc.co.uk home website

• The user clicks the Back button. However if they have viewed a few hundred plants, thats a lot of Back button clicks.
• You place links back to your home website at strategic points on your web pages. You've done that already

[Lyn and Malcolm]

The problem is that the target=blank code is not working George

One point to note is that when the Plant Guide web site appears, its Back button is disabled

It isn't

The advantage in using that code is that your lynandmalc.co.uk home website remains open.

It Doesn't

Malcolm

[ideasguy]

It works when I click on the link Guide to plants in the garden in the list on the left of your home page, Malcolm.
Plant Guide opens in a new Browser window.

[ideasguy]

Net Fusion generates this code Malcolm
A HREF="http://www.plantguide.lynandmalc.co.uk/" target= "_blank"></A
but with < at beginning
and > at end
otherwise it doesnt show in this posting

Its effectively the same link details as yours:

a href="http://www.plantguide.lynandmalc.co.uk" target="_blank"> Guide&nbsp;to&nbsp;plants&nbsp;in&nbsp;the&nbsp;garden[/url]</nobr>
<nobr

[Lyn and Malcolm]

It works when I click on the link Guide to plants in the garden in the list on the left of your home page, Malcolm.
Plant Guide opens in a new Browser window

Yes that works for me too George
But if you close the plant Guide window, the browser doesnt go back to our home page, does it for you?

Malcolm

[ideasguy]

Have you uploaded again having removed  target= "_blank?
Its working differently now.

Anyway, before with  target= "_blank
After clicking the link I have two browsers
Browser 1: Showing Plants List
Browser 2: Showing your Main website.

If I close Browser 2 - the Plants List website then I only have one open browser, Browser 1, showing your main website.

[Lyn and Malcolm]

Have you uploaded again having removed  target= "_blank?
Its working differently now.

Yes I had been uploading some alterations George, forgot that FP express will overwrite the home page.

So have uploaded again the home page with the target tweek to the code, and guess what, it is working for me now, as it should.

Problem over. Thanks for trying it out George, sorry for the false alarms 

Hopefully the search engines will find the Plant guide easier with the alterations I have made.
The Google bot had previously not indexed the Plant Guide, but now using a pseudo search engine, it does find the link to Plant Guide and will follow it.

I am removing the pages on our website that used to hold our plant list, am going to use the WPG only. 

Malcolm

[ideasguy]

Glad you got it all working to your satisfaction Malcolm.

Nice to see your confidence in the WPG!

Question to you now Malcolm:
RE:

The Google bot had previously not indexed the Plant Guide, but now using a pseudo search engine, it does find the link to Plant Guide and will follow it.

How do you determine those things?

[Lyn and Malcolm]

George

I will sort some links out later, and post here.

Malcolm

[Lyn and Malcolm]

Google webmaster tools
You need to register and put some verification code into your website page. So google knows it is your site. I am not sure if you have to have the google toolbar installed, which I have on one computer, seems quite good, and you get a google page rank indicator for web sites you visit. Downside is it sends info to google on what sites you visit.
Some good tools though to check out your website to see if it is search engine friendly. Lists the keywords that visitors have used in a search to get to your site. Lists the pages googlebot has found on your site etc

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=8465

A forum discussing website optimisation for search engines, lots of info in the postings. Don't have to register to read.

http://forums.seochat.com

Malcolm

[ideasguy]

Thanks for the info Malcolm. Very interesting.

I dont like snoopers, but its worthwhile considering something if it gives such good info.

[Lyn and Malcolm]

IdeasGenie home page has a ranking of 3
Flowergenie home page 2

Our garden home page 2 
Our Plant guide wpg 2

All Google Rankings

Malcolm

[ideasguy]

Now that is a surprise
I thought I had more hits to Ideas Genie website that to Flowergenie (home pages)
Thanks again Malcolm.