For example, if you had a Web page called:

www.awesome-widgets.com/productinfo.htm

You should submit only:

www.awesome-widgets.com

Infoseek/Go will then spider from there to your other pages. According to Go Networks, if you were to submit www.awesome-widgets.com/productinfo.htm, the page name would be ignored and the home page would be spidered instead.

The significance of this change cannot be understated. It is imperative that you implement links to your doorway pages from your home page. Otherwise, any pages that cannot be traveled to from your home page WILL NEVER BE FOUND by Infoseek/Go under this new system.

You can alternatively link to a site map, or "hallway page" that then links to all your doorway pages. The hallway page concept was discussed in detail in my July newsletter.

Although Go Networks announced this policy change, the help text on their Add URL page has not been updated yet to reflect it. However, now is the time to add the extra links if you haven't already. You'll also find that other engines tend to score pages a bit higher that they find on their own. Therefore, at least there's a reward for the added effort.

Warning: Sites that share a domain name with their hosting service rather than having their own domain name may not be able to get indexed by Infoseek/Go's new rules. They state that for sites on some well-known services like AOL, they will not drop the subdirectory path from the URL that is submitted. However, you may find that on other hosts, they will drop your directory from the URL you submit and they'll index your hosting service's home page, rather than your site. Don't chance it! Contact your hosting service about purchasing your own domain name as soon as possible!

Tip: Try to vary the content of your doorway pages as much as possible. If most of the copy is the same, you risk the page being ignored by the search engines. Some engines may see these pages as having duplicate content if they vary only by a few words.

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