How to reach more classic computer users?

From: CLASSICCMP_at_trailing-edge.com <(CLASSICCMP_at_trailing-edge.com)>
Date: Sat Oct 16 15:27:38 1999

>I know myself that I've not found _all_ of the PDP-11 and uVAX resources.
>I've noticed some webpages, for example, never come up in any search engine
>because the owner hasn't indexed their page properly or at all. I can
>search till I'm blue in the face and miss stuff.

Absolutely true. I already complained about the freeware archives that
I maintain dropping out of several prominent search engines where they
used to be prominently mentioned.

The pages (and pages referring to these pages) have been submitted to
the search engines many times since they disappeared, but have never
come back.

Here's where I'm sure someone can help me. If anyone could look at,
for example, my DECUS freeware index at

  http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/decus/

and particularly suggest which META tags I might have to add again to
make this page (and the pages that it refers to) show up in search
engines, I'd greatly appreciate it! Back when these pages were
indexed by search engines, they'd get hundreds of search hits a day.
But now they never ever turn up, and I don't know why. I mean, the
pages still have the same information they always did, and it's not
like anyone else has a similar index on the web that replaces this
one.

Maybe I'm oversimplifying things, but it seemed to me that a couple of
years ago the search engines did a very good job of finding a page
based on content. For example, if I knew a key phrase that occured
somewhere on a page, I could do an Altavista search for that phrase
(in quotes) and get a hit every single time. This doesn't seem to
work the same way anymore. Is it because search engines no longer
index based on content? If they aren't based on content, then what
the heck are they based on?

And I've also been warned that adding too many META tags will actually
cause some search engines to reject a page (or even an entire site)
for indexing, as they don't want folks essentially using search
engines as a form of Spam.

-- 
 Tim Shoppa                        Email: shoppa_at_trailing-edge.com
 Trailing Edge Technology          WWW:   http://www.trailing-edge.com/
 7328 Bradley Blvd		   Voice: 301-767-5917
 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817           Fax:   301-767-5927
Received on Sat Oct 16 1999 - 15:27:38 BST

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