I started the parent website (hasselbacher.org) for this Blog with absolutely no knowledge of how to code or structure a website. At first there were only a few pages and I gave little thought to a consistent method of navigation. Frankly, I’m still not sure what I should do. The pages on the site are heavily linked to each other and I usually try to have a link open in a separate window so that your place among the documents is not lost. I have relied on the “What’s New” link on the homepage, and to a less consistent extent on this blog to notify people when something new has been added or if there has been an extensive edit.
The issue of finding things has become even more acute given the large and growing size of the website. Currently there are almost 3000 separate files and images totaling 1.4 GB in size on the server, a very large and growing number of which are images of family documents. This does not include the several tens of thousands of names in the interactive family trees. While I give prominence on the site to my Hasselbacher family, there is also a vast amount of information about my mother’s family and my father’s maternal lines that is not immediately evident.
I would like to place a site-specific Google search-form on my homepage but I am still trying to figure out how to do this. If one of you is knowledgable about this, please contact me. I know the site is well searched by the Google robots. A universal Google search can show up material that I have placed only two days before. What I have no feeling for is how often or how extensively Google searches and indexes my site.
When I figure out what I can and should do, it will be apparent on the homepage. In the meantime, there is a way to limit a generalized Google Search to my website. Simply go to Google.com and enter your search term(s) followed by: site:hasselbacher.org . You will then only get results from my site. I have found that this works well but I do not have a feeling for what, if anything might be left out. Let me know what your experiences are.
Peter