h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

After unsuccessfully trying to search for an h2g2 entry using the BBC search engine and google I looked at the source html for an entry and found



Does that mean what I think it means? H2G2 is invisible to search engines?

A while back, Jim mentioned something about making the internals of h2g2 invisible to search engines in an attempt to stop the repeated server slow-downs / crashes. See his journal entry on "I have a theory ... it could be bunnies [spiders]". Let's have h2g2 working once more with feeling, Jim.

*lightbulb appears over head*

Ah yes, now I remember... Seems a little drastic though!

When I get time, I'm going to have to write a new skin designed for robots which doesn't link as much as the normal skins, so the robots don't fetch too many pages at once. I'm a bit busy on other things right now, so in the meantime I've blocked the worst offenders.

A new skin for robots! Well some of them like having bright or conductive lines/tracks to follow around on the floor. The only ones I know on windows use suction cups. How about a grey version of brunel with a yellow and black warning tape banner.

Speaking of brunel, there's a one pixel wide error (overrun) on the lower section of the left hand side of the frame (under the "Send it to a friend!" link). Not a priority I know, Jim.

I don't want to nag but any idea on when h2 might be visible again? I celebrated the day the BBC finally included h2g2 in its search facility.
Waz

Celebrated too early. Only entries specifically listed by staff show up as I understand it now.

Reminds me of the local history section of books at our library. They're locked up.

* To protect them from Time Bandits maybe? *



Try searching for yourself, your own 'U' number, apparently I'm a WWII site user, which is news to me!

hmm...

I hadn't seen this question when I posted an Ask h2g2 about Google not finding edited entries a few weeks ago.

Perhaps that question was in the wrong place, but if this one is in the *right* place, then why has it foundered so quickly, with so little response?

Perhaps the title doesn't really put across the problem too well, ...

Anyway, it does seem like a serious problem for a 'guide' not to have more visibility beyond it's card-carrying membership, doesn't it?

Any chance of h2g2 appearing on the Web radar one of these days?

spiff

At the time I posted the initial question the site was crashing four or five times a day - due to spiders crawling all over the recently uncovered pre-rupert backlog if I remember rightly, so it was at the time a logical step I think... whether or not that's the case today I don't know.

We've only been speaking to Jim about this a few days ago. The proposal is to change the META tag to enable Edited Entries to be visible to search engines. Jim is looking into it. The conversation is on his home page.