PicoSearch FAQ: Control adding

There are times when you need to help PicoSearch find the links or text that you want to be searched.

ADDING LINKS: For example, PicoSearch will find most Javascript links. But you may need to help PicoSearch if you've made your site with special Java or Javascript hyperlinking techniques that you really like, and you become distressed to discover that PicoSearch doesn't follow the page links. That's because PicoSearch is first and foremost an HTML indexer, and while HTML syntax is very clear for it to follow, the latest fads in script tricks can vary a lot in format. So to help PicoSearch (and any other search engine) find your page links, you could make a Site Map page using standard HTML, giving that as another entry point for PicoSearch and then reindex. Or you could add little plain html links to the bottom of your pages (always a good idea in case a browser has javascript turned off). You could also use PicoSearch's Portal List feature to sample a page of links, or you could keep adding entry points in your account manager (a paying account gets unlimited entry points). Lastly, you could use the special ADDSEARCHLINKS tag described below.

ADDING TEXT: In the case of adding extra text to a document, you may wish to stuff a document with synonyms, spelling variations, and keywords at critical points so as to grab the searcher's attention. Note that Professional and Premium accounts get a User Synonyms entry box in the account manager, and that will apply to all pages and all queries. For just one page, you can always add more searchable terms to the title, meta description, or meta keywords. You can turn on/off those search options and displays in your account manager (see the Index Modes and Configure Results). But by using the ADDSEARCHTEXT tag, you can also add more searchable terms to the main text "invisibly", without actually cluttering the reader's view. This would be a similar trick to using meta tags, but customized just for PicoSearch so that the concordance would show all the terms in place. See the tag below, and for more tips try this FAQ on influencing searches.

Use the following comments to invisibly add extra links and text to PicoSearch during the indexing process. These lines can be added anywhere within the BODY of your HTML document, so you can maintain your additions alongside the content they reflect. Also, they are specific to PicoSearch, so they will not affect your listing in general web search engines like Altavista. Added links will ensure that your documents are found regardless of your hyperlinking techniques. Added text will appear in parantheses in the concordance lines as a cue to your readers that this is extra paranthetical content, not to be seen on the page. The statements should not contain carriage returns - ie. keep them on one line, and start new statements if you want to "prettify" your HTML with lots of newlines.