In this section, LinkDriver needs you to guide it through your site, pausing along the way to classify pages. This gives LinkDriver a feel for your site so that it can later automatically navigate about your site. The more of your site you navigate to, the better LinkDriver will understand your site, and the more optimization it can do.

Every page in your site should fit into one of the classifications described below. At a minimum, you must browse to one target page and one search portal.

Target Page	A page that is specific to a product or property. In E-Commerce sites, these are typically the products that are for sale. In real estate sites, these are typically a home.
Target Details Page	These pages are often linked off of a target page, and provide more details for a specific target. DO NOT include generic description pages here that are not product specific.
Content Page	A page not specific to one target that provides content, or any other descriptive page (i.e. home, about us, news, etc)
Doorway Page	A page that links to one or more products/properties organized into a logical grouping.
Search Portal	A page which allows one to enter search criteria. This can either be done with drop down menus, fill in boxes, or other form elements.
Search Results	The results of a search.
Other	Any page that does not fit one of the above classifications (ie. links to other sites). There should not be very many 'other' pages in a typical site.

 

Once you click “Start Site Discovery,” your web site should appear in the browser window. In addition, a classification palette (shown below) will open next to your browser window. At this point you should browse to the various parts of your website and classify each page you come to. It is important to note that if you come to a page that you do not want to classify you must click the "Skip this page (Do not classify)" button a the lower right.

As you come to each page, LinkDriver's Administrator makes a guess as to what sort of page it is. In the example below, the Administrator feels very certain that the page currently viewed is a "Content Page."

As these classifications are probably new to you, the following additional explanations and examples should help.

Target Page: We use the term "target" to refer to what ever product you are trying to sell on your site. A target page would be a description page of an individual product.

EXAMPLES:

http://www.apple.com/imac/g3/

http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/

http://www.alpinelodging.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=prop_det&search=y&propid=165&location=Town%20of%20Telluride&bedrooms=&type=Townhome&rating=Deluxe

Target Detail Page: Target pages often contain links to additional details about that individual product (not about their products in general). Such pages are "Target Detail Pages."

EXAMPLES:

http://www.apple.com/imac/g3/specs.html

http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/open/licensing/fileformat/

The following is a notable example as it is defined in terms of the context in which it was found. While this page my be classified as an information page within the Marriott Renaissance Ilikai Waikiki web site, it is defined as a target extra detail page in this context because the Marriott Renaissance Ilikai Waikiki Hotel is a target page off of the main Marriott Hotel search portal and this page is a detail page from the hotel’s home page.

http://www.marriott.com/dpp/Meeting.asp?marshacode=HNLRN

Content Page: Any general site information page (i.e. "about us", "news", "partners", etc). A Content Page is not specific to one product/property. The following links are examples of Content Pages.

EXAMPLES:

http://www.casio4business.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=content.BySection&Section_ID=234&Catalog_ID=36&Catalog_ID=36

http://www.telluride.com/shopping/index.cfm

http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/

http://www.marriottrewards.com/default.asp?WT_Ref=mi_header&EPNAVCEC=InProcess

Doorway Page: A Doorway page contains a list of product/property page links that is pre-defined within your site. For example, a real estate site selling properties in Europe may have a doorway page that lists all properties in France, another doorway for all properties in Germany. While the actual list of properties is dynamically drawn off of your database, the query is pre-defined within your site.

You may not be familiar with the term “doorway.” Indeed, in the computer industry, the term “doorway” is often interpreted very differently by different groups. LinkDriver defines a doorway page as a page that links to one or more products/properties organized into a logical grouping. A doorway page is a page on your site that lists many related links. For example, if you sell consumer hardware, a page on your site might list all the types of light bulbs you carry with a link on each bulb listing to a details or description page about that product. That link-listing page would be considered a doorway page.

If you are a real estate site, you may have a page which simply lists current or available properties. Such a page is a Doorway Page.

EXAMPLES:

http://www.telluridehomes.com/property.cfm?real_estate_pricerange=BETWEEN+500000+and+1000000&real_estate_location=&real_estate_types=House&x=33&y=7

http://www.telluride.com/dining/index.cfm?action=category_detail&type=Steakhouse

http://www.macromedia.com/software/

Search Page: A page that lets you enter search criteria. This can either be done with drop down menus, fill in boxes, or other form elements. Performing such a search should bring up a “Search Results” page. Many sites have a small search field on every page. This means that every page is potentially a search page. For example, www.apple.com and www.microsoft.com have a search interface on every page. In such cases, try to find a page that is specialized for searching (often containing more specialized search criteria fields). In Microsoft's case this would be http://search.microsoft.com/default.asp?siteid=us. If your site only contains a simple search field on every page and no specialized search pages, then choose your home page as a search page.

When you classify a page as a "Search Page" LinkDriver automatically pops up a secondary classification window (shown below). You should then further classify the search page as one of the three types shown. Specific types of search pages are as follows:

Search Results: The search results page. Such a page generally contains a series of links to site pages that matched the search criteria. When you classify a page as "Search Results" LinkDriver automatically pops up a secondary classification window (shown below). You should then further classify the search results as one of the three types shown. Specific types of search results are as follows:

Other: Any page that does not fit one of the above classifications (i.e. links to other sites). There should not be very many ‘other’ pages in a typical site.