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CREATING URL SEARCH SHORTCUTS

The URL Search Shortcut interface (shown below) is similar to the Page Shortcut interface, but with a some added kick. The URL shortcut is different than the page shorcut in that it creats a template. While the page shortcut creates a short URL for a particular page, the search URL shortcut creates a template that can be followed by LinkDriver when it generates any number of URLs in the search results.

Single Page Shortcuts Search Results Shortcuts

Create Search Shortcuts

LinkDriver can create a special shortcut that will let users enter your site's searches through a simple URL structure. For example, if you have a site that lets users search by city and state you could create a search shortcut that would let users coming to the URL /properties/WA/Seattle be routed to a search results page the same as if they came to your site, and entered Seattle, WA into your search page. All you need to do is provide LinkDriver with the URL to start with, and select the search page elements that should be filled in based on what the user enters, LinkDriver does the rest!
Name This Shortcut Select Search Portal Shortcut URL Active? Delete?
/pro/...
 



You can use LinkDriver to create simple shortcuts to your web pages. For example, the URL below lists all the Marriott hotels in Santa Barbara

https://www.marriott.com/reservations/CWsearchResults.asp?WT_Ref=Location&WT_B=all

With LinkDriver, it could be rewritten to

https://www.marriott.com/santabarbara

or another more extreme example is from Apple Computer.

http://search.apple.com/s97is.vts?Action=FilterSearch&ResultTemplate=webx3.hts&ServerKey=Primary&collname=Apple&filter=nullflt.hts& SearchPage=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.apple.com%2Findex.html&queryText=imac&SEARCH.x=33&SEARCH.y=12

With LinkDriver, it can be rewritten to

http://search.apple.com/imac

This is much clearer to both humans and search engine spiders.

To create a search URL shortcut click the "Setup" button, This will bring up "Step 1." Here you should enter the general start tag or title for your searches. SportCorp has entered "products."

Step 1

Choose the first directory in the search shortcut:

http://www.sportcorp.com/ /...

Step 2 is selecting the search parameter fields you want to have follow your general title tag. The search parameter fields are prepresented by the descriptive names you gave them in the "Teach LinkDriver" section.

Step 2

Choose the fields from your search form that should be used to build your URL:

http://www.sportcorp.com/products/[Select Product Category]/[Enter Product Name]

   

SportCorp has added "Select Product Category" and "Enter Product Name." This would mean that this template may produce http://www.sportcorp.com/products/clothing/Nike_tennis_shoes or http://www.sportcorp.com/products/equipment/Penn_tennis_balls.