[LON-CAPA-admin] "Googling" loncapa john abbott gives correct server, but with wrong domain

[Gerd Kortemeyer]

Hi,

Unfortunately, this is a known problem. So far, I have not come up with any good solution. Trying to make Google do certain things is like alchemy, they don't tell you how they operate, and there is a potentially large delay loop in seeing any effects. I am not sure Google listens to robots.txt and meta-tags. One thing you could try is look at your access log if Google even tries to get a robots.txt file - if you never see any access to that filename from a Google robot, they don't use it.

I am afraid the best solution is to again tell the students to go to the right URL … yes, I know, our students are the same …

- Gerd.

On Sep 28, 2011, at 11:21 PM, Michael Dugdale wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I'm not sure how this has occurred, but somewhere out there, google has created a link that is causing a bit of a headache.  Rather than use the links provided by their teachers, students have been "googling" lon-capa john abbott qc ca in order to get to their assignments.
> 
> Interestingly enough, google seems to have some inkling that our little installation exists.  However, all of the top hits involve a pre-selected domain that isn't ours.  Depending on the search terms used, the domains elps, csm, ndsu etc… all show up.  The domain johnabbott does not.
> 
> Needless to say, this has been causing some serious headaches b/c the students don't notice the incorrect domain (or colour scheme, or school logo) and complain about not being able to log in.
> 
> I was wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience and/or could offer some advice on mitigating this issue.  I was thinking, perhaps, a robots.txt file?
> 
> Many thanks,
> 
> Michael Dugdale,
> Department of Physics
> John Abbott College
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