San Luis Valley's Claim To Fame:

The Famous San Luis Valley —
The ''Gold To Railroads Search Engine Tactics'' Tutorial, And...

A Glimpse Into Internet Research USING All That Crass Commercialism!! ~ by Leanne Boyd

G.T.R.S.E.T. Tutorial, Part I

So! After you've done a search on your fave engine, using the keywords I asked you to use (''Alamosa San Juan gold treasure''), you will have noticed right off that it brought back 14 ore carts worth of stuff. And lots of that stuff was Fool's Gold, to boot! Right? How do you avoid this mess, and, like many folks (especially newbies) ... NEVER TO RETURN? As I mentioned on page 1, you practice KITS, or ''Keep It Topic-Specific.'' Okay, you say, isn't Gold in Colorado specific enough? Well, you saw what happened :-))

My suggestion is, out of these hundreds/thousands of pages, pick a few that are of interest to you, and just go surf for a bit. When you do land on a page that seems to have one or a few items that SPECIFICALLY fit your area of interest ... find out what the creator of the page had in mind, when putting the page together.

To do this, you must become somewhat of a Webbie, yourself. Wait! Wait! This is NOT hard, and it's not brain/rocket science. All you are going to do is hit ONE Menu bar item, and go take a look at the Undies Drawer of this page! The rest of it is somewhat COMMON, EVERYDAY ENGLISH... with a few coding pieces thrown in that you can totally ignore! Just read the English parts that are all right near the top of the page, and you will soon knock down a tremendously valuable Net Skill!

To view the source code in Internet Explorer, you can:

1. Go to the top main Menu >> View >> Source
2. Right click your mouse >> select ''View Source''

In Netscape, you can:

1. Go to the top main Menu >> View >> View Page Source
2. Which then also shows you (right column) that you may use Control >> U
   (the ''u'' key)
3. OR, you may right click your mouse >> select ''View Page Source''

You Macintosh folks, it is similar with top Menu and right click, but you use the Apple key instead of Control key (it's been 5 years since I was on a Mac!)

This will open up a page in the default text editor for your browser. For Internet Explorer, that is Note Pad. Okay, don't freak out! What you are looking for resides in the top part of 99% of all Web pages. It is in what they call the META TAGS... and these are clearly marked toward the top. You are looking for something that looks like this:

< meta name="KeyWords" content="Blah, blah, yadda, yadda." >

THESE ARE THE KEYWORDS FOR THAT PAGE. These ''meta tags'' are used by the search engines, to find pages on any given subject. If the Webbie has not set up their Meta Tags correctly for keywords and topics, VERY likely you will never find that page, even though it may be the best page on the Net, for the info you seek.

Grab your notepad and pencil ... or, better yet, check out the Free Downloads at the end of the Ezine and grab a free copy of an excellent Text Editor, for taking notes, plus LOTS more you can use it for in your Treasure Hunting activities. What you need to do is to start keeping a list of the keywords you most need, for one or many topics. This will do a few things for you:

1. It will help sharpen your eye to the KITS principle.



2. It will give you a ready list to use, whenever you go to the search engines. No more wracking your brain to come up with words when you need to search!



3. It will be the start of your own list of Meta Tags, when you decide it's time to put up a Web page of your own. This will allow you to start RIGHT OFF with the keywords that will bring traffic to your site. Treat your keyword list like GOLD.

Now, go back to Google etc., and run some more searches. I suggest starting with something like ''Colorado San Luis Valley genealogy'' or ''Mt. Blanca gold conquistador'' (I personally had a lot of luck with this one ... throwing ''conquistador'' in with Colorado seemed to bring up more of the hidden tales and lore that ARE on the Net ... they just never seem to rank very high on the engines [[poor keywords, I assume]]).

If your search already has led you to some topographic hints, you can do a specific search using those words, or a form of the words. If, for instance, you are seeking info on a mining camp that was on Noname Creek, you could try putting ''noname creek'' in with Colorado and Mine. Or, you could try the County name, a town nearby, or simply a combination of these, with the word ''creek.''

Don't ever stop with the obvious! As I've pointed out, there are thousands of excellent pages out there that are hidden by the vastness of the Net, coupled with a general lack of Webbie knowledge on the parts of many people who put up a page. No good keywords, no Meta Tags, and I assure you — you will NEVER find that page!

G.T.R.S.E.T. Tutorial, Part II

Here is the page I found in the first, very general search. As I pointed out, it first caught my eye because the Google search showed it had photos of railroads. I was doing a bit of specific searching, throwing ''railroad'' in with San Luis Valley and Colorado and Gold, for keywords. I didn't visit the page, at first. I saw the FortuneCity.com address and ''blew it off' as not being a serious lead.

DON'T DO THAT!!

Lots of times, a small business on the Internet will be highly graphic, highly ugly, and very poorly built. Very often, like this one, ''The Famous San Luis Valley,'' at: http://members.fortunecity.com/wwoveride/fame.html, these sites will also have many LINKS to pages they admire. And quite often, that which they admire also has a much higher quality than their own page!

This is an essential trick to effective search engine'ing! Always remember that if there is something that drew you to a certain site, most like that Webbie has gone to a lot of trouble to not only put the page up, but to make him/herself look credible. THEIR links are very often more KITS than the ones you just found at Yahoo!

G.T.R.S.E.T. Tutorial, Part III

Now that I've explained the basic fundamentals for using KITS, I will show you exactly what happened! It's rather a loose-form of Internet research, but I've found through 8 (long, hard, jeez-I'm-tired) years in University ... this method also helps retain the excitement and yes, FUN, of your original concept. It helps you from becoming burnt out.

And, more than scholarly searches, it helps you retain what I see as the beauty of the computer and the Internet ... these are tools that were initially fashioned (especially Mac, by the way!) to simulate How the Human Brain Works. It works by association. You associate ONE word with another, and there is a logical flow that happens. Maybe to the outside observer, it's not logical, but it IS very tuned to the logic YOU are using, in your search. It makes it very personalized and important to YOUR TOPIC. To heck with what the outside observer sees or thinks!

Here was my humble path, seeking railroad and gold magic, in central, high-valley Colorado:

1. Google search (this is my favorite, by the way)



2. Keywords:
   Alamosa San Juan gold treasure



3. 1000s of sites came up, and this one at FortuneCity.com was in the first 20 pages



4. Second search, Keywords:
   San Luis Valley lost treasure conquistador photo


Again, ''The Famous San Luis Valley'' Web site showed itself in the top
20 pages


5. Note: I was finding a ton of info, along the way. I am being very short with this tutorial, and cutting to the quick of how I approach a free-form search.



6. On the third search, I used the Keywords in #6, and added:
   ''railroad.''



7. Why? Well, I love the early Colorado railroads, for one thing. And much of the gold that was found, DEPENDED on the railroads ... from supplies coming in, to ore going out. But, THIS was the added Keyword that ended in pages that I found highly useful.



8. After Mr. FortuneCity.com came up several times, I decided to visit — However, watch out for the red text on black! It's a killer! (Do we see crass commercialism creeping in, here?)

G.T.R.S.E.T. Tutorial, Part IV

We are almost done! Don't give up quite yet!

Now, for the journey. I will give you only one leg of it, so you see what happens in
one of my own searches. Let's return to Mr. FortuneCity.com and take a good
look at what he's got there. Actually, there is a lot of information on his page, and
the photos are quite nice.

Remember? ''Photo'' was one of my Keywords — the word ''picture'' works quite nicely as well. Be aware though, that ''photo'' and ''picture'' will always bring back a different set of pages! A little grandma most likely will use the word ''picture,'' while a professional artist, photographer, or writer will use ''photo'' or ''photograph.''

Why is this differentiation important? If you seek photos that go with a professional writing, book, article or white paper ... use ''photo.'' But, think on this: If Grandma Benimble is putting up her site with 150 year old pictures, she's going to CALL THEM PICTURES. You may end up with a much more KITS selection, in old photographs!

Okay, for Mr. FortuneCity.com ...

1. Look for the LINKS that are labelled as links. High priority :-))

     related links

• For the life of me, I cannot see how this is related to Sand Dunes and San Luis Valley! Unless you are in to alternative comics, Winnie The Pooh, wrestling, or ... wait a minnut!



• What is this? ''Roger Macdonald — The family of Roger Macdonald Sando. Huge geanology tree.''



• Words of advice: NEVER OVERLOOK A GENEALOGY SITE! (Even if they cannot spell ''genealogy'' :-)) They are ripe with old pictures, old histories, old letters. This particular Tree is HUGE, with 9591 individuals. It took several minutes to load in the window.



• On any given Genealogy Tree such as this, the best thing to do is to have your own list of names you are searching. You can use the Go Find tool within the browser, to quickly determine if your names are on the list.

     Other Links to the Railroad: 

• Is this hard to read, or what?



• And does this guy want to do real business on the Net? Hey, take a class in Human/Computer Interface, fella'! (Not part of this tutorial, but having taught these technologies online, this Web site drove me nuts!)



• Robert's Train Pages (a LONG download, lots of PHOTOS and some PICTURES, as well :-))



• Site with Pictures (Yes, another long download.)


(Hint: both of these sites had tremendous info, with further links available!)

2. Look for the HIDDEN links that are never labelled as links, but look like innocent
    travel to other pages that you may or may not deem as high priority.
    Believe me. These are also high priority :-))

• Fort Garland — It's easy to see that this might be a wealth of information. But, on a page as hard to read as this (red letters on black), it also could be easily overlooked.



• Take a good look, however! The page is very sparse once you get there, but if you take the ONE promising link, Fort Garland Museum & Visitor Center ... even though it is VERY crass and commercial, most museums offer a lot to the researcher! However, this seemed a dead end to me, as the links led around in a circle within this very commercial site.



• I put it on my list to do a specific search on the Fort Garland Museum & Visitor Center at some future time, and attempt to find their actual Web site, if any. So, as you can see, a ''dead end'' usually is not a dead end at all, just another door opening in your path for information.



• At this point, I decided to really LOOK at the links to the Cumbres & Toltec Railroad. Although the paragraph left much to be desired, since it mostly was advertising the train ride, I decided it was worth the look ... again, on my hunt for best pictures of the Railroad. (YES, ''pictures'' !! — I would, in this research, MUCH rather find Grandma Benimble's PICTURES, than several score of professional photogs of just any ol' people and places!)

3. The Eureka Moment! There always comes a point in any search, where you get
    sweaty palms, knowing that the things you are reading and looking at, will lead
    to further, better leads. For me, this was the moment.

• Voila! Clicking to Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad turned out to be a wealth of information and photos that greatly enhanced the particular study I was doing.



• This is where the Internet Magic begins ... follow these links:



• Begin on Home page, the main menu bar:
  
  
  • Gift Shop page — mostly Promo. Nice stuff. First paragraph of content: Click on online gift shop
  
  
  
  • On their site, Click on The Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, second paragraph of content
  
  
  
  • Click on ''Another Century of Narrow Gauge Steam'' fundraising campaign — the link is located toward the bottom of page
  
  
  
  • RIGHT CLICK AND SAVE TO DISK, or left click, to view online:
    Another Century of Narrow Gauge Steam campaign booklet — the link is located toward the bottom of page
  
  
  
• FOR ME (Remember the discussion on ''logic'' and what is logical to YOU, is different than what it would mean to others?) ... this was the magic moment. I suggest you download this PDF, and take a look. Ignore that this is a non-profit, and the booklet is a well-done promotional aid (OR, if you believe in the salvation of this railroad, ACT on it! They need the money!) and any of the commercial reasons for publishing it. (If you have trouble downloading from the Friends' site, please try our archived copy.
  
  
• Zone in on these things: The keywords found here and on the site (grants, city names, number of members, GRANTS, historical society, cultural significance, locations (old roundhouse town of Chama), day-to-day work of a bygone era, museum, historic structures, railroad buildings dating to near the original construction era.



• And one statement filled with the mystery and awe, the ALLURE of history for the Treasure Hunter ...
  
  ''The railroad has well over 100
  historic freight and maintenance-of-way cars,
  some dating to the nineteenth century.''
  And I ask you ... did people lose coins in the 1800s? For a small minute, forget about the gold found, lost, and found again in the San Luis Valley and for miles north and south. Just think about PEOPLE for a minute. How many of these areas have been well-searched by someone who ''knows their stuff'' in the TH'ing field?
  
  
• See how easy it is to get side-tracked on the Net?
  
  Was this long-winding road, loops and twists included ... worth it, to me?
  
  YOU BETCHA! With a membership of several thousand in the Friends' group, there is a very long list of people I can contact. I get a bit dizzy, thinking about what those contacts could mean in my own passion for history and treasure hunting topics. WHY are these people interested in an old train?



• BECAUSE ...
  
  
  There's GOLD In Them E-Hills ... and there's STILL Gold In Them MOUNTAINS!

Great luck with ALL of your searches ... On the ''E'' and UP in those hills!

Download this tutorial as an HTML E-Book (in Zip file, 13Kb)
Download this tutorial as a PDF E-Book (in Zip file, 135Kb)

Time ... one of our greatest gifts. Don't ever waste it, or throw it away. All works on the WaybillToAdventure.com Web Property sites are ©1984 -  Leanne C. Boyd