User talk:J.martin.leonard

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Hello, J.martin.leonard, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! -- John of Reading (talk) 08:47, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

Requested: move from Lasting Power of Attorney to Lasting power of attorney

This looks trivial, but is designed to ensure that a search on 'lasting power of attorney wiki' goes straight to 'Lasting power of attorney', not (as happens at present) to 'Power of attorney'.

J.martin.leonard (talk) 09:41, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this is a good idea, because the article's sources say that "Lasting Power of Attorney" is the proper term. The Wikipedia guideline on this is at WP:COMMONNAME. Google's search algorithms are of no concern here - and in any case, I think they are case-insensitive. A search for "Lasting Power of Attorney wiki" (with uppercase initial letters) still shows Lasting Power of Attorney as the second hit for me, so moving the article may not achieve your aim.

(To get a prompt reply to a help request like this, you should add "{{helpme}}". This ensures that lots of helpful people will see your message.) -- John of Reading (talk) 09:59, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, John of Reading, and glad to make your acquaintance again.

But, if a Google search (which is indeed case-insensitive) on 'lasting power of attorney wiki' gives priority to the page on 'Power of attorney' (which, as it happens, is poor as well as being irrelevant) over the correct 'Lasting power of attorney', what can be done?

If there is no simple answer to this, could we at least try my suggested change?

J.martin.leonard (talk) 11:12, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello again. Google tries to show the "most important" pages at the top. One of the things it uses to assess importance is to see which pages point to it. This special Google search shows that 42 pages link to Power of Attorney, counting both on-wiki and off-wiki links; this search shows that Google currently knows about just one page that links to Lasting Power of Attorney.

So I think your next step is to find Wikipedia articles that mention Lasting Power of Attorney (that's a search link) but fail to link to the Lasting Power of Attorney article. Some of those search results point to Power of Attorney, in fact, giving Google a false impression of that article's importance. This would improve Wikipedia, linking relevant articles together, and might help Google to get it right as well. You could do the same for Enduring power of attorney. It may take a few days for Google to notice the changes you make.

(And the {{helpme}} was nearly right. You should not have included the "tp|", but instead just copied the six letters and four curly brackets "{{helpme}}" that were being displayed. I'm sorry that Wikipedia markup is so confusing for new users!) -- John of Reading (talk) 11:36, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Once more, thank you. But, on further investigation, there is more to this than meets the eye (as so often in Wikipedia, it appears).

It's nothing to do with Google, but a lot to do with capitals. I discovered, testing the list of cross-references as suggested, that sometimes an explicit reference to 'lasting...' was being redirected to just 'p. of a.', and a note on the page confirmed this. I found out why: there is a separate "redirection", from 2009, sending all 'Lasting Powers of Attorney' requests with three leading capitals to the 'Power of Attorney' page. I deleted that ('Be bold', I think the advice was) but my original page then vanished and I could not access it at all until I had reinstated the 2009 redirection.

There must be a way round this one, and I'm confident you can find it.

helpme

J.martin.leonard (talk) 14:57, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've edited the redirection page, Lasting power of attorney, so that it now points to the new article. I think all the links in the other articles are now correct. Anything that says "lasting power of attorney", with capital letters or without, will now take you to the new article, either directly or via the "redirect".

The Wikipedia "search" box is only re-indexed once a day, so wait 24 hours before drawing any new conclusions from those searches. We have no control over when Google re-indexes anything; you will be able to tell when it does because this search will return more results than it does now. I think we've done all we can to address this one.

The continuing saga of the "helpme"! This time you used square brackets: [[helpme]], which creates a link to the article named "helpme". A {{helpme}} request uses curly brackets. You'll know when you've got it right, because when you either "Preview" or "Save page", it will turn into a big oblong with a message "I am looking for help". -- John of Reading (talk) 15:27, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Again, warmest thanks. I'm glad my confidence was soundly based.

J.martin.leonard (talk) 16:10, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]