Search Tips / Navigating This Site

Please feel free to phone Bicycling Monterey anytime for help finding info on this site.
This website has been provided since 2009 by an unpaid volunteer as a public service. No claim is made or liability accepted for use of this site. As usual, check with any sources referred to for their most up-to-date and detailed information.

The material on this site has been carefully researched and can be counted on for accuracy. However, as a volunteer gig for the founder, her available volunteer hours do not allow doing the writing, editing, formatting, and more at a professional level. Were even more time to be devoted to this website, Bicycling Monterey’s additional projects would not also be possible!

Bicycling Monterey’s primary domain name is https://bikemonterey.org. Alternate domain names include http://bicyclingmonterey.com, http://bicyclingmonterey.org, and http://tipsfortourists.com. This site is also still accessible via the original domain name, https://marilynch.com/blog.

This page was first published in 2009. Some—but not all—of the tips below have been reviewed and updated.

Search and Navigation

This website features nearly 800 posts and pages of original content, including thousands of original photos. It has been provided free of charge for personal use only. Respect copyright.
To explore the site: (1) Click on any tab below the banner, and a portal page appears. That portal includes links to all drop-downs for that section. (2) Check out the sidebar, which has primarily “evergreen” content, but occasionally some new content too. (3) Rest your cursor on any category topic above the banner, and a description of what’s there will pop up. Or use the categories window in the sidebar. Note: not all posts from Bicycling Monterey’s first decade are categorized. Again, please feel free to phone us if you can’t find what you’re looking for.

About length of posts and pages: While the original domain name’s root URL refers to the site as a blog, most posts and pages are not typical blog length (short). This site’s material often leans more toward long-form journalism.

The following topics, and more, are addressed on this page:

  • Using a search engine
  • Using this site’s search window
  • Using the archive
  • Using the category finder (using the widget in right-hand panel, or the display above the banner)
  • Using your browser’s “find” window
  • Dates at the bottom of posts
  • About posts, pages, and categories—above the banner, below the banner, and on sidebar
  • About URLs on pages and posts
  • What’s with all the “bold” type?
  • Improving navigation
  • Archived notes (may not still be relevant)
This page was first created in 2009 and has not been completely reviewed and updated.

Using a search engine

When I’m searching a website, sometimes I find that using a search engine works better than using the website’s own search window. Here’s how: in the window of a search engine (for example, https://duckduckgo.com), type site:bikemonterey.org and the word/s related to what you’re looking for on this site.

For example, type:

site:bikemonterey.org watsonville

or

site:bikemonterey.org pedicab

With a phrase, such as “where to bike in Monterey County” or “local bicycle shops,” putting the phrase in quotation marks often gets better search results.

For example, type:

site:bikemonterey.org “where to bike in Monterey County”

or

site:bikemonterey.org “local bicycle shops”

An aside:  Which search engine to use?

Read DuckDuckGo.com’s dontbubble.us page to learn about the Filter Bubble, and why your choice of search engine makes a difference in your search results. To learn more, read Eli Pariser’s book The Filter Bubble (available at the Monterey Public Library) or check out #filterbubble online:  thefilterbubble.com

Using this site’s search window

Back when WordPress received its 3.7 update, on October 25, 2013, it changed search function. WP said:  “Search results are now ordered by how well the search query matches a post, instead of ordered only by date. For example, when your search terms match a post title, that result will be pushed to the top.” My first tests of that showed the WordPress claim to be true.  

For example, type this phrase (and enclose it in quotation marks) in Bicycling Monterey’s search window:  “Constables of the Peace”

However, we still find that using this site’s own search window leaves a lot to be desired. A search may bring up a variety of posts with the word or phrase in it, but doesn’t necessarily put the most relevant one at the top.

Again, call us if you can’t find the info you’re looking for.

Using your browser’s “Find” window:

Once you are on a page where you hope to find particular information, you can usually find that info most easily by using the “find” window of your browser. For example, say you want to know if there are any references to “hostel” on the Bicycling Monterey website.
  1. Type “hostel” in this site’s search window.
  2. Some post titles will pop up.  Click on the first (or any) title.
  3. Then, type “hostel” in your browser’s FIND window. (Don’t know how to access the FIND window? For Windows and Linux, use Control + F or Ctrl + F. Macintosh, use Command + F.)
  4. Voila! You land precisely on the hostel references. If there are more, using your browser’s “next” will locate those too.
What’s a browser?

Don’t worry, I won’t laugh.  I’m a Lead Pencil Girl Gone Techno myself! 

Web browsers include Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari, among others.

A browser’s “find” window allows you to search (up and down/next and previous) for all references on a website’s page.

Dates at the bottom of posts

The majority of the pages and posts on this site are “evergreen,” meaning not time-sensitive. If in doubt, feel free to phone us and ask.

Pages have no date. Posts, however, are dated. At the bottom of any post, you’ll see, e.g., “This post was published on 13 December 2019. One or more changes last made to this post on 14 December 2019.”

Please note:

Those dates are auto-generated and may occasionally be inaccurate, or misleading.

  1. The “published on” date is not necessarily the first date that material was published on this site. Sometimes we’ve included an additional note at the bottom of the post indicating it was previously published, and that earlier date.
  2. The date when “one or more changes” were made only means that at least some of the material in that post was updated on that date. It does not mean that the entire post was reviewed again and updated by us. 
  3. Also, unfortunately, sometimes a date was auto-generated only because it was a “sticky” post that was moved to the home page. 

Categorizing of posts (in progress)

Learn more about this site’s categories below.

With the WordPress 3.7 update, this site’s theme balked, and category display above the banner went askew. Drop-downs (subcategories) are not always easy to navigate above the banner. An easier way to access categories and subcategories is to use the “Category” widget in the right-hand panel of the site.

The 3.7 update was impetus to reorganize this site’s huge volume of content, and new categories were added.  However, most posts are not yet assigned to the new categories, due to time constraints (being this site’s creator and webmaster is just one of my many volunteer roles for bike advocacy). To help website maintenance tasks happen sooner, additional volunteers are welcome. Thank you.

About posts, pages, and categories

First, what’s the difference between posts and pages? You might think of  pages as typically “evergreen,” or info that remains relevant for a long time. However, on this site, while some posts announce an event or other time-limited info, the majority of the posts are not time-sensitive.

Both posts and pages of this site can include very substantial and often lengthy information.

And, for whatever reason, this theme allows comments on posts but not on pages.

Above the Bicycling Monterey banner…

are category names (and many also have subcategories). Click on any of those for posts from that category. An alternative is to use the categories window in the sidebar.

Below the banner…

are page names (and subpages). Click on any of those for pages in that section.

  1. Here’s a tip about accessing pages: Drop-down menus on websites, used to locate subpages (or subcategories), are sometimes awkward to use. On the Bicycling Monterey website, you have another option: Click any tab under the banner (any page name), and you’ll see a page displaying the contents of all its subpages.
  2. For example, check out the Resources / Los Recursos tab. Click it and you’ll find a list of resources, e.g., our directory of Monterey County Bicycling Resources / Bike Community Leaders. Also in the Resources / Los Recursos section is the Calendar, Bicycling Advocacy (which includes a fun gallery), en español  and Other Languages, Open Streets, and a couple leading to other resources—i.e., Bike-and-Ride tips, and Posters and More.
Sidebar

The sidebar includes miscellaneous tools (e.g., search window, categories window, archives window), as well as widgets that lead to a sampling of popular posts and pages. 

Sidebar widgets, and the order in which they are displayed, are changed from time to time.

Also, you may find that when you’re on the site’s home page, the sidebar may be different than when  you’re viewing it from any individual post or page.  (That’s not intentional, just a theme glitch.)

About URLs of pages and posts

  1. The root URL of the 20-section Tips for Bicycling Monterey County guide includes https://bikemonterey.org/tips-for-tourists. To avoid broken links, that has not been changed, even though the guide quickly became content relevant for both tourists/visitors and locals/residents of Monterey County.
  2. This site’s primary domain name is https://bikemonterey.org. Depending on how you arrived on this site (e.g., via a search engine’s results), the root URL of a post or page you land on may possibly be one of this site’s alternate domain names: bicyclingmonterey.com, bicyclingmonterey.org, tipsfortourists.com—or even the original domain name, marilynch.com/blog.
  3. We recommend that once you land on this site, click the “Home” tab and all subsequent posts or pages you visit will have the primary domain name, bikemonterey.org, as the root URL. This avoids confusion if you share a link to a post or page with someone else.

An aside: In case you’re wondering, within six weeks of this site being launched in 2009, someone from Tennessee purchased the domain name bikemonterey.com.  That domain name still does not, as of 2019, take you to a site about biking in Monterey County; it’s simply being held by a cybersquatter—someone holding the domain name because they hope to sell it for an inflated price.

Questions or comments?  Please contact me.

What’s with all the bold type? 

Occasionally someone is surprised to learn that most of the words on this site that appear to be bold black type are not bold. They are links!

  • To make links easier to notice, some custom coding was done. Rather than all links looking like bold black type, new links (and some of the old ones) now appear in light blue.  Rest your cursor on either–the “bold” black type or the light blue. Ah, it’s a link!
  • The majority of the links take you to more of Bicycling Monterey’s own content. Sometimes, the links take you to selected other resources.
  • For over ten years, there are no paid links of any sort on this site. (See about products and services mentioned.)

As stated above, this site’s material leans toward long-form journalism. For that reason, you will also find a lot of use of various colors of type and other unconventional formatting, to help break up the material for readers. (As a longtime book industry professional, I cringe at most such practices. Yet the web is a beast bearing much content, including on this site. That beast requires multiple, and sometimes non aesthetically pleasing, approaches to tame it!)

Volunteer to improve navigation and more

So many tech chores, so little time—for biking, that is, if I were to tend to everything on this site that I’d like to. Any WordPress savvy people (or wannabes) out there with time on their hands are encouraged to join the volunteers on the Acknowledgements page by contacting me.


Archived notes (misc) – may or not remain relevant

  1. “Website changes” includes 2017 tips about categories, subcategories, dates, and more.
  2. When using the “Archives” (by month) or other search tools in the sidebar, sometimes clicking “Home” first will give better results.
  3. If you accessed the site via a search engine, rather than accessing it directly via one of Bicycling Monterey’s URLs, you may see the old site banner. However, the content of the post or page it directs you to should be the most current version.
  4. All sidebar widgets may not display until you’ve clicked some tabs below the banner, or have clicked on other pages or posts.