2.5.1 Finding the Homepage
The homepage of a website usually contains or has links to important information about the website. Webmasters usually make it easy to get to the homepage of the website from any page on the site.
Here's how to find the homepage of a website:
Examine the landing page of the URL in your PQ rating task.
Find and click on the link labeled “home” or “main page.”
Having trouble finding it? Try using “Ctrl-F” (“command-F” on a Mac) to search the page for the text “home” or “main.” You may also try clicking on the website logo, which is usually at the top of the page.
Sometimes, you may be given a webpage or website that appears to have no navigation links, no homepage link, and no logo or other means to find the homepage. Even some High or Highest quality pages lack a way to navigate to the homepage. If you can't find a link to the homepage, modify the URL by removing everything to the right of “.com,” “.org,” “.net,” “.info,” etc. and refresh the page.
Occasionally, your rating task will include a URL for which there are two or more justifiable “homepage” candidates. For example, you may not be sure whether the homepage of the URL http://finance.yahoo.com/news/category-stocks is http://finance.yahoo.com or http://www.yahoo.com.
Important: When you have more than one homepage “candidate,” please use whichever one offers the most information about the specific webpage in the URL rating task. Use your judgment. The goal is to understand the webpage and the website(s) it is associated with, not find the one unique, correct homepage.
In the following examples, we have included the URL of the page to be evaluated in the rating task, as well as the URL of its associated homepage. We have also included an image that shows where to click on the landing page to navigate to the homepage. In the image, you will see a red box around the link or the logo you would click to navigate to the homepage.
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URL of the Task Page |
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Homepage of the Website |
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Image that shows where to click to get to |
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the homepage |
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Williams-Sonoma Homepage |
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http://www.williams- |
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sonoma.com/products/s |
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http://www.williams-sonoma.com |
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hun-premier-7-piece- |
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knife-block-set |
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This “WILLIAMS-SONOMA” logo shown in the |
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upper left part of the page is clickable and |
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takes users to the homepage of the website. |
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http://answers.yahoo.com |
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http://answers.yahoo.co |
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In this case, we will consider |
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Specific Yahoo Answers Page |
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http://answers.yahoo.com the homepage, rather than |
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m/question/index;_ylt=A |
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http://www.yahoo.com. Why? Because clicking on |
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nAYEU1fED6ncg1jRCF |
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the logo takes the user to http://answers.yahoo.com. |
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y30kk5XNG;_ylv=3?qid |
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In addition, http://answers.yahoo.com has information |
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This “YAHOO ANSWERS” logo in the upper |
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=20091214193523AAQ |
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about the Yahoo Answers website. It is very difficult |
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qHQS |
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left part of the page is clickable and takes |
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to find specific information about |
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users to the homepage of the website. |
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http://answers.yahoo.com on the |
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http://www.yahoo.com homepage. |
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Proprietary and Confidential – Copyright 2015 12
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URL of the Task Page |
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Homepage of the Website |
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Image that shows where to click to get to |
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the homepage |
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http://hms.harvard.edu |
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Harvard Medical School Facts and Figures |
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Page |
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In this case, we will consider the Harvard Medical |
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School page at http://hms.harvard.edu to be the |
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http://hms.harvard.edu/ |
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homepage, rather than http://www.harvard.edu |
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about-hms/facts-figures |
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(which is the homepage of Harvard University). |
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Clicking the logo at the top of |
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This “Harvard Medical School” logo in the |
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http://hms.harvard.edu/about-hms/facts-figures takes |
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users to http://hms.harvard.edu, not to |
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upper left part of the page is clickable and |
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http://www.harvard.edu. |
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takes users to the homepage of the Harvard |
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Medical School website. |
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http://www.facebook.com |
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Oprah Winfrey’s Facebook Page |
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https://www.facebook.c |
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In this case, we will consider |
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http://www.facebook.com the homepage. Clicking |
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om/oprahwinfrey |
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the “facebook” logo at the top of |
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The “facebook” logo in the upper left part of |
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https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey takes users |
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to http://www.facebook.com |
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the page is clickable and take users to the |
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homepage of the Facebook website. |
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“Arab Women” article on the Cornell Library |
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website |
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http://www.library.cornel |
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http://www.library.cornell.edu/ |
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This page does not have any links to the |
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homepage of the Cornell University Library |
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l.edu/colldev/mideast/ar |
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website. The only way to get to the homepage |
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bwomn.htm |
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This is the library website of Cornell University. |
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is to modify the URL by removing everything to |
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the right of “library.cornell.edu”: |
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http://www.library.cornell.edu/ |
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https://www.kernel.org/p |
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Kernel.org Directory Page |
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ub/linux/utils/boot/syslin |
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ux/ |
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http://www.kernel.org |
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This page does not have any links to the |
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homepage of the Kernel website. The only |
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Note: The rating for this |
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This is the website of an organization which helps |
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way to get to the homepage is to modify the |
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page is discussed in |
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URL by removing everything to the right of |
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Linux users. Limited navigation links is not a problem |
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Section 5.4 on |
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“kernel.org”: |
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for this technically savvy audience. |
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examples of Highest |
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quality pages |
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https://www.kernel.org/ |
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