"Welcome to Johns Computer Site.
This site is under construction, please check back soon".
Not very helpful and there are no links on the page.
The under construction part serves as a clue. It means that it is likely that John has already prepared some pages for his site. Maybe hes uploaded them already but hasnt put any links on the front page yet.
With a little URL cracking you may be able to find any pages John has put on his site already.
Heres how:
Lets say Johns Computer Site front page has the (fictional) URL:
http://www.somewhere.com/on/jsmith/index.html
What if we replaced the index.html part of the URL with another page name, maybe computers.html or pc.html, etc. you can continue doing this until you find something, get bored or are satisfied that there is nothing there. This is not an exact science but can turn up some tasty treats given the right circumstances.
One of the best ways to try URL cracking is where a number appears as part of the name of the name of a Web page, for example if you visit a page called:
http://www.somewhere.com/on/jsmith/gallery05.html
It is a relatively safe bet that there are at least 4 other gallery pages (gallery01.html, gallery02.html, gallery03.html and gallery04.html) and possibly more.
URL Cracking, although not well recognised or used can be a useful weapon in the searchers arsenal and you may just stumble on that hidden gem using this technique. On the down side it can be time consuming and frustrating, the best plan of action is to use URL cracking after other your primary search techniques have failed. It might just turn up what youve been looking for.
