MRSC Webmasters Meeting

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Search Engines and Metadata
MRSC Webmasters Meeting September 20, 2001 Gayle
Palmer gpalmer_at_statelib.wa.gov
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Search Engines and Metadata What if Doubting
Thomas is right! and applying metadata is a
wasted effort in the major search engines?
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Search Engines and Metadata Ol Tom is right that
metadata is not used by every major search
engine. But he is not right about the use of
metadata in Find-It! Washington and Ask George
search engines.
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Search Engine Features For Webmasters http//www.s
earchenginewatch.com/webmasters/features.html Ran
king Yes No Meta Tags Boost
Ranking Inktomi AltaVista,, Google, Excite,
FAST NLight Link Popularity Boosts
Ranking All n/a Very important at Google Direct
Hit Boost Ranking HotBot Others
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Search Engines and Metadata Indexing
Yes No Notes Full Body
Text All n/a Some stop words Stop
Words AltaVista, Excite, FAST, Inktomi,
Google NLight Meta Description All but... FAST,
Google, NLight Meta Keywords All
but... Excite, FAST, Google, NLight ALT
text AltaVista, Excite, FAST, Google
Inktomi, NLight Comments Inktomi Others Stem
ming -- See Search Features Chart
http//www.searchenginewatch.com/facts/ataglance.h
tml
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Search Engines and Metadata Human-powered search
engines, like Yahoo, do not crawl the web to
create their listings. See How search engines
work for an explanation. http//www.searchenginew
atch.com/webmasters/work.html How do metatags
help with directories like Yahoo? The human
editors use metatag descriptions to categorize
the web site. They also use the subject
designations to help categorize the
site. -pharaphrased from Danny Sullivan, Search
Engine Strategies, 2001
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Search Engines and Metadata How to maximize the
way metatags work in every search engine Place
the metatags in the ltheadgt section with title and
description first followed by all other metatags.
Make sure the metatags are placed before any
other coding for c.s.s or java, or templates.
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• Search Engines and Metadata
• Top Ten Reasons for webmasters to use metadata
• 10. Allows cross server searching among GILS
  states UDDI is coming for other databases.
• 9. Important for Permanent Public Access.
• 8. Useful for intranet search.
• 7. Useful with web content management software.
• 6. Skill can be transferred to XML structure.
• 5. Assists webmasters with archiving and storage
  of their own HTML files.

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• Search Engines and Metadata
• Top Ten Reasons to use metadata
• 4. Brings business to their own web site.
• 3. Robust metadata informs users.
• 2. It helps their ranking in their local GILS and
  Ask George search engines.
• The number one reason to use metadata
• To manage their own web sites!!

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Search Engines and Metadata Top Ten Reasons to
use metadata 1. The number one reason to use
metadata! To manage their own web sites!!
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Search Engines and Metadata The goal is to
become true partners in creating better access to
government information for citizens and your own
agency users. Make it your common goal!