atw: Helping users find your docs via search engines
- From: Stewart Walker <helpfulau@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2003 16:55:33 -0700 (PDT)
Hi all
Recently I've been helping a big bank implement a new
search engine on its intranet.
Something we discovered is that a lot of the PDF and
Word docs that hang off HTML pages on the intranet
have rubbish in their metadata, particularly their
Title property.
"So what," you ask? The Title property is what many
search engines use as the document title when listing
items on search result pages.
As an example, many of the PDFs on the bank's intranet
were created from Quark Express. Either Quark or
Distiller seems to insert the Quark doc's filename as
the PDF's Title property. This has resulted in doc
titles like 23041999.qxd. When it comes to helping a
user decide whether to click a link that appears on a
search results page, these titles are as useful as an
ashtray on a motorbike!!
So on behalf of search engine users everywhere, I have
a plea: every time you publish a non-HTML file that
users will be able to discover via an intranet,
extranet or web search engine, PLEASE ensure the file
has a meaningful Title property.
Thanks. I feel better now I've got that off my chest
:-)
Cheers
Stewart
-------
Stewart Walker
Helpful Technology Pty Ltd
Melbourne, Australia
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
**************************************************
To post a message to austechwriter, send the message to
austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To subscribe to austechwriter, send a message to
austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "subscribe" in the Subject field.
To unsubscribe, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with
"unsubscribe" in the Subject field.
To search the austechwriter archives, go to
www.freelist.org/archives/austechwriter
To contact the list administrator, send a message to
austechwriter-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
**************************************************
Other related posts:
- » atw: Helping users find your docs via search engines
