1 Promoting Your Project Web Site Brian Kelly UK Web Focus UKOLN University of Bath Bath, BA2 7AY England UKOLN is funded by the Library and Information Commission, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding Councils, as well as by project funding from the JISC and the European Union. UKOLN also receives support from the University of Bath where Email [email protected]URL http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ Project Manager for Exploit Interactive web magazine http://www.exploit-lib.org/
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1 Promoting Your Project Web Site Brian Kelly UK Web Focus UKOLN University of Bath Bath, BA2 7AY England UKOLN is funded by the Library and Information.
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Promoting Your Project Web Site
Brian Kelly
UK Web Focus
UKOLN
University of Bath
Bath, BA2 7AY
England
UKOLN is funded by the Library and Information Commission, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding Councils, as well as by project funding from the JISC and the European Union. UKOLN also receives support from the University of Bath where it is based.
Problems:• Time-consuming for cataloguers• Entries can be submitted, but this can be time-consuming• "..sub-domains have difficulties in getting into Yahoo!"
It might be worth submitting to web directories such as Yahoo!
Remember that the information will be processed by humans.
See <http://www.searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/>
It might be worth submitting to web directories such as Yahoo!
Remember that the information will be processed by humans.
See <http://www.searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/>
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Give Your Web Site Away
Another way to promote your web site is to give it away!
You could give away:• Parts of the site to robots (e.g. metadata)• Parts of the interface• The entire site
Search interface embedded in Exploit Interactive article at <http://www.exploit-lib.org/issue3/nfp-websites/>Search interface embedded in Exploit Interactive article at <http://www.exploit-lib.org/issue3/nfp-websites/>
You could give away the interface to:
• your local indexer• a remote indexing
service e.g. HotBot See <www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue21/webwatch/>
OMNI gives an example of a site hosting remote search interfaces.Enhances remote interface, but several issues.See article at <http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue21/webwatch/> for discussion
OMNI gives an example of a site hosting remote search interfaces.Enhances remote interface, but several issues.See article at <http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue21/webwatch/> for discussion
Why not have your web site mirrored? Mirrors in, say, USA and Australia will help to promote your service.
Is your web site easily mirrored?• Are relative URLs used?• Do you use directories structures to delineate areas
of your web site?• If you use server-side scripting for management
purposes, do you hide unusual URLs:/issue1/mag-features.asp # Problems
/issue1/mag-features/default.asp
/issue1/mag-features/ # Usable on Unix
(also techniques such as Apache rewrites)If your web site can't be mirrored, can it be preserved?If your web site can't be mirrored, can it be preserved?
Issues:
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Citation
Is your project web site address easy to remember? Issues:• Short domain names are a winner• Short URLs are desirable (try to avoid org. structure)• Try to cite directories (shorter and less ambiguous):www.exploit.org/issue1/pride/article.htm (article.html, article.asp)www.exploit.org/issue1/pride/ # pride/default.asp
• Very important for web site home page• Try to avoid use of tilde (~)• Avoid citing binary files
(inaccessible, lack of metadata, alternative versions, etc.)
"Promoting Web Site" Talk
Given on 18 Nov 1999
Slides: [HTML] – [PowerPoint]
"Promoting Web Site" Talk
Given on 18 Nov 1999
Slides: [HTML] – [PowerPoint]
See AlertBox column at<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990321.html>
See AlertBox column at<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990321.html>
Link popularity is growing in importance as search engines make use of citation analysis ("this site is best, as there are lots of links to it" or "this site is linked to by important sites").
Link popularity is growing in importance as search engines make use of citation analysis ("this site is best, as there are lots of links to it" or "this site is linked to by important sites").
"I tried [LinkPopularity.com], pointing out to a potential advertiser that EEVL had, according to HotBot, 1099 sites linking to it, whilst there were only 18 sites linking to their site, and suggested that what they needed was more exposure.It seems to have worked, as they have agreed to buy an ad on the soon to be released new design EEVL site." Roddy McLeod, EEVL (posting to lis-elib list)
LinkPopularity.com lets you check on the number of sites linking to your web site
LinkPopularity.com lets you check on the number of sites linking to your web site
You will produce graphs of your web statistics for project reports
Do the graphs indicate:• A healthy growth• Growth in the number of robots• Growth in the wrong community
Look beneath the surface
Think about "enterprise analysis packages"
referer: "" # Entered directlyreferer: "www.foo.fr/goodstuff/" # Followed link
If you record the referrer field you will be able to see the links users follow to arrive at your web site. This may help to inform dissemination strategies.
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Universal Design
Many of the guidelines provided will have additional benefits:
• Robots and people with disabilities (e.g.blind users) have similar characteristics i.e. can't follow images, may not be able to access framed sites, etc.
• Indexing programs may index ALT attributes in <IMG> elements
• Sensibly-structured web sites can be more easily archived and mirrored.
• Metadata for general resource discovery can be reused for other applications (e.g. current awareness services).
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ConclusionsTo conclude:
• There are approaches to the web site architectural design which can help in promoting your project web site, including:
– Project-specific domains – Short URLs– Use of the robots.txt file – Metadata– Accessible web design
• Once you have the correct architecture, you can assist in the promotion process through various submission tools
• Many of the solutions will have additional benefits• Ideally the solutions will be implemented at the start
of the project!• Dialogue with your server administrator is important