[sdiy] Re: [OT] Re: A major way to improve search engines. How can we implement this?

[Bob Weigel]

John Mahoney wrote:

>
>
> Search engines treat the page as the basic unit of content. Everything 
> on a page is assumed to be related to one subject. You can only 
> optimize a page for one set of keywords. If you mix "keys" and 
> "widgets" on the same page, you can't optimize the page to get optimal 
> search results for both keys and widgets.
>
> Although your idea sounds interesting, it *is* subject to abuse, since 
> you want a search engine to trust the contents of the START tag. Say 
> that I have the following on a page:
>         <subject="ARP Moog Oberheim synthesizers">
>                 Minimoog
>         </subject>
> Is "Minimoog" an "Oberheim"? No.
>
> Maybe I'm missing something?



Yes you are :-)   Here's why I'm so sure.

Right now abuse is totally unbounded in THIS area.  For the very reason 
that ALL the stuff appearing on a page is considered part of the same 
context to a great degree.  Hence the reason I get hits that are just 
all over the map like I say with someone selling a Korg M1 and right 
below selling replacement keys for cars. 

I'm not saying even large fraction of sites are going to be a nice and 
not want to CONTINUE this thing of drawing everyone possible to their 
page in HOPES that they will get hooked on something they are selling 
etc. even though it's only one out of 10's of thousands of ticked off 
viewers perhaps.

I mean a good percentage of the world *is* that rude.  They will waste 
people's time.  It means nothing to them because they have no 
perspective that drives them to be considerate of other people's time.

So right now...the thing is..even people who ARE considerate..have no 
way to express it.  And if they WERE able to express it then at least 
SOME of the errant hits would go away.  Surely mine would.  I'd gladly 
put markers so that in case say someone comes out with a "Jesus 
Synthesizer" they won't stumble across my page looking for it if my page 
doesn't offer information on the Jesus synthesizer :-)

WHAT POTENTIAL ABUSE could happen that is WORSE than NOT having this in 
place therefore becomes the functional question.

And of course the answer is 'absolutely none UNLESS crawlers start to 
get *smart* and start rewarding people for simply having the tags in 
place'!!!  Because ANY use of the tags WILL reduce site hits.  Period. 

See what I'm saying?  As long as they don't act like dummies (like they 
have in the past, believing that SURELY humanity is basically good and 
SURELY THIS time people won't abuse it if we start to make openings for 
abuse!)
Yeah if the crawler tried to get smart with respect to just having the 
tags there, oh yeah it would open up a whole new dimension of corruption 
and I'd be sorry I ever thought of the idea. :-)  On the other hand if a 
committe was physically reviewing web pages and gave people POINTS for 
properly using the tags...that would be a different story I suppose.  
Although then there is the possibility of human corruption.  So I would 
say the best thing would be to just write the recognition of the tags 
into the crawlers!  Go no further.  Then responsible people can begin 
using them to get their sites out of the mix at least and set good 
examples and hopefully others will follow along.

And perhaps in the future some person who is exceptionally bright at 
this kind of thing can be paid to develop a routine that will make 
intelligent evaluations of whether people are using the tags right.  
(for starters, a feedback system where users who register as GOOD users 
of the tags, can leave feedback on other site's useage.  Abuse of the 
tags *could* be a bannable offense you know :-).  I mean if we wanted to 
clean up the net boys and girls....I have an idea here that could really 
make an impact were the companies to simply exercise reasonable 
discernment with it.  If a site gets banned they can clean up their code 
and resubmit their site to the crawler and if they are redundant in 
their abuse of the tags they get perma-banned after so many tries.  And 
there could be a registry of banned names so that if people are buying 
sites they can take that into consideration etc.  OH and of course if 
people leave errant feedback, the same goes for them.  They can be 
banned from being a member and lose their status if their reports are 
false.  Three strike rule.  )

Make sense? -Bob

>
> Google was perhaps the first search engine to stop trusting meta tags. 
> The Google PhDs saw that people were putting misleading garbage into 
> their meta tags, so meta tags had to be ignored (or at least heavily 
> discounted). What matters to Google is what a human would see (in 
> theory) when looking at a page, how many sites are linking to this 
> page and what are the ranks of those pages, and so on. (A complex 
> formula that perhaps a few Googlites fully understand is used to 
> create a PageRank for each page.) Anyway, Google cares not what you 
> *claim* is on the page.
>
> By the way, the HEADER tags (H1 through H5) were designed to organize 
> content within a page, and Google (I believe) does apply their 
> presence to its page scores.
>
> Consider dividing up pages like
>         http://sounddoctorin.com/synthtec/parts/key.htm#
> to create a separate, search optimized page for each brand. I'll 
> illustrate using Moog keys.
>
>         Name the page "moog_keyboard_replacement_keys.html".
>         Put <title>Moog Keyboard Replacement Keys</title> in the 
> <head> block.
>         Put <h1>Moog Keyboard Replacement Keys</h1> near the top of 
> the page.
>         Then, list all the Moog keyboards.
>
> Repeat for each brand, and create a page for the miscellaneous brands. 
> Have a section on each page (say, after the specific parts listings) 
> that contains links to all of the other key pages, sort of like this:
>         <a href="URL">ARP Keyboard Replacement Keys</a>
>         <a href="URL">Moog Keyboard Replacement Keys</a>
>         <a href="URL">Keyboard Replacement Keys, Miscellaneous</a>
> This makes it easy for users to jump from brand to brand, and further 
> establishes phrases like "Moog Keyboard Replacement Keys" as links to 
> your pages.
>
> In closing, please consider that people study this subject area, and 
> many have jobs based on search engine optimization (SEO). People think 
> about this stuff All Day Long. If there were a simple solution, it 
> would likely be in use. You've gotten a lot of free advice! Just sayin'.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> John
>
>