Understanding Search With A Search Engine Project
Search engines teach us a lot about information and a lot more about technology, from the way we look for information of interest to how we can provide platforms for distributed access to constantly changing sources of information.
In the context of information retrieval the two aspects of information and technology do not often sit together well, as there can be a barrier to making the source information, such as a website, suitable for application by the technology (the search engine robot in this example). If the technology does not understand, cannot access or simply does not recognise the website then an opportunity may be missed. Also, if the source information has been deliberately manipulated in order to fool the technology other problems can result.
A lot is written about techniques for making websites easier to access by and more friendlier to search engines – from the inclusion of a decent sitemap, a robots file, and good meta tags to the problems of keyword stuffing and black box seo. There are also many documents talking about ways of dealing with particular issues including Google Page Rank, Kleinberg HITS, Dirichlet Rank, nofollow links, and one-way linking. One of the interests I have for my PhD studies is in and around the technology behind information retrieval in search engines and in order to better understand and explore this subject I am building my own educational search engine.
As a blogger I am directly faced with these issues regularly as I try and concentrate on producing good quality researched content and I am often investigating ways of reaching out and connecting to new readers and raising awareness of technology issues whilst trying to make my sites more agreeable to the search engines. Producing an authoritative website that also meets the increasingly stricter requirements of search engines is just one of a number of challenges facing webmasters today in an environment which is highly competitive, time consuming and technically challenging so this experiment will also aim to break down some of the barriers facing webmasters like me.
You can keep up with progress at jasonslater.co.uk/searchproject, all feedback is welcome.
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