Is cataloging an early attempt at SEO?
Just something to think about...
Phrased the other way, SEO isn't much more than a sexier (or more commonly used) term for cataloging.
-Aaron
:-)'
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan Rochkind
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 4:55 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Death of Semantic Web - is it so, and how does it affect Cataloging on the Semantic web
I disagree that HTML5 microdata, which is the general category in which
schema.org provides some example vocabularies, is only for "SEO".
Unless you think RDFa (a way to serialize RDF in HTML) is also only for
SEO.
SEO is the prime use case of schema.org specifically, although it's not
the only thing that the schema.org vocabularies may be used for.
But microdata does almost exactly the same thing as RDFa -- and has
almost exactly the same semantic expressiveness as well. I _believe_
that anything that can be expressed in microdata can be expressed in
RDFa and vice versa.
The reason the article doesn't make a good argument for it's conclusion
is not because microdata is only for SEO. It's because, like Matthew
Beacom wrote in this thread, if microdata does win out against RDFa/RDF,
it just means that the semantic web will be implemented using
microdata. microdata _is_ RDF-compatible triples, same as RDFa is. We
will see. Things are certainly still in flux. Library community efforts
to rationalize our metadata control for machine-actionability and
contemporary standards -- which is what the RDA Vocabulary initiative is
-- will bear fruit in any event.
Jonathan
On 10/12/2011 4:01 PM, James Weinheimer wrote:
> On 12/10/2011 21:09, Diane Hillmann wrote:
> <snip>
>> Also, from the point of view of the search engine community, this
>> optimization by embedding metadata is their one-and-only use case for
>> metadata. Those of us who remember early attempts to embed DC
>> properties in
>> web pages also know some limitations of this approach: it assumes
>> metadata
>> is static and unchanging, and makes it virtually impossible to
>> maintain or
>> re-use. We have a lot more than that we hope to do, and that niche,
>> should
>> we chose to accept it, really uses our skills and experience to the
>> utmost.
> </snip>
>
> My own thoughts are that perhaps "Search Engine Optimization" (SEO)
> really is the future for all metadata, for better or worse. Its
> simplicity is going to make sense to a lot of people, and it can be
> implemented now. But as I mentioned earlier, I don't see why microdata
> would be any less susceptible to spam than "author created metadata"
> was before, when people would put in practically entire encyclopedias
> into the meta fields, and when search engines disallowed information
> in the meta fields and took only on the text in the body of the
> webpage, people came up with all kinds of clever things. One I
> discovered that I thought was really neat, where people would put in
> all kinds of spam using white text on white backgrounds, so that you
> couldn't see it until you looked at the page source.
>
> The only solution that was found was the Google-type solution that
> rated pages by links *to* the page, and not by what was *on* the page.
> This is liable to spam also, with Google-bombing and of course, SEO,
> which is actually a type of Google-bomb but more respectable.
>
> Nevertheless, library use of microdata could provide a level of a
> predictability in the search result, which I think people want, at
> least sometimes, as opposed to the endlessly "personalized" search
> results that all of the information companies seem to be aiming for:
> personalized by your own previous searches, by what your friends
> searched, by what their friends searched, by what people with similar
> profiles searched and so on and on....
>
> Libraries allow true *conceptual* searching, using Use Fors,
> Broader/Narrower Terms, Related Terms, and scope notes, so that people
> really can search by concept. Google-type searches will remain as more
> and more complex variations on searching text, using fuzzy searches
> for terms, thesauri and so on. But no matter what, it will remain
> textual. Libraries and conceptual searching, no matter the problems
> with it, is wanted by many once people begin to understand it. But our
> conceptual searching is really weird for most of the public today.
>
> I still say this is one place where libraries could provide something
> nobody else does. But I don't know--maybe it's too late. It would cost
> some rapidly-disappearing bucks that will be spent on implementing
> RDA! That will certainly solve all of our problems! :-)
>
Received on Wed Oct 12 2011 - 17:12:04 EDT