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public-html-comments posting from: Chris Leaper <jaboc2kl@googlemail.com> http://www.w3.org/mid/BANLkTi=QaCb-UjCzP8yv5Pc3+R+XkKGDzg@mail.gmail.com Hi, i don't know if they're still taking suggestions to add to the new HTML5 spec but i had what i think could be a really good idea. A new 'context' meta tag to be used to describe the context / genre of the documents content. The usage would be similar to that of the old 'keywords' tag but using contextual keywords such as 'news,sports,fiction,sci-fi,engineering documentation,blog' etc. etc. - The possibilities are endless, with potential for libraries of hundreds or even thousands of recognised contextual keywords to clarify the positioning and content of a document. With search engine support it could help to make the web an easier place to both publish, categorise and search for content. I hope to generate significant interest in this possibility and eventually get it adopted into the HTML5 spec! I'd love to hear what people think about this.
a) I don't see how this is different from "keywords". b) The spec does not need to define all meta keywords; there's an extension point for that. Use it.
Has any search engine provider actually expressed interest in implementing this?
(In reply to comment #1) > a) I don't see how this is different from "keywords". > > b) The spec does not need to define all meta keywords; there's an extension > point for that. Use it. a >> True there may be no need to extend the spec if we could get the usage of the 'keywords' meta tag re-appropriated for this 'context' purpose. The problem with the keywords meta is that it's all but useless and is actively ignored my most major search engines. This means that it is now effectively a dead part of the HTML spec and what's the point of that? b >> Also, I'm not asking the spec to define white-lists or black-lists of acceptable words. That is something for the search engines and web communities to come up with themselves. The point is merely to support a method for describing the context of a document. Really this would perhaps be more like having blog style 'tags' and 'categories', but for all websites not just blogs. Doesn't Technorati use blogs tags etc. to help users find what they're looking for? So why can't all websites benefit from this? I believe that if we could get search engines to support it this could empower web users and allow for more powerful searches and more accurate search results. Publishers would have more power to get their content in-front of the right users. Users would have more power to find the right content. I don't see how this could be a bad idea?!
(In reply to comment #3) > The problem with the keywords meta is that it's all but useless and is actively > ignored my most major search engines. This means that it is now effectively a > dead part of the HTML spec and what's the point of that? What makes you think that the same wouldn't happen with "context"?
(In reply to comment #4) > > (In reply to comment #3) > > The problem with the keywords meta is that it's all but useless and is actively > > ignored my most major search engines. This means that it is now effectively a > > dead part of the HTML spec and what's the point of that? > > What makes you think that the same wouldn't happen with "context"? I had considered this and it was part of my original idea to limit the number of recognised words / phrases to a maximum of 5. That's more than enough to position the document contextually and it'll prevent the abuse that keywords suffered from. e.g. You could have a page described as "Science, Research, Whitepaper, Astro-physics;" OR "Technology, Web Design, HTML 5, Specification, Suggestion;" Sorry for not stating that in my original comment.
I realise that a lot of what I would like to see happen is down to the support and functionality of search engines. But making it part of the HTML spec would send a message to them and encourage them to support it. What I'm trying to acheive is to improve the way that the web is indexed, searched and served up to us. I use the web a lot (I'm a web developer) and I'm forever scrolling through pages of irrelevant search results to find what I want. "The answer is simple" I hear you say, "Write better search queries!" and I do, sometimes I re-write the query 3 or 4 times to get better results. But is this really the answer? Are all SE's going to say to the world: "You will just have to learn how to write a better query!"? No! It didn't work two decades ago and it wont work now. I remember when there was all kinds of clever syntax used to write a good search query, and yes to a certain extent (and for those in the know) there is. But most people just type what they want in the search bar and want to see useful results. SE's have come a long way in making searching the web universally accessible and easy precisely because they don't want people to have to learn any additional syntax. And with the amount of content on the internet ever increasing surely a better way to organise and categorise it will only pay dividens in the long run? p.s. Sorry for the lengthy post
(In reply to comment #2) > Has any search engine provider actually expressed interest in implementing > this? I posted a 'question' on Google's Help forum for Web Search Suggestions and got a positive response from a Google employee encouraging more discussion on this. You can see the original post here: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Web+Search/thread?fid=5e43efa4bf8da7d90004a43000999abf&hl=en ...and as she suggested I posted the same question in the Webmaster forum here: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=47d15ffffff60541&hl=en I'll also be putting a web page up in the near future to promote the idea of web page context and to encourage / track discussions. We'll just have to wait and see for responses. Thanks
mass-move component to LC1
Mass move to "HTML WG"
EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If you have additional information and would like the Editor to reconsider, please reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest title and text for the Tracker Issue; or you may create a Tracker Issue yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document: http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html Status: Rejected Change Description: No spec change Rationale: While I applaud the enthusiasm behind this proposal, there does not appear to be any more recent data showing that the proposal suggested above has made any progress. Given this general lack of activity, I assume that the current extension points for meta-data management in HTML5 are sufficient for most purposes. An appropriate next step (if the original proposal is revived) might be to add it to the Meta Extensions Wiki registry [1] and then try gathering support for it among the community. There doesn't appear to be a need to add this directly into the HTML5 spec itself. [1] http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/MetaExtensions