Dec 0904
Matrix Group recently worked with Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to launch a bilingual Web site for the organization’s Middle East Center. To communicate with its multilingual audience, Carnegie needed to enhance its Web site to provide content in both Arabic and English.
Our work included:
- An enhanced Content Management System, allowing Center staff to post content in both Arabic and English
- Incorporation of a filter in the site search to allow visitors to search by language
- Web friendly display pages to account for right-to-left reading
Visit the Carnegie Middle East Center Web site
Dec 0817
One of the goals of the last redesign of the Matrix Group Web site was to make my bio more prominent in search engines. I had previously resisted putting any information about me on the Web site for a variety of reasons, but my new biz team reasoned that since I do a lot of speaking and writing, people will Google my name; when that happens, we want the Matrix Group Web site to pop-up on the first page, if not first on the list of results.
I typed “joanna pineda” into Google tonight and this is what I found:
- An interview that I did for The Washington Post back in 2003 is the number one result. This makes sense, given The Post’s Google page rank. Here’s a wikipedia page on how Google page rank works.
- This blog, The Matrix Files, is the 3rd listing. This is great, exactly what we wanted. The blog strategy is working.
- The About Joanna Pineda page on the Matrix Group Web site is the 4th listing. Fabulous.
Read the rest of this entry
Oct 0828
Whitney Houston sings “Where do broken hearts go?” Me, I have often wondered what becomes of broken or lost Web pages — you know, the URLs that used to work but now display a 404 or file not found error. Are these pages deleted from the servers? Or have they just been unlinked? And what do I do if I really need the information and it’s now gone?
You’ll be glad to know that there is a whole movement devoted to changing the content of the Internet from ephemera to artifacts. Internet libraries are springing up everywhere to catalog and preserve Web pages, images, even audio and video files.
The largest (I think) Internet Library is the Internet Archive, a “nonprofit organization dedicated to building and maintaining a free and openly accessible online digital library, including an archive of Web.” The archive is a collection of snapshots of Web pages from the around the world, taken at various points in time. Read the rest of this entry
Jul 0831
Amazon.com is really lucky that Google.com indexes its content and then adds the fabulous Google search algorithms to searches. In order to find something on Amazon.com, I had to find it on Google.com.
My son begged me to purchase software based on the Dr. Seuss ABC Book. We had previously seen the program at the Apple Store. Even though I have a Mac at home, CJ’s computer is a PC and I wanted the PC version for him.
- So I went to Amazon.com and typed “dr. Seuss alphabet software.” I got nothing. I tried “dr. seuss alphabet” and didn’t get any software.
- I should have typed “dr. seuss ABC software” but somehow, I had alphabet on the brain. It was late and my normally decent searching skills were not kicking in.
- So I went to Google.com and typed “dr. Seuss alphabet software” and yes, you guessed it, Google found the product I wanted on Amazon.com; it was the second link.
- Google’s legendary search algorithms did it again. Alphabet got equated to ABC and I got what I needed. I bet I’m not the only person who has gone to Google.com to find the content on another site. If I wanted to, I could have asked Google to search for “dr. Seuss alphabet software” on the Amazon.com site by typing “dr. Seuss alphabet software site:amazon.com.”
Lesson for all of us who build Web sites: make sure your site is visible to Google and other Internet search engines (more on that topic in another post).
Jun 0813
A friend works for Levi Strauss, so I always ask for her opinion when buying jeans. I was looking for skinny jeans; she recommended a pair of 503 jeans. So I went to Levi.com, typed “503″ and got nothing. I tried “levis 503″ and got nothing. I typed “skinny jeans” and finally got some results, but nothing for 503 jeans.
So I went to Amazon.com and typed “levis 503″ and got a hit for 503 jeans, as well as other jeans. It turns out that 503 jeans are no longer being sold directly by Levis, but a few are still available from Amazon.
The Levis site search missed an opportunity to:
- tell me that 503 jeans are no longer being made
- suggest similar jeans or jeans that succeeded 503 in the product line
Read the rest of this entry
