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
