[Search-l] putting my hand up

[jer]

> Welcome aboard! It's awesome to have you heading things up!

Thanks!

> So far I've just been lurking, but I'd like to put my hand up to  
> help. I'm not a hard-core programmer, so I won't be able to help in  
> that way. But I could help with usability, ideation on features and  
> functionality, spam resilience, etc.

Wonderful, there's lots of programming to be done but we're not even  
organized enough for that part quite yet :)

> A few initial thoughts:
>
> 1) I'd suggest supporting the Sitemaps.org protocol.
>
> 2) I'd suggest extending Sitemaps to include a set of directives  
> that allow the webmaster to specify which parameters in the URL are  
> session IDs or otherwise superfluous (like sort order, clickpath  
> for the breadcrumb trail, tracking parameters, etc.). This could  
> help minimize duplicate pages getting indexed -- a major problem  
> with other search engines. And it could be used to help minimize  
> link gain (PageRank) dilution effects.

Agreed, I'd be curious also, as a SEO (Netconcepts) what are the  
other factors you find that the other search engines are either  
succeeding at or failing at in indexing sites?

> 3) I saw some mentions about Swickis recently. It was pointed out  
> that some of their technology is "patent-pending". That of course  
> limits how Swickis could be used for this project, but still I  
> think it would be worthwhile opening up a dialogue with them to see  
> in what ways they could play a role. The inventors of the swicki  
> technology, Eurekster, are a great company and are very supportive  
> of Wikipedia.

Does anyone know the folks at Eurekster?  A really good faith step,  
outside of any patents, would be for them to openly license all of  
the user contributed data back to the users / community and make it  
available in some format.  It feels like something that any site  
built on user contributions should be doing or at least allowing the  
option for users to do.  Just my 2c :)

Jer