Optimizing EDIS publications so they can be found by users

Web search engines cannot judge the value of what you have written based on an understanding of the content. They have complicated (and proprietary) algorithms for determining whether one publication is more relevant than another.

Things we do:

Publish on in the ufl.edu domain

".edu" domain names are considered more authoritative sources of information. Links back to the UF and UF/IFAS home pages further strenghten the association between our content and the University of Florida.

Notify of New and Revised publications

• We announce new and major revisions of publications via the edis-update-l listserv.

*We are now keeping a RSS feed of new publications which displays on the EDIS homepage

• users can subscribe to have notifications of new publications sent to their mailboxes or use a feed reader.

Update frequently, maintain longevity

EDIS has a good search engine "reputation" because the site has been up since the beginning of the Web. At the same time, our 3 year review cycle ensures that pages are always being updated.

Things authors can do:

Use key words in titles, headers, and image captions

Search engines will reasonably assume that a term that is included in the title and section headers is an important term in the document. Be sure that your title accurately describes your content & entices a web searcher to click through.

Add hyperlinks

• Include Related Resources, Further Information, Sources Cited, etc. -- if they are available online, link to them. Pages that have lots of links to good material are considered good by association.
• Provide links within the text of your document if you are mentioning an organization that has a web page (Be careful not to violate UF Web policies)

This page is part of the Extreme EDIS Symposium presentation given May 18, 2006 at the UF Hilton Hotel, Gainesville FL.