[Web4lib] cms and metadata

[Crystal Knapp]

Alnisa,

By "web publisher," I'm referring to the person entering the document into the cms.  In our case, this is usually the same person that publishes the document and enters the metadata.

It's interesting to hear that you found that improving the metadata also improved search results in Google.  While I might anticipate this within an internal search engine, it was my impression that most commercial search engines don't rely on keyword metadata much anymore. That is promising to hear.  Also, it sounds like you don't use title or description metadata?

I'd be interested in hearing more about how you set up the default data for pages where the user didn't contribute any.  What kind of criteria/logic did you use?  Is this a feature of "Expression Engine?"  We aren't in a position to change our CMS (Teamsite), but I'm still interested to hear more about how you did this. 

Thanks again,
Crystal

> -----Original Message-----
> From: allgood2 at gmail.com [mailto:allgood2 at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Alnisa
> Allgood
> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 12:02 PM
> To: web4lib at webjunction.org;KNAPP Crystal
> Subject: Re: [Web4lib] cms and metadata
> 
> Hi Crystal-
> 
> I'm not certain, when you say web publisher-does that mean the CMS or
> web developer, or the person entering the document into the web
> system?
> 
> It's not a library system, but we've had great success using
> Expression Engine (a CMS), and creating page specific metadata for
> clients.  The original project goal was twofold (1) the technical: was
> it possible to adjust metadata on the per article basis; and (2) did
> adapting this data improve search performance both onsite and offsite
> (page ranking).
> 
> Both replies were a resounding yes. Google page rank increased, which
> also seemed to influence rank at other search engines. Internal search
> results seemed more accurate, and technically the process was very,
> very easy.  Basically we decided which metadata would be served with
> the web page, then just set-up calculations so if no user contributed
> data was provided, default data would be used, otherwise, it used
> either pure user data or a combination of user data with defaults.
> 
> The big end is of course the users, and garbage in means garbage out,
> but we made it so as much data as possible could be collected from the
> system itself. Things like 'author', 'publisher', publish date,
> section, etc.  That way, the user just had to really complete two
> fields: keywords, and language, and an optional third-summary. The
> other fields could be modified by the user, but didn't have to be.
> 
> Metadata for clients transformed from being, just the client name with
> the same five organizational keywords, and a manually updated
> copyright date.  To being far more robust and with obvious metadata
> distinction say between an article on credit card fraud versus an
> article on home loans.
> 
> Alnisa
> 
> 
> On 10/11/07, Crystal Knapp <crystal.knapp at state.or.us> wrote:
> > Earlier this week, I posted a link to a survey the State Library of
> Oregon is conducting on metadata and taxonomies.  This survey is still up
> through Monday at
> http://library.state.or.us/services/surveys/survey.php?sid=170. I can post
> the results to the list if there is interest.
> >
> > I also wanted to pose a few questions to the list.  For those of you who
> use content management systems and maintain a search feature for your
> website, do you use metadata in conjunction with your pages?  Does anyone
> have a success story of having good quality metadata that is created by
> the web publisher (and not edited by library staff later)?
> >
> > I am asking because at the Oregon State Library, we are responsible for
> the metadata schema (and search feature) used by all Oregon government
> agencies, aka all Oregon.gov websites.  We currently have over 2,000 web
> publishers within Interwoven's Teamsite who all create their own metadata
> as they publish pages, and, as you can probably imagine, the metadata
> ranges in quality from good to useless.  We're looking for other
> solutions.  I'm curious to hear about other successful metadata
> contribution models for content management systems.  It'd also be
> interesting to hear if you just aren't using metadata at all within your
> cms.  I'm specifically referring to metadata used to assist with find-
> ability, not for preservation or document management.
> >
> > Thanks in advance,
> >
> > Crystal Knapp
> > E-Government Librarian
> > Oregon State Library
> > crystal.knapp at state.or.us
> > 503-378-5009
> >
> >
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