UNITED STATES: STATES: GOVERNMENT :
INTERNET: SEARCH: TOOLS AND SERVICES:
Google Helps States Surface Government Information
Google Helps States Surface Government Information
Apr. 30, 2007 at 12:01am
Eastern by Chris Sherman
<http://searchengineland.com/070430-000100.php>
Google has announced an initiative with state agencies in Arizona,
California, Utah and Virginia to help expose government information to web
search engines. Often, government information is stored in database
systems that are difficult if not impossible for search engine crawlers to
access and index.
Google is working with technologists from the state agencies to help
surface this invisible or deep web content, using a simple yet elegant
approach using the sitemaps protocol, thereby allowing Google or any other
search engine to discover and index government information.
Search engine crawlers rely on links to find content on the web. Much of
this content is static, stored as pages on web servers. By contrast,
databases display content dynamically, responding to user queries and
commands. Since crawlers can't type, it's difficult for search engines to
access content in a database.
However, most web pages displayed by a database have a unique URL. If this
URL is saved as a link, search engine crawlers can effectively follow the
link and see the same content a human user wouldand index the content of
the page.
This is where sitemaps come into play. By using the sitemap protocol to
simulate queries to a database, the search engine can get around the
barriers normally posed by dynamic content
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The complete article may be read at the URL above.
Information for Public Sector Organizations
<http://www.google.com/publicsector>
Make your agency website, and the information it offers, easier to find.
Another way to make the information on your agency website easier to find.
Sincerely,
David Dillard
Temple University
(215) 204 - 4584
jwne@temple.edu
Net-Gold
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<http://net-gold.jiglu.com/>
General Internet & Print Resources
<http://library.temple.edu/articles/subject_guides/general.jsp>
<http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/ringleaders/davidd.html>
Digital Divide Network
<http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/jwne>
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K12ADMINLIFE
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