Exactly, marianne. You've just made my point. User experience in browser bookmarking is sacrificed in your equation toward tailoring an interface element to be more friendly to a machine than a human.
You've done a calculus that allows you to decide it is an acceptable sacrifice to favor the machine over the human, but you are still favoring the machine over the human. Chris On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 8:51 AM, marianne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Oddly enough, I have just gone through this at work where I am the dreaded > "seo specialists." It is unfortunate that search engine technology affords > maximum relevance weight to the "browser title" and that this value has > been > chosen over the title displayed on the page to appear in the search results > page. Unfortunately, Chris, this does not inhibit repeat visits and it does > work to deliver more new traffic to the site. And, in the end, I do not > find > browser titles that contain terms that represent concepts on the page to be > any more nonsensical than: Compare Editions, <site> Home or Discover > <product>...the last being nonsensical in the extreme as there is often no > discovery involved. > > Search results contain the gibberish page title, now a link, and a > description that serves to contextualize the site (and often badly so). > We've all adapted to this method and it does not seem critical enough to > warrant attention let alone change. > > marianne > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of > Christine Boese > Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2008 8:22 AM > To: AJKock > Cc: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] seo and usability > > SEO can lead to some odd permutations... I'm not saying it is necessarily > "good" SEO, but I've seen it happen. > > Example: Jamming up an HTML page title with SEO-specific keywords in the > FRONT of the title, and the actual name of the site after a colon or a pipe > at the end. > > Usability Problem: Ultimately, every HTML page title is bookmark copy, > whether a browser bookmark or a delicious bookmark. Bookmarking is a > helpful > user activity when a site has great utility, and when you are planning to > make many repeat visits, especially if you designate that bookmark for your > toolbar (or in the case of the Firefox delicious plug-in, your toolbars). > > So the HTML page titles get truncated in many instances: toolbar bookmarks, > 3-pane RSS readers, any sort of list view. > > I mean, nonsensical or generic HTML page titles showing up as gibberish in > bookmarks lists should have vanished long ago, they are EVIL. I used to > grade down my students a full letter grade if I caught them doing it... in > the 1990s. A bookmark is a free ad, after all, and a free ad of the best > and > highest quality type. But ultimately, a bookmark is a USER UTILITY. > > And yet, with this new crop of SEO-happy page titles, I find myself with > bookmarks that are not gibberish, but are truncated so that all I see are > SEO keywords in my bookmark lists, but I can't for the life of me figure > out > the name of the site those wonderful keywords are describing! Makes it > pretty hard for me to make those all-important repeat visits. > > Chris > > On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 6:42 AM, AJKock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > "Where in particular do you find SEO at odds with good UX?" > > > > SEO prefers descriptive links, which leads to some people creating > > long phrases which they link. > > Usability: I find them less readable and distracting when reading. > > They are also loaded with keywords which are vague, but descriptive of > > the content you are going to, but never spesific. > > > > Example: > > Linking to an article on "hamburgers" by using "succulent beef being > > sacrificed on rolls with green and red salad" > > > > The problem is that those keywords could have linked to many other > > things like steakrolls, sandwiches, etc. > > ________________________________________________________________ > > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe > > ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines > > ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help > > .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ > http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ > http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. > http://www.ixda.org/help > > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
