Hello Peter, Here is what google says: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35264
<http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35264> > > We use *a number of different sources* for this information, including > descriptive information in the META tag for each page. Where this > information isn't available, we may use publicly available information from > DMOZ. While accurate meta descriptions can improve clickthrough, they won't > impact your ranking within search results. By the way, here is a short post ( http://pineda-krch.com/2011/03/31/what-is-r-really/) suggesting that the one-line description of R should be: "R is a free and open source environment for computational research and graphics." I thought his claims might be of interest for this context. With much respect, Tal ----------------Contact Details:------------------------------------------------------- Contact me: tal.gal...@gmail.com | 972-52-7275845 Read me: www.talgalili.com (Hebrew) | www.biostatistics.co.il (Hebrew) | www.r-statistics.com (English) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 9:38 PM, peter dalgaard <pda...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Apr 1, 2011, at 08:49 , Tal Galili wrote: > > > Hello all, > > I hope I'm writing to the correct place. > > > > I believe that the R homepage will benefit from including the > "description" > > meta tag in it's homepage. > > The reason is that google uses that tag to decide what to show when the R > > homepage shows up on a search result. > > The current description of the first result of searching "R" in google > is: > > > > "*R*, also called GNU S, is a strongly functional language and > environment > > to statistically explore data sets, make many graphical displays of data > > from custom *..."* > > * > > * > > This defention is truncated. > > > Interesting. What's odd is that although that phrasing is used in multiple > places on the net, it is not in the actual www.r-project.org/index.html, > nor in any other "official" places that I can spot. > > However, what gets displayed for SAS and Stata is not what is in their > description tags? > > SAS: > <meta content="SAS Business Analytics software -- 30+ years of experience > and 50,000+ customer sites worldwide. View success stories, analyst reports > & demos." name="description" /> > > Stata: > <meta name="description" content="Data Analysis and Statistical Software > for Professionals" /> > > What gives? > > > > > > > > It seems that other statistical packages (and some known open source > > projects) already noticed this. Here is what they write about themselves > > (when searching for their name on google): > > > > - SAS: 50,000 Customer Sites Use SAS for CRM, BI, Analytics & More-Get > > Info > > - SPSS: Analytical Software at SPSS.com. Specializing in data mining, > > customer relationship management, business intelligence and data > analysis. > > - JMP: JMP is statistical software for expert data analysis, DOE, and > Six > > Sigma, from SAS. For Mac, Windows, and Linux. > > - Stata: Integrated statistical package for data analysis, data > > management and graphics. > > - Perl: The Perl Programming Language at Perl.org. Links and other > > helpful resources for new and experienced Perl programmers. > > - Matematica: Wolfram Research, makers of Mathematica, the only fully > > integrated technical computing software. > > - It seems that Python, Ruby, and Matlab are not using any description > > tag (and their google description is also truncated) > > > > > > I hope this helps. > > > > Best, > > Tal > > > > > > ----------------Contact > > Details:------------------------------------------------------- > > Contact me: tal.gal...@gmail.com | 972-52-7275845 > > Read me: www.talgalili.com (Hebrew) | www.biostatistics.co.il (Hebrew) | > > www.r-statistics.com (English) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > > > ______________________________________________ > > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel > > -- > Peter Dalgaard > Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School > Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark > Phone: (+45)38153501 > Email: pd....@cbs.dk Priv: pda...@gmail.com > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
