Cabinet Office
To find your website, users need to find your URL. To help them do this, make your website an integral part of your authority’s communications strategy. The website URL should appear on:
If the URL is long or complex, it may be worth registering a number of aliases that point to your site. Web managers should be familiar with how to register the site and additions to it with the major search engines and directories.
Staff should be both aware of the authority’s website, and able to access it.
It is helpful to differentiate the website from the Intranet. A simple and effective way to do this is to give the Intranet an identifiable name. This is helpful, as Intranet and Internet sound so similar.
The use of metadata—data about data—on your website and on individual documents will help some search engines locate your resources more easily and help users find content. It should also improve your site-specific searches and will mean you meet government policy on metadata.
APLAWS Guidelines for Metadata Standards Implementation for Local Government Websites:
www.aplaws.org.uk/features/standards.php [external link]
e-Government Metadata Framework:
http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/searchresult2.asp?docnum=473 [external link]
e-Government Metadata Standard:
http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/interoperability/metadata_document.asp? [external link]
Government Data Standards Catalogue:
http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/interoperability/metadata_document.asp? [external link]
The Guidelines for UK government websites: Illustrated handbook for web management teams Section 1.7, Getting users to your site: metadata, search engines and promotion, explains metadata and shows you how to get your site listed on search engines and directory websites:
1.7 Getting users to your site: metadata, search engines and promotion
To keep up with developments in the search engine community, consider subscribing to the Search Engine Report at:
http://searchenginewatch.com [external link]