Tue 24 Jan 2006
Scroll down to the bottom of this page (or any page in this site if this page is too long). You will find two logos added in the footer section: UCSD and SIO.
I just added these. Up until now, we had no logos on this site, except for the OI logo embedded into the header graphic.
Big deal, right?
Well yeah, it is.
Go to Google and search for ‘Ocean Informatics’ (with or without quotes). We are currently the 4th site returned in the results. Not as impressive as being in the top 3, I know… but at least we are now on the first page! For a while, we were sitting buried under layers of irrelevant results.
So what does this have to do with the logos? Well, I remember learning at point (from Wayne I think) that any publicly accessable page in the ucsd domain should sport a ucsd logo somewhere. Our site has failed to do that since August when I first set up the blog. That is, until now.
I first noticed the missing logos as a concern yesterday. I was searching for info on Subversion use with web-related projects, and I stumbled upon my recent blog entry from late last year. Treating myself as an ‘outside visitor’, I noticed that I learned very little about Ocean Informatics, particularly the Who, Where, and Why. The only hint came from the ucsd.edu domain, which would lead me to guess this was a university-related site.
Thus, in putting the logos on the site, we help to clarify the Who (somewhat) and the Where. Now, maybe we should revise the site (the content, not the theme!) to give a bit friendlier welcome to outside visitors, especially if our blog posts are showing up in Google searches.
Maybe the next step is a visitor logger…..
3 Responses to “Google Ranking and UCSD Logos”
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February 2nd, 2006 at 6:47 pm
The ‘google’ word was like a magnet and then the technical ramifications interesting. In terms of the context, there seems to be an implicit assumption that it’s “better” to be in the top 3. I was still thinking of it as an ‘inreach’ group collaboration tool to facilitate long-term communication and memory. What choices do we have to make in terms of the balance of inreach to outreach? This raises the interesting question: what is the purpose of the OI blog…and has it changed?
February 3rd, 2006 at 11:54 am
The purpose of the OI blog hasn’t really changed. It’s primary use is as an internal communication medium. Sometimes I like to think of it as a ‘dumping ground’, useful for capturing notes, ideas, workflows, etc. Additionally it’s used for raising questions and making announcements.
The ultimate goal is build a strong archive of useful information to which we can refer back after months (and years) ahead!
Some of my posts read more like articles than they do like stream-of-consciousness note-taking. A good example is my Subversion for Web Projects post. Though my primary objective with this post was to capture all the information I learned from the WebHeads meeting, I forced myself to articulate my thoughts and write them in such a way so that anyone interested in the topic could understand what I was saying. This is in contrast to note-taking, which may only have appeal to the individual.
By forcing myself to write for others in addition to myself, I end up with a more cohesive blog post. This makes it easier for me (and others) to refer back to… like now for example:
I wrote that Subversion post on Oct 21. It is now Feb 3, and we are first starting to tinker with Subversion again, more than a 3 months difference.
The ‘top 3′ argument is really just a matter of pride. Because our blog is mainly an internal medium, we have little interest in making ourselves known to the world. However, the point of this post is that the door to the world is open, should we want to venture about.
It never hurts to present the world with a face. Because some of our blog posts show up in Google search results (like the Subversion), other people may be benefitting from our ‘dumping ground of information’ as well. One of the reasons why I temporarily enabled public commenting was to see if anyone out there would “say hi”. No one did, but that doesn’t mean no one is looking.
We shouldn’t have to think about balancing our inreach vs. outreach goals. We should stay primarily focused on inreach, and let the outreach happen (people are coming to us, we’re not going out to them). We should only be prepared for strangers to visit us. Thus we should put on a friendlier face. The logos were the first step.
February 3rd, 2006 at 5:37 pm
So an “internal communicaton medium” that works for the group and as an individual prompt to synthesize and (re)formulate reflectively. The availability over time seems a findability ‘articulation bonus’. Still mulling blogs, perspectives, and uses/users - individual or group - given folks who spend time preparing a fashionable appearance to walk to a community center, those who wade in preparing a work web page ‘public face’, and contemporary information handlers who jump in, skim over, and/or harvest from the internet pool of information.