Re: AW: Defining website scope using Sitemap protocol

Hi all,

I do agree that we should stay clear of recommending specific tools for
the methodology to stay contemporary for a longer period. Also, if we
don't stay clear of recommending specific tools, I would have no choice
but to add my two cents and propose some command line interface (CLI)
tool like the spider mode of the "wget" command! ;)

I do agree though that the methodology could propose the use of an open
standard in order to facilitate communication between websites owners
and evaluation. Sitemap XML open standard is a fine one. Can we think of
other open standards to represent a list of URL so that we could let the
choice of an open standard to the user of the methodology?

I'm thinking of a text file, the RSS open standard or the Atom open
standard that could help us here. mRSS could also be an interesting one
if a website has a lot of multimedia documents (as in video and audio)
that needs to be audited.

Best regards,

Samuel

On Sun, 2011-11-27 at 16:11 +0100, Alistair Garrison wrote:
> Hi Kerstin, 
> 
> I was not recommending a single tool by mentioning Sitemap. Sitemap is a common protocol (XML based) for formatting a site map - used for defining a site map for submission to a search engine.  There are many many tools which can produce site maps in the Sitemaps protocol.  
> 
> In my opinion we should definitely stay clear of recommending specific tools...
> 
> Very best regards 
> 
> Alistair Garrison
> 
> On 27 Nov 2011, at 11:25, Kerstin Probiesch wrote:
> 
> > Hi Alistair, Richard, all,
> > 
> > I also agree that one method is to use sitemaps.org. One other method could be using a freeware like "Xenu's Link Sleuth" (http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html). Originally it was developed for finding broken links, but it is possible to exclude external links and to deactivate Broken links reports. Xenu's Link Sleuth is very fast (573 URLs in 43 seconds) but of course took it's time for very huge websites. It comes along with different export functions. One creates a sitemap (as .htm) according to the title-element another one creates a Google Sitemap File. If we decide for a software/freeware we need some test cases: smaller websites but also very huge websites for comparing the results, the time and also to find out if there might be problems (creating reports - especially for very huge sites). One problem might be that there seems to be no way to exclude image files, but probably there is no need to do this and it would depend upon the wording and a clear statement.
> > 
> > Regards
> > 
> > Kerstin
> > 
> > -------------------------------------
> > Kerstin Probiesch - Accessibility Consultant
> > Web: http://www.barrierefreie-informationskultur.de
> > XING: http://www.xing.com/profile/Kerstin_Probiesch
> > Twitter: http://twitter.com/kprobiesch
> > -------------------------------------
> > 
> > 
> > Von: RichardWarren [mailto:richard.warren@userite.com] 
> > Gesendet: Samstag, 26. November 2011 16:54
> > An: Alistair Garrison; Eval TF
> > Betreff: Re: Defining website scope using Sitemap protocol
> > 
> > Dear Alistair,
> > 
> > I agree that one method of defining the scope could be to use the site map (either the XML as used by google etc., or even the bog standard html site map) . You would need to provide a copy of the site map as it existed at the time of evaluation. It is a good example of “how an evaluator can express the scope”.
> > 
> > I don’t know how many examples we need to provide, the important thing is to make it clear that any scope statement is clear and reliable.
> > 
> > Regards
> > Richard
> > 
> > 
> > From: Alistair Garrison 
> > Sent: Saturday, November 26, 2011 1:06 PM
> > To: Eval TF 
> > Subject: Defining website scope using Sitemap protocol
> > 
> > Dear all,  
> > 
> > It seems that a good number of website owners / webmasters submit a sitemap to search engines.  The schema of choice for this sitemap (file) is apparently the Sitemap protocol - http://www.sitemaps.org/ (supported by Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft.)
> > 
> > What would your thoughts be on using this sitemap file generated for a website, by the website owners / webmaster, to define the scope of a website? Possibly answering the question - How can an evaluator express the scope of a website.
> > 
> > Would be interested to hear thoughts / comments.
> > 
> > All the best 
> > 
> > Alistair 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
>

Received on Sunday, 27 November 2011 17:30:22 UTC