we need tags for acronyms and synonyms

To whom it may concern:

 

Please retain the acronym tag in HTML 5. I am currently updating two web
sites for a program within the U.S. DOE. Like most government agencies,
we make extensive use of acronyms and abbreviations. When writing a
paper or developing a web page, I acronyms and abbreviations
differently. For example:

 

<acronym title="INL"> Idaho National Laboratory</a>

<abbr  title="energy sector">sector</abbr>

 

The acronym tag is important for both the reader search engines
understand the meaning of the acronym. The reader can hover the mouse
over the letters and display the title text. Readers won't need to do
this for the abbreviation. The meaning will be clear from the context.
So I only use the abbr text to help search engine indexing. Also, web
sites like dictionary.com and acronymfinder.com crawl the internet
specifically looking for acronyms. I do not care if those sites can
extract the definitions of abbreviations, but I do want those sites to
extract the definitions of acronyms from my sites. 

 

I think we also need a synonym tag to help with search engine indexing.
A good writing practice is to use the same terminology throughout a
document or web page. This means once I refer to a SCADA system on a
page, I need to continue referring to it as a SCADA system. But I also
need a way to tell search engines that SCADA is synonymous with "control
system", that "cyber security" is synonymous with "control systems
security" , etc.

 

 

 

 

Daniel J. Alberts

Technical Communications Analyst

Energetics, Inc

7164 Columbia Gateway Drive

Columbia, MD 21046

(410) 953-6210