Re: Document Indexing -- How to index Dynamic Content?

  From: ianweb@smaug.java.utoronto.ca (Ian Graham)

| ... For example, my organization uses parsed 
| HTML (*.shtml) for many home pages -- the parsing simply introduces 
| a few lines of 'news of the day' text, with the majority of the 
| document being invariant directory-like information for the site. 
| We would like this page to be indexed by web robots, as they
| represent useful indices for the site.
---

Several people have suggested splitting the dynamic part out to a
separate page.  That approach would lose the critical advantage of
making sure the dynamic information was visible to all users.

This looks, I think, like a valid use for frames.  Put the dynamic stuff
on a separate URL and load it into a sub-frame.  The main page would be
static and indexable with a meaningful last-modified date.  This may
actually be an answer to the often-asked "Has anyone seen a case where
frames are actually valuable?"

An alternative would be to use Java or JavaScript to download the
dynamic information into the otherwise-fixed page, or (more crudely) to
turn the dynamic information into a GIF and include it as an img...

Which approach is preferable depends on the browser mix you're serving
and on the relative volume and weight of the dynamic material (since the
framed approach would dedicate a fixed part of the window space to its
use).

scott

--
scott preece
motorola/mcg urbana design center	1101 e. university, urbana, il   61801
phone:	217-384-8589			  fax:	217-384-8550
internet mail:	preece@urbana.mcd.mot.com

Received on Thursday, 7 November 1996 09:28:34 UTC