A meta-tag to define a document's volatility

Another proposal...

Expiration dates are not always appropriate in some cases where a 
document is likely to change within a few months time, but at no 
definite date (in my case, broadcast schedules for a radio station).

A way to alert robots/spiders how often a page is likely to change 
would be useful (either as a <meta name=volatility> or a value in the 
<meta name=robots tag).

Robots would know when to check a page, or at least to advise users 
of a search engine that the document may be changed (and lower it's 
rating in a search).

Possible values would be vague expiration dates: the document may
not change at all, but is likely to change within the specified
time. 

For example,

  <meta name=volatility content=annual>

Would mean that the document is likely to change within a year of 
it's modification time (or half-a-year of the time the document was 
fetched).

Some values?

dailly, weekly, biweekly, monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, semester, annually,
final [not likely to change]

It might be easier to define an approximate number of days or weeks 
the document is likely to change.

Rob

-----
"The word to kill ain't dirty     | Robert Rothenburg (WlkngOwl@unix.asb.com)
 I used it in the last line       | http://www.asb.com/usr/wlkngowl/
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Received on Thursday, 17 April 1997 02:14:54 UTC