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pcplantdb - Re: [pcplantdb] PIW and the various Google engines

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  • From: Bear K <bear@ursine-design.com>
  • To: Permaculture Plant Database <pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] PIW and the various Google engines
  • Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 10:38:01 -0800

Can the PIW dataset be made available for indexing and searching by Google,
bypassing the user searchform procedure, obviously.
It seems if objects in the database can be refered to using a unique URL (and I believe Apache can take directory info after a certain point in a URL and turn it into parameters for use by a CGI, omitting all the ?label=value& syntax.)
If the site includes a link which returns links to the objects in the DB you want google indexed, google will follow them and index them.
The page for those objects (meaning the design for individual object page) should allow an obvious search box, links / canned searches for related info, and you'd basically have what you're looking for.

Google results could simply
display some portion of lines of text in the dataset with a link to the PIW searchform
where the user could initiate a series of refined searches using some variation of the search
string the user started with in Google. Or could a Google search actually produce the same results
user would get if the search was started in PIW instead of Google?
Google's algorithm is complex, and text based, but if we provide good, solid (textual) info, a lot of sites link to permaculture.info, the rank will go up, and we'll hopefully be up near the top.

If so maybe this could lead to other funding possibilities - speaking of which, PIW would be a very
valuable tool for use in libraries - maybe this too could lead to grants. If Google is scanning,
digitising and indexing part of the Bodleian (humor mode on), maybe they would view PIW as unique and
worth devoting special attention to - they did it for ibiblio, as far as I know. Though there may be a
good number of plant databases around none of them will offer the unique functions that PIW will present.
Interesting idea. I really love Google, but this whole information monopoly thing is kind of concerning.

Onward to span the hitherto unbridgeable divides,
Bear





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