31 What about readable URL's?

“The domains of findability and usability overlap in that both seek to help users find content within a site, but findability extends further to encompass methods that help users find the site and re-discover it later�
I love the article. It explains beautifully the importance of findability and the range of people that have to contribute to making it happen. However something I would like to add to the responsiblities of the developer is providing readable URLs. URL’s that give the user an idea of what the subject matter or content of a certain page is so that he or she can choose the right URL from the list of search results. It certainly is one of the “methods that help users find the site and re-discover it laterâ€? don’t you think?

posted at 11:30 pm on April 5, 2008 by Colette van Essen

32 AJAX AND FINDABILITY

The emerging world of AJAX and ‘Web 2’ sharply bring into focus the willingness of too many webmasters to sacrifice both findability and usability, apparently in exchange for dramatic effect.
We have had the same issues, and continue to have them, with Flash and Java.

I’ve just spent the last year part-time developing an AJAX solution to navigation, in the hope that the promise of interactivity is not lost from the webspace to yet another plugin technology, as a side effect of poor findability.

HTML 5 gives a sniff of a promise to AJAX and navigation, but we’ll be a long time getting there in practice, even if all the major browser vendors cooperate.

A further issue in usability and findability in AJAX is overweight applications. The web in spite of broadband is still, and will always be as a serial network, subject to the speed constraint of the slowest link, often grinding down below dail-up speeds.

Add a heavy application, whether it’s AJAX, Flash or Java, and you’re lost for a very long time between where you’ve been and where you might get. Where you are at present still gets very boring after about 10 seconds.

We should not lose sight of the time domain in findability! Users simply bail out altogether before about 20 seconds.

posted at 03:20 am on April 6, 2008 by David Chapman

33 Great article. I laughed... I cried.... I was roo

After reading this article I was compelled to write and say how much I enjoyed it. You had some great insights and I believe that all people who work in our field should read this artice.

I know I’m going to share this article with my Creative Design team.

I also enjoyed the article from an artistic stand point. Often I find the only time I have to read about new ideas, thoughts, and opinions in our field is over my lunch break. So, it was with welcome surprise that this article wasn’t just another dry reading.

Great job.

You can expect one more customer for you book sales.

posted at 07:13 am on April 10, 2008 by Edward Garana

34 I found it...

This article was a little long winded but the point is well taken. Findability and SEO are NOT the same. In fact some ranking fanatics can actually hurt a site’s findabilty by focusing too much on boosting their Google ranking with irrelevant keywords. High rankings on search engines are nice but they don’t always guarantee success.

posted at 10:25 pm on April 17, 2008 by Barry Kiffer

35 Full Integration of the Web Team

A basic understanding of optimization is important for a copywriter to be able to write text which is organized in a manner which google is known to respond positively to. The most influential writing for optimization, has actually not been optimized in the sense of keyword density, but so interesting, that it became a magnet for bringing traffic into a site.

posted at 04:38 am on April 29, 2008 by Jarod Clark

36 I'd agree that

I’d agree that high rankings on search engines don’t always guarantee success. On the other hand, low rankings on search engines can pretty much guarantee an ongoing ad spend directly to search engines, and that’s pretty much forever.

Of course, there are always other sites linking to the website, but that means that visitors necessarily need to visit those sites just to find the link.

Can this be an optimum scenario? I think not. I think we need to deal with the medium with which we’re working, and not just part of it.

posted at 11:19 am on May 17, 2008 by Diane Vigil

37 content optimisation is where it's at

hey – great post. this is the stuff i struggle with every day. clients seem to get it when we discuss the nuts and bolts of SEO – you have to create better content and improve the interface elements of your site to improve conversions… for people and crawlers. but agencies focused on whizzy things and rigid project management schemas seem to have a tougher time selling it in…. it doesn’t really make sense, unless the be all and end all of a site build is to design it, deliver it and then cut and run. basically, when content production’s concerned, then i think most agencies aren’t built to hold the hands of clients and see them through the lifecycle of a site for the long term. more content savvy and consultancy is needed! you’ve kind of hit the nail on the head…

posted at 01:40 pm on September 24, 2008 by roger warner

38 Findability

An excellent article that makes one think of how they build their web site. I would just like an example of how it works in practice.

posted at 04:53 pm on September 28, 2009 by eybl

39 Revolution of SEO

Great comment Stephen Down. I would say that your comment is fairly accurate for most people who do SEO. To truly take SEO to the next level you need to be worried about those people who are your true target market. If in SEO you are just trying to get numbers up and are strictly getting more and more people to the site without having those people be truly legitimate customers you aren’t doing the site much benefit. We want true conversions. In order to get your true conversions FINDABILITY and SEO need to fused into one major effort. Findability really is important and should be taken seriously.

posted at 01:34 pm on June 14, 2011 by FrancoLittle

40 Findabilty and dynamic sitemaps

Updating sitemaps can become such a hassle, but the truth is that they are still kind in the findability game

Whem I’m using wordpress I always use a dynamic plugin that updates and pings search engines after each post! Ahh.. wordpress spoils us

Nowadays it’s almost impossible to have a wordpress blog that google DOESN’T FIND automatically after a week, however it’s still vital to submit sitemaps

posted at 06:40 pm on June 16, 2011 by Johnny Optimo