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February 10, 2005

Big Four Confirmed For Indexing Summit

The Indexing Summit is on!

The what? Earlier this year, I said it would be great to have some type of indexing summit, where search engines could hear and discuss ideas on what web site owners would like in terms how their content gets indexed.

I went forward with scheduling one for our upcoming SES New York show and just got a last confirmation for the panel. All four major crawlers, Yahoo, MSN Search, Google and Ask Jeeves, will be taking part -- and much thanks to all of them for stepping forward to participate.

Don't expect anything immediate to come out of the panel. It's unlikely that any new ideas will be suddenly embraced by all four then and there. But it is an opportunity to raise ideas for them to consider and hear some preliminary thoughts about why something might or might not be workable.

What type of ideas? Well...

• Wish you could control exactly what a search engine spiders, such as tagging content that should or should not be indexed, such as page navigational elements?
   
• Wish there was a way you could explain to a search engine that although you have five different domain name names that resolve to the same site, THIS domain name is the one you want used?
   
• Wish all the search engines agreed on what they will and will not index in terms of Flash, JavaScript, CSS and so on?
   
• Wish there was a paid support system where you could get express answers on indexing questions?

Those are just some of the ideas that might be put to the panel. Your help is needed to provide some other things you'd like. Please come over to this forum thread: Ideas For The Indexing Summit. There, I'll be mining the ideas that come out for good things to raise to the panel.

For those looking for more background, see:

• Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Developments With Consumer Search: Toward the end, I talk about some past wish list ideas marketers have suggested.
   
• Comment Spam? How About An Ignore Tag? How About An Indexing Summit!: My past article on why it would be useful to have such a summit.
   
• Google, Yahoo, MSN Unite On Support For Nofollow Attribute For Links: Covers the nofollow attribute that three of the major search engines recently agreed to, the first page-element specific control that web site owners have ever been given.
   
• Time For An Indexing Summit?: A forum thread now closed where the idea was discussed after my article. New ideas should go into the Ideas For The Indexing Summit thread.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on February 10, 2005 1:44 PM