Yahoo Snippets, Part II

This is a follow-up to my old post from 13th June. I wondered about
Yahoo showing snippets in the SERPs that were taken from *another*
site. I have tried it myself and - much to my surprise - it worked.

I submitted my site to the Humbul Humanities Hub and received a very
favourable review of my site:
http://www.humbul.ac.uk/output/full2.php?id=12454

Now, when I search for "dance of Death" in Yahoo, my site comes up
with quotes from Humbul - i.e.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=dance+of+death will give the text
"The medieval dance of death This is an exhaustive and well-researched
study of the "Dance of the Dead" murals found across medieval Northern
Europe. It focusses on the mural from Lübeck (..." - a text which is
not present on my own site.

--
/Martin Hagstrøm
www.dodedans.com/Eindex.htm

"Martin Hagstr?m" <mha (AT) altavista (DOT) net> wrote


<snip>

I submitted my site to the Humbul Humanities Hub and received a very
favourable review of my site:
http://www.humbul.ac.uk/output/full2.php?id=12454

Nice long description!!

Now, when I search for "dance of Death" in Yahoo, my site comes up
with quotes from Humbul - i.e.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=dance+of+death will give the text
"The medieval dance of death This is an exhaustive and well-researched
study of the "Dance of the Dead" murals found across medieval Northern
Europe. It focusses on the mural from Lübeck (..." - a text which is
not present on my own site.

It is strange, but maybe they are getting the info from that page and maybe
feeds from Humbul. Because that other site's snippets was from Humbul.
Something like the DMOZ directory I noticed Google use to use that
description for the snippets, and it was listed on the sites.

It is strange though.

Stacey

--

Stacey's Simple Stuff
Rag Rugs - Home Decor Accessories- Crocheted Crafts
http://www.staceyssimplestuff.com

"Martin Hagstrøm" <mha (AT) NOSPAM (DOT) altavista.net> wrote

"Stacey" <stacey (AT) staceyssimplestuff (DOT) com> skrev i en meddelelse
news:hLl2d.41517$9Y5.35558 (AT) fed1read02 (DOT) ..

Nice long description!!

Yes, and now my site can be found for those words. E.g.: if you search
"exhaustive and well-researched"
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=exhaustive+and+well-researched> my site
turns
up (#2 when I try it) even though those words don't appear on my page.


It is strange, but maybe they are getting the info from that page and
maybe
feeds from Humbul. Because that other site's snippets was from Humbul.
Something like the DMOZ directory I noticed Google use to use that
description for the snippets, and it was listed on the sites.

I don't recall seing dmoz-descriptions on Google. Do you have an example?
Or is
it a thing of the past?

It was awhile ago. So, I don't have any examples. So, it appears that Yahoo
has a full description in it's data from Humbul for that page. Hmm.

Stacey

"Stacey" <stacey (AT) staceyssimplestuff (DOT) com> wrote in message

It was awhile ago. So, I don't have any examples. So, it appears that Yahoo
has a full description in it's data from Humbul for that page. Hmm.

As Head of Humbul I find this to be an interesting thread ;-)

It is almost accidental that Yahoo displays snippets from Humbul's
descriptions of web sites. It happens like this:

Humbul supports an OAI metadata repository (see
http://www.openarchives.org/) for internal use which contains our
record collection in Dublin Core/XML.

As an experiment we permitted OAIster in July to harvest our metadata
for re-presentation within their search service (see
http://www.oaister.org/o/oaister/).

OAIster happens to have a partnership with Yahoo which permits Yahoo
to index OAIster's metadata as part of their search service (see
http://www.umich.edu/news/?Releases/2004/Mar04/r031004). What you are
seeing on Yahoo is not some combination of Yahoo's web indexing
conjoined with data from Humbul, but rather Humbul's descriptive
record which happens to include a link to the web site in the
Identifier field. If you search Yahoo further I am sure you will find
other metadata records originating from other providers harvested by
OAIster.

As you might imagine this process is not wholly satisfactory to us
since any reference to Humbul is lost once the metadata gets reused by
Yahoo (hence the confusion expressed in this thread). As a result we
are about to launch a 'public' repository which more effectivly
maintains (or 'forces') the link between the catalogued resource and
the Humbul Humanities Hub.

I should note that we are keen for our metadata to be reused
independently of our own search/browse interfaces and I am sure that
Google, for example, will enter into similar partnerships with
so-called 'hidden web' services. However, we are a publicly-funded
service in the UK and we need to be able to maintain a profile and
evidence of usage to satisfy our funding bodies and supporting
institution.

I hope this helps clarify why data from Humbul is appearing in Yahoo.

Best wishes,

Michael
--
Dr Michael Fraser
Co-ordinator, Research Technologies Service & Head of Humbul
Oxford University Computing Services
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/rts/
http://www.humbul.ac.uk/

"Michael Fraser" <google (AT) metre (DOT) org> wrote

"Stacey" <stacey (AT) staceyssimplestuff (DOT) com> wrote in message

It was awhile ago. So, I don't have any examples. So, it appears that
Yahoo
has a full description in it's data from Humbul for that page. Hmm.

As Head of Humbul I find this to be an interesting thread ;-)

It is almost accidental that Yahoo displays snippets from Humbul's
descriptions of web sites. It happens like this:

Humbul supports an OAI metadata repository (see
http://www.openarchives.org/) for internal use which contains our
record collection in Dublin Core/XML.

As an experiment we permitted OAIster in July to harvest our metadata
for re-presentation within their search service (see
http://www.oaister.org/o/oaister/).

OAIster happens to have a partnership with Yahoo which permits Yahoo
to index OAIster's metadata as part of their search service (see
http://www.umich.edu/news/?Releases/2004/Mar04/r031004). What you are
seeing on Yahoo is not some combination of Yahoo's web indexing
conjoined with data from Humbul, but rather Humbul's descriptive
record which happens to include a link to the web site in the
Identifier field. If you search Yahoo further I am sure you will find
other metadata records originating from other providers harvested by
OAIster.

As you might imagine this process is not wholly satisfactory to us
since any reference to Humbul is lost once the metadata gets reused by
Yahoo (hence the confusion expressed in this thread). As a result we
are about to launch a 'public' repository which more effectivly
maintains (or 'forces') the link between the catalogued resource and
the Humbul Humanities Hub.

I should note that we are keen for our metadata to be reused
independently of our own search/browse interfaces and I am sure that
Google, for example, will enter into similar partnerships with
so-called 'hidden web' services. However, we are a publicly-funded
service in the UK and we need to be able to maintain a profile and
evidence of usage to satisfy our funding bodies and supporting
institution.

I hope this helps clarify why data from Humbul is appearing in Yahoo.

Best wishes,

Michael
--
Dr Michael Fraser
Co-ordinator, Research Technologies Service & Head of Humbul
Oxford University Computing Services
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/rts/
http://www.humbul.ac.uk/

Yes, it does thank you. I was thinking there had to be a data feed
somewhere.

Stacey
--

Stacey's Simple Stuff
Rag Rugs - Home Decor Accessories- Crocheted Crafts
http://www.staceyssimplestuff.com