This article is from the January 2004 issue of Update.
What do you think about Wikipedia? I'm not sure that I'm confident about recommending it. I know a 14-year-old who likes it and says he has even contributed an item. This rather puts me off, although the concept of a 'complete and accurate free content encyclopedia' appeals to the librarian in me. Wait and see?
The Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/ is 'a multilingual project to create a complete and accurate free content encyclopedia'. The strength of the project is that anyone can write or amend articles on subjects of their choice. That of course means that (at least in theory) the articles should be authoritative and accurate. However, in practice this may not be the case. I've read a few articles myself, but haven't found them particularly impressive, though of course that could just be me. It's a nice idea but, as you say, I'd be inclined to 'wait and see'.
I have a website for my business with its own domain name. How do I get the site recognised by the search engines? I have tried submitting the site to Google but have had no luck. The only way I can see at the moment is paying more than £70 to place the site with Inktomi.
Depends what you mean by 'recognised' really. If you mean 'located by their spiders and visited and then indexed' that's one thing. If you mean 'get a good ranking when people run searches' that's an entirely different issue. It's not necessary to pay the majority of search engines to register your site (although some may require payment for commercial sites); you simply need to visit your search engines of choice and click on the link that says 'Add URL' or 'Add my site' or similar. Follow the on-screen instructions and the search engine will send its spider program to visit your pages and index them. However, this may take a long time - several months in fact. You can, however, pay for faster indexing, but as you say, this can be expensive. It's also possible to pay various companies to do this job for you, but if you're looking to save money, it's easy to do it yourself and shouldn't take more than a day, if that.
I have enjoyed a great many of your website recommendations. In fact, some would say I enjoy them rather too much. My boss, for example. I don't suppose you know of any websites that list excuses I could give when I have spent far too much time on the internet? Failing that, an admission of your part in my distraction may help.
Well, I've never had a question quite like this one before. I do sympathise - it's very difficult not to spend a few minutes looking at 'interesting' sites that have little to do with the matter in hand. However, being information professionals we're never quite sure of when a snippet of information might come in useful, so you could always try that line. Failing that, visit www.anvari.org/fun/Misc/Best_Excuses_If_Your_Boss_
Catches_You.htm which may give you a few other ideas.
Site of the month
My site of the month is Kelkoo (www.kelkoo.co.uk/) and it's a shopping search engine. Given that I'm writing this in early December I'm using the internet to hunt down some good bargains. Kelkoo searches a range of resources to find the best prices for the product that I'm interested in, and provides me with links to the site. It's fast and accurate and what's more - saves me money!
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Phil Bradley is an internet consultant, trainer, web designer and author. Visit www.philb.com for free information on internet introductions, search engine articles, web design tips and a host of other free information. Recently published: Getting and Staying Noticed on the Web. New: visit Phil's Weblog (www.philb.com/blog/blogger.html)! If you have any questions about the internet send an email to philb@philb.com with the subject header 'column query'.