Search: less is more

Good discussion on Directgov vs Directionlessgov on Alan Mather‘s blog. Francis Irving’s final word:

There’s a key point here that everyone’s missing… To me the pointed joke that directionlessgov is making is not that direct.gov should be licensing Google’s search.

It is that direct.gov should not exist at all - that in practice everybody types what they want to do into Google.

With the budget saved by axeing direct.gov, instead optimse text and titles on government websites. i.e. Do some Search Engine Optimisation. Run user tests to find the terms that people search for when wanting to do things that government can help them with. Arrange that Google, Yahoo and MSN searches for those terms take them to the correct site.

Published by William Heath on 25/11/05 at 2:12pm

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