From Geoff Hart


Interesting, but I have to pick a nit: the closest we come to seeing the word "index" is in the idea of a "content inventory". But the difference between an inventory and an index is important: an index represents a human's (indexer's) attempt to re-express and label the content in terms that people other than the author will use. Having grown increasingly frustrated with "search only" strategies, I have to say that it's time to start reinventing the wheel, and bring back indexes.

Needless to say, I haven't taken my own advice (on my own Web site). (grin) When I first created it, the goal was to dump everything online in relatively accessible form, and that consumed all my free time. I made a conscious decision to postpone indexing until later, so of course it never happened. About the closest I've come is to organize the articles by topic category (e.g., editing), which is a poor proxy for true keywording. There's an increasingly dusty "to do" item on my calendar asking me to devote a weekend to creating keywords for 300+ articles. Some day!