John Lazos presented on strategies for avoiding stale content. He discussed how stale content can hurt organizations and provided examples of content review processes from higher education and government. Specifically, he summarized Imperial College London's yearly review of their most popular pages and event-driven reviews. The National Archives guidelines include risk assessments and training staff on review processes. Lazos then outlined potential review strategies like setting review frequencies, designating content owners, and archiving outdated content. He finished with an overview of Cascade Server's current and planned features for stale content reviews.
2. About Me
Cascade Server Engineer
since December 2012
Prior Experience:
● BS Computer Science (Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute)
● 3+ years Software Engineering
Consultant
#csuc13 @hannon_hill
3. In This Hour
● Intro to Stale Content
● Content Review in Industry
○ Government
○ Higher Ed
#csuc13 @hannon_hill
• Review Strategies
Summary
• Stale Content in Cascade
o Walkthrough
o Feature Roadmap
11. In Higher Ed
● Content by semester, academic year
● Multiple content tiers
○ School
○ Department
○ Class
○ Student Organization
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12. In Higher Ed
Needing review:
● Academic calendars
•Course schedules
•Assignments
•Cafeteria menus
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13. Imperial College of London
From Maintaining the Currency of Web Content:
● Objectives
○ High visitor interest and retention
○ Consistency with College, department priorities
○ Consistent course information between
departments
○ Protection from legal action
#csuc13 @hannon_hill
14. Imperial College of London
● Content Manager
○ Responsible for specific sites or content
○ Approves content before publication
○ Monitors site traffic (site use and popularity)
○ Accepts feedback from visitors
○ Monitors for stale content
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15. Imperial College of London
● Review schedule
○ Review date-sensitive information daily
○ Review every 3 months:
■ 10 most popular pages
■ “All web pages that could form a contractual
relationship for Imperial College”
○ Review every 6 months:
■ 50 most popular pages
○ Conduct complete review every year
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20. Imperial College of London
● Faculty should review sites and report issues
to content manager
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21. In Government
Needing review:
● Policies and procedures
● Forms
● Meeting notes
● Online services
Federal regulations:
● National Archives
#csuc13 @hannon_hill
22. National Archives Guidelines
From NARA Guidance on Managing Web Records:
● Identify website
○ Publication repository
○ Limited communication tool
■ e.g. contact form
○ Query-based information access
○ On-demand services
■ e.g. public forum
#csuc13 @hannon_hill
23. National Archives Guidelines
● Perform risk assessment
How difficult is it to maintain:
○ Reliability
■ completeness, accuracy of content
○ Authenticity
■ written by subject matter expert
○ Integrity
■ audited, unaltered without approval
○ Usability
■ accessibility and communicability
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25. National Archives Guidelines
● Mitigate risk
○ Establish content review process(es)
○ Train staff
○ Put new and existing content under review process
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27. What To Review
● Accuracy of information
○ Text
○ Dates
○ Links
○ Images
● Audit logs
● Presentation, usability
● Search engine optimization
○ Freshness of content
○ Suspicious SEO practices
#csuc13 @hannon_hill
28. Periodic Content Reviews
● Set review frequency based on:
○ Content importance/popularity
○ Date-sensitivity of content
● Mark “Reviewed Date” on website
● “Event-driven” content reviews
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29. Content Ownership
An Owner is:
● Responsible for reviewing and maintaining
content
● Point of contact for content
● An individual or group
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30. Archiving Old Content
Preserve outdated content for historical
reference
Consider:
● When content should be archived
● When old archived content can be removed
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37. Feature Roadmap
● 7.4, 7.6 (current)
○ Overview chart
○ Date threshold filter
○ Actions
■ Notify by Email
■ Schedule Review
Date
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● In Development
○ Content ownership
○ Export CSV and other formats
● Planned
○ Advanced filtering
■ Path, folder
○ Exclude content
38. References
Maintaining the Currency of Web
Content
● http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/webguide/strate
NARA Guidance on Managing Web
Records
● http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/pdf/m
#csuc13 @hannon_hill
39. References
HowTo.gov: Keep Content Current
● http://www.howto.gov/web-content/manage/keep-content
Space Jam movie site
● http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/jam.htm
CNN Terms of Service
● http://www.cnn.com/interactive_legal.html
#csuc13 @hannon_hill
40. References
Google Panda + Penguin
● http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/mor
● https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=e
Google Privacy Policy
● https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/
RPI 2013 Academic Calendar
● http://www.rpi.edu/academics/calendar/
#csuc13 @hannon_hill
Notas do Editor
This is stale the moment you put it online
This page speaks for Warner Bros. What does it say about them? Fun fact. There ’ s actually a “ newer ” site at http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/ , but the top search result in Google is still this site.
Search Engine Optimization - Panda - filters out “ low-quality ” sites http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html - Penguin - filters out sites that use “ black hat SEO ” techniques https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en#3
Stale content speaks for you Misleading your viewers Legal troubles - “ by visiting this website ” binds you and user into contract SEO - stale content can lower your search engine ranks
Other examples of content that could go stale?
Policies center
“ Most popular pages ” -- Google Analytics Connector?
Things like weather or campus alerts should at least be reviewed daily, if not continuously, by those who are knowledgeable about the condition.
Reviewable at least before every term in the year, as needed for important events such as final exams. Any change made mid-year should be broadcast to the community.
the landing page is one of the most popular of any site -- should be reviewed at least every three months
This is a contractual document -- should be reviewed at least every three months
Four “ virtues ” of content How fast will any of these virtues start to slip if the content isn ’ t reviewed? Reliability - full and accurate information that can be depended upon Authenticity - written by an expert in the content or responsible party Integrity - complete and unaltered, maintained audit trail Usability - how accessible and communicable is the information
Reliability - schedule may change, especially as we get closer to the event Authenticity - Maintained by the people who set the schedule Integrity - Powered by Cascade, so all edits leave audit trail Usability - Tabular schedule data is a common interface and will be satisfactory for some time Highest risk: Maintaining reliability
Go by NARA ’ s virtues of reliability, authenticity, integrity, and usability: Accuracy of information, reviewed by a subject matter expert Audit logs to verify there were no unauthorized edits Usability -- just a quick glance regularly, but a more thorough site-wide usability review should be conducted every few years Search engine optimization - recommended for most popular pages - freshness of content affects page ranking - “ Black hat ” SEO practices such as link schemes, sneaky redirects lowers page ranking - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en#3 - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en#3
Date-sensitivity : how quickly will content go stale Reviewed date -- dates tell viewers how much they can rely on the information. “ Event-driven ” content reviews -- e.g. review a schedule before printing and distributing
Could put owner of content ’ s contact information right on the page