Making Every Web Directory Useful…
Well, I’m sure not a relativist, especially when it comes to utility. Some things work better than others, some things are more useful than others.
You’d be surprised, though, at how much value you can get out of playing with a little e-resource even when its value appears dubious.
I was looking at a site - http://internethighschoolguide.com/ - which claims to be a directory for Online High School searchers [no doubt gearing up for that Florida ruling I heard about?].
There’s not a lot there right now. It’s mainly a PPC/directory that tags sites, RSS feeds, etc. and organizes them into categories - some clear and useful, some not.
I read a blog entry earlier that used the phrase “Internet School” and I thought, “I haven’t heard anyone use that phrase to brand distance education.” Doesn’t matter, though. It’s not the branding that matters so much, it’s pulling in searchers who use those keywords.
I click around this site for about 5 minutes and got to some places I otherwise wouldn’t have seen - just like a regular, not education-obsessed websearcher would. That reality check is an important one, especially when we’re used to that echo-chamber called the education blogosphere.
What we read daily isn’t always what the gen-pop are seeing when they search, and we’ve got to remember that.
Um… internethighschoolguide.com has got to be the worst URL ever. Did no one realize that the inadvertent creation of the word ‘thigh’ could have been averted with hypens? Or how about onlinehighschoolguide.com? The whole thing has got me totally distracted from the real issue. Sorry.
Angela,
Speaking of worst URLs ever, here are a few:
Mole Station Native Nursery in New South Wales, molestationnursery.com
Therapist Finder, therapistfinder.com
A speedy design firm… speedofart.com
And a Tahoe vacation site, gotahoe.com
Those are worse, I think. But you’re right - it’s not an optimal domain name and it isn’t one I would’ve chosen. That was the point of my post, that these are sites that pop up when normal people search.
We can pound away at the keyboard all day touting great teaching, school reform and/or positive steps to support both. If this site is what people see when they search - and not our sites - it doesn’t much matter.