advanced taxonomy for content strategists

Advanced Taxonomyfor Content Strategists5/14/14

TAXONOMY AT SAPIENTNITROOn a mission to accurately and dynamically deliver the world’s

digital content.

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CONTENTS

1. Taxonomy Refresher

2. Building the Taxonomy

3. Preparing for Ingestion

4. Using the Taxonomy

01TAXONOMY REFRESHER

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IS IT A TAXONOMY?

A taxonomy is a tangled hierarchy of terms that lives in the back-end of a content management system/PCM/etc.

It powers the user-facing systems such as the primary navigation, faceted navigation, search, merchandising, and related content.

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IS IT A TAXONOMY?

A taxonomy has four primary characteristics:

Nested HierarchyIt is organized into a nested hierarchy. This means the tags/instances can have both parents (broader terms) and children (narrower terms).

Unique TagsEach tag is unique. It can have multiple parents, but each tag exists only once.

Maintained in Back-endThe taxonomy is built and maintained in the back-end, and will talk to the content management system. Site users probably won’t see much of it!

SynchronizationThe taxonomy is in sync with (but usually does not mirror) all of a site’s content, including navigation, products, and attributes.

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IS IT A TAXONOMY? NOT REALLY.Navigation/Sitemap

is meant to be user-facing, what most people would see as a website’s primary navigation; it is often synonymous with the sitemap. However, the navigational interface is separate from the back-end taxonomy, and it can change at any time – while the taxonomy driving it remains stable. It can be created from the back-end taxonomy if appropriate (usually for product heavy sites), but it is not the actual taxonomy.

Faceted Navigation

lives in both worlds: sometimes they mirror the back-end taxonomy as is, and sometimes they are curated for a custom interface. However, like the navigational taxonomy, the difference in definition is an important distinction: it should be created from the taxonomy, but it in and of itself is not the taxonomy.

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IS IT A TAXONOMY? NOT REALLY.Metadata

is system data that lives in the code. It usually includes the tags associated with each piece of content, as well as data such as description, keywords, author, modification timestamp, size, file type, referring URL, etc.

Attributes

are objective data points that are automatically associated with the content. For example, attributes for a book would be ISBN, author, and year published. The taxonomy would cover things like subject/genre.

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WHAT CAN A TAXONOMY DO?The main goal of the back-end taxonomy is to power the rest of the site’s experiences dynamically and flexibly. This includes:

• Merchandising• Related Content• Personalization• Search• Navigation• Faceted Navigation

The structure of the taxonomy allows these front-end systems to be modified at will and still be powered by the existing taxonomy.

We’ll explore these in detail later, but keep this in mind as we talk about structure.

02BUILDING THE TAXONOMY

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These are true parents and children, not browse paths or desired navigation.

When trying to decide if something is a parent or child, think about paint and color. In a taxonomy, “blue” would only be under “color,” because it’s not actually a paint type. In a navigation, it’s fine to put “blue” under “paint” and/or “color.”

WILDLIFEACTIVITES

FISHING

WATER RECSPORTS

THINGS TO DO

OUTDOORS & NATURE

FRESH WATER FISHING

SALT WATER FISHING

BACK BAY FISHING

DEEP SEA FISHING

STRUCTURE

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STRUCTUREUse either Excel or Word, whichever everyone can best understand (you can always import the Word doc into Excel for the build).

Show nesting in one column. The client often has a difficult time understanding the nesting when each level is in a separate column.

Go as deeply or as shallow as the topic demands. There is no way to create an accurate taxonomy of “x levels deep.”

Usually only one instance is shown, with other parents noted. Showing all instances gets confusing and is very difficult to keep accurate.

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SYNONYMS

WILDLIFEACTIVITES

FISHING

WATER REC

SPORTS

THINGS TO DO

OUTDOORS & NATURE

FRESH WATER FISHING

SALT WATER FISHING

BACK BAY FISHING

DEEP SEA FISHING

Synonyms are needed for anything that the search engine will not be able to match.

<has synonym>ACTIVITIES

ANIMALS<has synonym>

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SYNONYMSSynonyms can either be in their own column (Excel) or in brackets next to primary term (Word). If in brackets, be sure to distinguish them from related terms and other parents.

Do not include misspellings, since those are generally covered by the search engine.

You only need to capture the relationship in one direction. They’ll automatically be captured both ways by the system.

Work with the analytics and marketing teams. This is a great opportunity to use existing data (such as site search traffic or industry lingo) to make your job easier.

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RELATEDTERMS

WILDLIFEACTIVITES

FISHING

WATER REC

SPORTS

THINGS TO DO

OUTDOORS & NATURE

FRESH WATER FISHING

SALT WATER FISHING

BACK BAY FISHING

DEEP SEA FISHING

Related terms aren’t parents, children, or synonyms – they’re just two things that are likely to be of interest as a pair.

CRABBING<is related to>

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RELATEDTERMS

Related terms can either be in their own column (Excel) or in brackets next to the primary term (Word). If in brackets, be sure to distinguish them from the synonyms and other parents.

You only need to capture the relationship in one direction. They’ll automatically be captured both ways by the system.

This can vary significantly by client. An ecommerce site might not want to make “fishing” and “kayaking” related terms, but a travel site probably would.

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SEMANTICRELATIONSHIPS

WILDLIFEACTIVITES

FISHING

WATER REC

SPORTS

THINGS TO DO

OUTDOORS & NATURE

FRESH WATER FISHING

SALT WATER FISHING

BACK BAY FISHING

DEEP SEA FISHING

“Semantic” is a more specific form of related terms. It means there is a defined relationship.

PANAMA CITY<is native to>

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SEMANTICRELATIONSHIPS

It is generally more efficient to connect these directly in the taxonomy manager. However, if you want to document these ahead of time or import them, it generally calls for a separate, three-column document listing: tags | all of the possible relationships | tags.

You only need to capture the relationship in one direction. They’ll automatically be captured both ways by the system, but work make sure the terminology makes sense in both directions. You can always set a converse phrase (i.e. <is popular in> becomes <is known for> in the opposite direction).

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P. DIDDY

has been involved with

Jennifer Lopez

has synonym

Puff Daddy

has synonym

JLo

has been involved with

Kim Porter

has synonym

Sean Combs

has synonym

Sean John

has synonym

Citizen Combs

ACTOR DESIGNERMUSICIAN PRODUCER

PEOPLE

has child with Kim Porter

has worked with Mary J. Blige

NOW THAT’S A TAXONOMY!

03PREPARING FOR INGESTION

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URIsA URI is like a URL, but it’s not live anywhere. It’s the tag’s unique footprint, and contains all of the information about parent classes.

Most CMSs (including Adobe CQ) can ingest a taxonomy in this format. This is the how to get a taxonomy into a CMS when 1) there is no taxonomy manager and 2) the developer cannot do it automatically.

If there is a taxonomy manager, the tags will still have URIs; they’ll just get created by the system.

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URIsHow do you create these URIs?

/etc/tags/vf/vfglobal/categories/things-to-do/outdoors-nature/wildlife/fishing

Misc info the client might need – not mandatory

Parent classes – ALL have to be included in order to return proper

results

Actual tag

is

Specific for

Adobe CQ

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URIsIf there is more than one parent class, then create more than one URI.

1. - /etc/tags/vf/vfglobal/categories/things-to-do/sports/fishing2. - /etc/tags/vf/vfglobal/categories/things-to-do/outdoors-nature/wildlife/fishing3. - /etc/tags/vf/vfglobal/categories/things-to-do/outdoors-nature/water-recreation/fishing

would be

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MAPPINGWhen a client has existing tags or works with a third party vendor, simply map the current tags/categories/fields to the new tags (at the lowest level).

Existing taxonomy New taxonomy

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MAPPINGThis method also works best for temporary collections or topic pages. Instead of creating new tags and re-tagging content, create the desired results by mapping existing tags.

Existing taxonomy

“Inspiration” collections

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INGESTIONThe final format of the spreadsheet will vary based on the CMS (so always talk to the developers first), but here’s everything together in a standard Adobe CQ template.

04USING THE TAXONOMY

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TAXONOMY & TAGGING STRATEGY

TAXONOMY USE CASE EXAMPLEFood & Drinks

FOOD AND DRINKS

LIFE AND STYLE

HEALTH

COURSE TOPICS

NUTRITION

ALCOHOL

DIET

WINE SPIRITS AND COCKTAILS

COOKING

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TAXONOMY & TAGGING STRATEGYStrategyUse a combination of multiple tags (like a math formula!) to create custom, on-the-fly collections

Business RulesSet up the formula to include the lowest level of tags for content you want to pull in: i.e. Medieval + Wars + Cooking = Cooking During Medieval Times Upheaval

ExampleTopic Page: Renaissance Art History

with a 3-tag match

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TAXONOMY& TAGGINGSTRATEGYStrategyUse common tags to make recommendations, showing what would be most relevant to the customer based on browsing or past purchases

Business RulesSet modules to match a decreasing number of tags: i.e. surface any products with 3 matching tags first, then 2, then 1, then category level

ExampleRecommended For You, with a 2-tag match

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TAXONOMY & TAGGINGSTRATEGYStrategyUse tags to populate the facets, keeping results up-to-date and more accurate

Business RulesSet facets to return desired set of tags and data points: can be either one tag or a combination formula

ExampleSample facets, including what would power their results

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AppendixSome sites powered by awesome taxonomies! (It’s almost impossible to know this by looking at the site as a user.)

People tags all of their articles and photos so that they can dynamically generate collections about any celeb. Martha Stewart tags all of their articles and recipes, allowing for aggregation across seasons, topics, or products.

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AppendixDoes it involve dead

animals?Not a taxonomy! That’s taxidermy.

YES

NO Is it the way people find things on a website? YES Is it at the top of the

page, and sometimes called “navigation”?

YES Not a taxonomy! That’s a sitemap.

NO

Is it a bunch of tags that anyone can make up?

YESNot a taxonomy!

That’s a folksonomy.

NOIs it a bunch of tags in a nested hierarchy?YES

NO

Is it a taxonomy??

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AppendixThe taxonomy used for this presentation: https://vox.sapient.com/docs/DOC-97462

Taxonomy 101 (for the education of clients or internal teams): https://vox.sapient.com/docs/DOC-92337

An entire taxonomy repository will soon be available on SNETR!

© 2013 SAPIENT CORPORATION | CONFIDENTIAL

QUESTIONS?

© 2013 SAPIENT CORPORATION | CONFIDENTIAL

THANK YOU

DAWN BOVASSOAssociate Creative Director, Content Strategy—SapientNitro131 Dartmouth St / 3rd FLBoston, MA 02116M: 617.840.9444