Best Practices For Project Web Sites

Based on experiences from previous programmes

Brian Kelly

UK Web Focus

UKOLN

University of Bath

UKOLN is supported by:

EmailB.Kelly@ukoln.ac.ukURLhttp://www.ukoln.ac.uk/

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What Happens When The Funding Stops?When the project funding finishes:

The project gracefully turns into a fully-fledged service, with new funding from JISC, the EU, your institution, etc.

The project staff all leave and the Web site is shut down, is moved and can’t be found, or is broken and there is no-one with the interest, expertise or permissions to fix it

An aim of this talk is to consider ways to help your project migrate to an ongoing service, or to minimise disruption if additional funding is not forthcoming

An aim of this talk is to consider ways to help your project migrate to an ongoing service, or to minimise disruption if additional funding is not forthcoming

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Contents

• We’ve Been Here Before• Web-Based Dissemination• News Feeds• Standards• Mirroring, Migration & Preservation• Monitoring & Benchmarking• Thoughts on Browsers • Conclusions

Web Site Dissemination

Embedding Web Service

You want people to know about your project – but you also want your project deliverables to be embedded within institutions

You want people to know about your project – but you also want your project deliverables to be embedded within institutions

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We’ve Been Here Before

Who remembers:

CTI Projects• CBL applications locked into obsolete hardware

TLTP Projects• CBL developers using Toolbook on standalone

PC, which could not be deployed on campus LAN

eLib Projects• Web sites disappear• Other issues (Stephen Pinfield’s talk)

EU Programmes• …

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Survey of EU Web Sites

WebWatching Telematics For Libraries Project Web Sites (Fourth Framework)

• Exploit Interactive article published in Oct 2000• Web site availability:

• Server details:Apache – 41 IIS – 10 NCSA – 3 Netscape – 3 Other – 6 (e.g. Mac, GN)

• See <http://www.exploit-lib.org/issue7/webwatch/>

Yes Never Domain PageGone Gone

65 16 11 12

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Survey of eLib Web Sites

WebWatching eLib Project Web Sites• Ariadne article published in Jan 2001• Of 71 Web sites, 3 domains no longer available

and 2 entry points have gone• LinkPopularity.com results shown:• Survey also includes:

Analysis of entry points (links, HTML, accessibility)

Nos. of pages indexed by AltaVista- 0 in some cases

Due to robots.txt fileDue to frames interface or other robots barrier

• See <http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue26/web-watch/>

SOSIG 7,076OMNI 5,830EEVL 3,865History 2,605Netskills 2,363Ariadne 2,144…

xxx ~10

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Web Site Promotion

You want:• Your quality pages to be found in a timely fashion

by users of search engines• To encourage others to link to you

To ensure this happens you should:• Have a domain and URL naming policy• Exploit the Robots Exclusion Protocol • Be aware of barriers to robots (which may also be

barriers to humans)• Think about a linking policy and procedures

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URL Naming Policy

Issues:• Having your own domain is a good idea

(e.g. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/)• Short URLs are good (more memorable;

search engines tend not to index deeply) • Sub-domains may be a useful compromise

(e.g. http://ariadne.bath.ac.uk/)• Keep URLs short by using directory defaults:

www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue5/metadata/intro.htmwww.ariadne.ac.uk/issue5/metadata/

Shorter, less prone to typos and allows for format and language negotiation, new server management tools, etc

…/issue5/metadata/intro.fr.html…/issue5/metadata/intro.pdf (.cfm, .asp, .jsp)

www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue5/metadata/intro.htmwww.ariadne.ac.uk/issue5/metadata/

Shorter, less prone to typos and allows for format and language negotiation, new server management tools, etc

…/issue5/metadata/intro.fr.html…/issue5/metadata/intro.pdf (.cfm, .asp, .jsp)

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Planning Search Engine StrategyYou search for your project name and find a personal page of a former colleague with informal information To avoid this:

• Distinguish between (a) initial information about the project (b) information for project partners, funders, etc. and (c) information for end user

• Use search engine techniques to: Ban search engines from indexing certain

pages Promote other pages

as appropriate

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Robots

Make use of the Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP) to ban robots from indexing :

• Non-public areas (e.g. area for partners)• Pre-release Web sites• Pages prior to an official launch

Remember to switch off ban after launch!User-agent: *Disallow: /partnersDisallow: /draft

/robots.txt in Web root

Note that use of directories to group related resources will have many benefits: controlling indexing robots, mirroring and auditing software, etc.

Note that use of directories to group related resources will have many benefits: controlling indexing robots, mirroring and auditing software, etc.

Note:

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Other Barriers To IndexingOther barriers to indexing robots:Frames

Most search engines can’t index framesets and rely on appropriate <NOFRAMES> tags

Flash (and other proprietary formats) Most search engines can’t index proprietary formats

Poorly implemented JavaScript pages Search engines may not have JavaScript interpreters and

can’t index text generated by JavaScript

Poorly implemented user-agent negotiation (client-or server-side)

Most search engines don’t have a Netscape or IE user-agent string and so will index “Upgrade to Netscape”

Invalid HTML Pages Search engines may not be as tolerant of HTML errors as

Web browsers

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Accessibility

• Robots have similarities to the visually impaired

• Good design for robots is likely to be good design for people with disabilities (and vice versa)

• Make use of Bobby (both versions) to check accessibility – see <http://www.cast.org/bobby/>

You should formulate plans for making your Web site search-engines friendly and accessible

You should formulate plans for making your Web site search-engines friendly and accessible

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Other Ways Of Dissemination

Users find your Web site by:• Search engines• Following a link• Entering a URL which they found on a mouse mat,

pen, in an article, etcLinks to your Web site are valuable as they:

• Drive traffic to your Web site• Improve ranking in citation-based search engines

such as AltaVistaPossible problems with links:

• “Link-spamming services” • Being in the “Web sites that suck” portal• Resources needed to encourage linking

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Encouraging Links

You can:• Submit to directories (e.g. Yahoo!)• Use directory (and search engine) submission

services• Have clear entry points with static URLs for key

menu pages• Think about who you want to link to you and why

they would do so• Target them and think of motivation (e.g.

attractive small icon)• Monitor trends in links (e.g. try <http://www.linkpopularity.com/>)

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Monitoring

You may find it useful to:• Monitor the status of your Web site

Nos. of pages indexed. Nos. of links to your Web site Accessibility of your Web site Compliance with standards Downtime of the service

• Monitor trends Do the findings change over time / after dissemination

• Compare your findings with your peers Comparison with other projects Comparison with other institutions Comparison with other communities

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Monitoring

Many evaluation tools and Web services are available (some for free)

See <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/pub-lib-2000/workshop/> for exercises from Auditing and Evaluating Web Sites workshop (and new workshop next week)

See <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/pub-lib-2000/workshop/> for exercises from Auditing and Evaluating Web Sites workshop (and new workshop next week)

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Embedding Your Service

So you’ve now:• Produced a high-quality Web site which is easily

found, well-linked and accessible

What Next?• You may want institutions to install your service• You may want institutions to install scripts which

integrate with your service• You may want institutions to install software on

users’ desktop PCs

Your project may simply be a proof-of-concept, and you aren’t too concerned about deployment. But what if your project is so good that others want to deploy it?

Your project may simply be a proof-of-concept, and you aren’t too concerned about deployment. But what if your project is so good that others want to deploy it?

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Standards, Architectures, Applications, Resources

Let’s agree on the standards and be agnostic on the applications used to implement the standards, provided services are interoperable

Architectures: models for implementing systemsArchitectures: models for implementing systems

Applications: software products used to implement systems

Applications: software products used to implement systems

Standards: concerned with protocols and file formatsStandards: concerned with protocols and file formats

Open standards vs. Proprietary HTML / XML vs. PDFCSS / XSL vs. HTML

Which standards are applicableNT / UnixFile system / database applicationHTML tools / content management

Apache / IISFrontPage / DreamweaverOracle / SQLServer / MySQLColdFusion vs ASP vs JSP

Development vs. Migration costsUse of in-house expertiseIn-house vs. out-sourced Licensed vs. open source

Resources: financial and staff costs needed to implement systems

Resources: financial and staff costs needed to implement systems

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Barriers to EmbeddingIn order to persuade institutions to deploy your service:

• You will have to convince the SysAdmin your software:

Doesn’t have security holes Won’t degrade the performance of the service Won’t require updates to any system libraries Won’t require any reconfiguration of server software Will be maintained and is adequately documented Is worth him (usually) spending his time on the work

• You may have to convince the IT Service’s management

• You may need buy-in from the user of your service (e.g. the Library)

How big a barrier do you think this will be?

How big a barrier do you think this will be?

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RDN-Include – A Case Study

Subject gateways (such as SOSIG & EEVL) are successful but institutions:

• May feel they are taking users off-site• May feel that they should be doing (or seen to

be doing) the job locally• Feel that their users will be disoriented by

leaving the local look-and-feel (landscape)

RDN-Include was developed: • To allow institutions to provide access to RDN

hubs using the institution’s own look-and-feel and URL

Short paper on this work given at WWW 10. See <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/papers/www10/>

Short paper on this work given at WWW 10. See <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/papers/www10/>

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RDN-Include and RDNi-Lite

RDN-Include was developed:• As a CGI script written in Perl• Requires the institution to install the CGI• Requires the RDN to update its tables

RDNi-Lite was developed:• To provide a lightweight alternative to RDNi• To allow the service to be tried and

implemented by an HTML author• Implemented using JavaScript• See <http://www.rdn.ac.uk/rdn-i/>

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<script type="text/javascript" src= "http://www.rdn.ac.uk/rdn-i/cgi-bin/rdnilite.cgi?tags=RDNTEXT,RDNLIST&amp;template=http://www.mmu.ac.uk/services/library/rdni/rdnitemplate.html"></script>It’s implemented using a

single line of JavaScript

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News Feeds

Providing automated news feeds which can be included in third party Web site with no manual intervention is a good way to support dissemination

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Extension to News Feeds

The RDN:• Wants to provide news feeds about developments

by RDN hubs• It’s using the RSS standard for news feeds (and

XML/RDF application)• A CGI-based RSS parser (and authoring tool) has

been created• To allow potential users to try it out easily, a

JavaScript parser has also been written• See <http://rssxpress.ukoln.ac.uk/>

Can this (slightly) heavyweight CGI solution complemented by a lightweight JavaScript solution be used within your project?

Can this (slightly) heavyweight CGI solution complemented by a lightweight JavaScript solution be used within your project?

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Mirroring and Preservation

Another way to embed your service remotely is for it to be mirrored:

• Use of Web mirroring software to install service at another location (e.g. overseas to overcome network bandwidth problems or behind a firewall)

• Issues about whether you are mirroring output from a service or the service itself (affected by push vs pull mode of mirroring)

• JISC, for example, may wish to mirror your service in order to preserve it (once funding runs out and everyone leaves)

Note that you may wish to mirror only the project deliverables Web site, and not the Web site for partners or the Web site about the project – another reason for having separate Web sites

Note that you may wish to mirror only the project deliverables Web site, and not the Web site for partners or the Web site about the project – another reason for having separate Web sites

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BenchmarkingYou are responsible for designing architecture of your Web site and monitoring its effectivenessCertain things may be best done centrally:

• Ensuring compliance with contractual agreements (Web site still exists, conforms with accessibility guidelines, etc.)

• Benchmarks across programme in order to make comparisons, spot best practices, identify where advice & guidance is needed, etc.

• Not intended as league tables (projects will have different funding levels, remits, communities, levels of visibility, etc.)

Plans to produce a briefing document on “Web Portal Guidelines For Programme Coordinators” for JISC (and EU?)

Plans to produce a briefing document on “Web Portal Guidelines For Programme Coordinators” for JISC (and EU?)

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Words On Browser Support

The aim:• Services would degrade gracefully for old

browsers

This has not happened My concern - Can I make assumptions about:

• Frames & JavaScript support?• Support for CSS (stylesheets)• Browser plugins (eg Flash)?• …

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Words On Browser Support

Possible solutions:• Design for mid-1990s Web technologies• Client-side (JavaScript) user-agent sniffing• Server-side (e.g. PHP, JSP, ASP) user-agent

sniffing• Design assuming support for current standards

Should JISC aim to define minimum browser standards? Note:• Design of richly functional, accessible services using flawed 1990s

applications is difficult• Pre 4.7 versions of Netscape are no longer supported (security concerns

– see <http://home.netscape.com/cms/certinfo.html>)• Netscape moving out of browser market? See

<http://browserwatch.internet.com/news/stories2001/news-20010606-1.html>

Should JISC aim to define minimum browser standards? Note:• Design of richly functional, accessible services using flawed 1990s

applications is difficult• Pre 4.7 versions of Netscape are no longer supported (security concerns

– see <http://home.netscape.com/cms/certinfo.html>)• Netscape moving out of browser market? See

<http://browserwatch.internet.com/news/stories2001/news-20010606-1.html>

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Conclusions

To conclude:• Make plans for the architecture of your Web

service (URL naming, mirrorability, dissemination, etc.) at the start

• Monitor aspects of your Web service • Design your service so that it can be embedded

in other institutions (which will have different cultures, resource levels and priorities to your own)

• Don’t forget the people issues (liaison, listening, etc.) not covered in this talk