tags and searching (was Re: [uf-discuss] Greetings microformatters)

[Ryan King]

On Nov 30, 2005, at 12:26 PM, Ryan Cannon wrote:

>> As Chris already meantioned, see http://microformats.org/wiki/rel-
>> directory. Also, see http://microformats.org/wiki/rel-tag.
>
> Looking at the ideas behind rel-tag and rel-directory, I think  
> we're close. But these systems seem a little too democratic to be  
> well implemented for searching, because entity creating the link is  
> defining the "tag" and not the entity creating the document.

Huh?

rel-tag is for self-tagging. For tagging arbitrary urls, you need  
xFolk or hReview.

>>> Search for words: "Disney"
>>> In websites about: "Tourism"
>>> and not about: "Stores OR Merchandise"
>>
>> Please excuse the gratuitous mention of my employer, but you can do
>> this on technorati already. For example, this search will give you
>> [most of] what you ask for:
>>
>> http://technorati.com/search/disney?blogtag=tourism
>
> Theoretically a search for
>
> http://example.com/search/pepsi?tag=crap
>
> would turn up www.pepsi.com if a Coca-Cola web site (or a blogger,  
> organic food sponsor, random terrorist) included a link on their  
> site such as <a href="http://www.pepsi.com" rel="tag">crap</a>.

No, if this theoretical search engine were like technorati's  
implementation, it would turn up "things that mention pepsi and are  
about crap".

> What the Internet lacks is the ability for a site to define its  
> genre or subject matter, to say, "this is who I am!".

Um, I think you've got things backwards here. rel-tag and rel- 
directory are for precisely this purpose (as were meta-keywords, but  
those have problems).

First of all, <a href="http://www.pepsi.com" rel="tag">crap</a> is  
invalid, because the tag is the last component of the uri, not the  
linktext.

Second, assuming the previous link were valid, ie the url was http:// 
www.pepsi.com/crap, it would be tagging the document which contains  
that link as "crap," not pepsi.com.

-ryan
--
Ryan King
ryan at technorati.com