This will be a busy weekend, and I’m not even attending one of the many conventions that are happening around the globe (though I was invited to one, a rare occurrence). It will be busy because of all the news that’s due: the Philip K. Dick award winner will be announced tonight; the British SF Assoc and IHG awards are due; the Hugo nominations are imminent. And news about a certain magazine that’s been discussed privately for a couple weeks is ready to go public. And I’ve got listings of recent magazines and books in work.
Some months ago I made a point of submitting Locus Online to Google News as a news source they should scan regularly for new stories, and they accepted. Meanwhile I’ve streamlined the format of the website so that most news items are only summarized on the homepage, blog fashion, using links to original sources wherever possible. Makes it easier for me to keep up to date. Trouble is that Google doesn’t recognize those items; it only recognizes stories that are posted on new pages, one per page. (It doesn’t pick up the items on my archive pages either.)
I noticed this today because my Google News Alert daily email on “science fiction” turned up the story about Interaction’s Website Hugo as posted on The Alien Online today, April 9. Hey, I posted it on Tuesday April 6! But Google didn’t see that. (And nor would anyone else, using Google to search for the story.) Hmm. Is it worth re-engineering my website (yet again) to enhance its visibility in this Googlized world? Or wait for Google’s search mechanisms to catch up? (If they do; there might be good reasons for not tracking single items on a blog-type page.)
