[Sigia-l] Web site A-Z indexes

[Heather Hedden]

Some professional indexers (traditionally for back-of-the-book print
alphabetical indexes) are interested in offering their contract indexing
services to create A-Z indexes for web sites and intranets. A Web Indexing
Special Interest Group of the American Society of Indexers has been
reactivated with a new web site http://www.web-indexing.org/ and a new
online discussion forum http://groups.yahoo.com/group/web-indexing/

Are information architects (and related web professionals) interested in
contracting professional indexers for such limited projects of creating A-Z
indexes? If not, why not? If yes, why don't we see more of this activity?

Admittedly A-Z indexes are not suitable for all site. They are best for
relatively static sites, or parts of sites that are somewhat static, sites
that are not too big (tens or hundreds of pages, not thousands), and for
sites with repeat visitors.

For clarification, A-Z indexes are not site maps. (A site map is more like a
table of contents, and the A-Z index is the index.) A-Z indexes are not
category taxonomies, even if the categories are arranged alphabetically at
each level. A-Z indexes aim at serving the same function as on-site search
engines, but with a greater precision in retrieval. There are some examples
on the SIG site: http://www.web-indexing.org/web-index-examples.htm

Heather Hedden
Web Indexing SIG Coordinator

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Hedden Information Management
Carlisle, MA
978-371-0822
Heather at Hedden.net
http://www.Hedden-Information.com