Comments on: Newspaper headlines lost in Web translation

Eyecatching headlines in print can be invisible to search engines.

[E B]

Web is DIFFERENT

Hopefully newspapers -- or anyone who publishes material on the web -- will learn that the web is not the same as print.

In print, you have to worry about the length of your headline fitting nicely above the column width of the story. Online, there's no such concern.

In print, you already have a captive audience -- they've already picked up your paper, or at least looked at the cover, most likely on the day the paper was printed. Online, your headline has to grab them without the context of place or time.

Some in the media have learned that the Internet is not a print medium, and have changed their behavior. Others are still too scared of this "wild west" frontier, where anyone who can shout loudly can, potentially, get as much attention as the established media.

It's odd to still be noticing the differences between print and online nearly 20 years after news started appearing online with some regularity, but we'll likely still be having similar discussions 20 years from now.

[Guillaime]

It's A Useless Exercise

Mills and Spencer don't get it. They are saying that creativity should be subordinated to the needs of his company to easily index the web. He forgets that if I'm searching for a general term like "New York City" I really don't want to pull in the headline "Ford to city: Drop dead" as my search is still general. Shoot. Why not simply tag everything with the phrase "Pam Anderson" so everything is returned with every search?

[ntaori]

Why not index and tag the the entire story keywords?

Why not index and tag the entire story keywords? Why just look at the headline? The story would certainly have the right keywords that would match up with the search query. If not, there is a general need for intelligence (even in online only stories) to produce results based on synonyms or matching words.