Harvesting
An automated, machine-to-machine process, but different to web crawling
The harvesting process gathers data using structured XML, so it can gather data from metadata fields, e.g. author, title, date etc.
- Check if your chosen software is compliant with and supports the relevant standards and protocols
- OAI-PMH, SRU, RSS are all examples of protocol standards
- Speak to your institutions technical team about harvesting content using RSS
IESR Information Environment Service Registry
IESR provides access to an up-to-date catalogue of digital resource collections and information on how to access them. Use IESR to contribute your own digital collections and make them more visible. Take a look at the IESR case studies to see how you could use this resource to promote your collections more widely.
Search Engine Optimisation
Search engines index sites using programs called ‘robots’ or ‘bots’. The Google robot is called ‘Googlebot’. Robots index websites page by page and are sometimes referred to as ‘web crawlers’ and ‘spiders'.
To attract robots static links, text links and most image links are good but avoid using dynamic links. Links accessed via buttons are usually not picked up (e.g. Javascript)
and any links that require typing in information to access content won't be picked up.
