Trusting intranet sites to improve search results

Photo by Eric Ziegler

Authority of a site or page is crucial for determining how a page or a site will show up in search results. That is the case for the internet and that is the case for enterprise intranets.  So, how do you measure the authority of a page or site in an intranet? Can the interactions of employees on sites help determine the authority of a site? How much does trust play in the role of authority? If the employees trust the page, should that have an impact on the authority rank of the site? Can you measure how much employees trust a site?

My opinion? Yep.  

And in many cases there are ways to systematically determine the authority of the site because of the actions of the employees on the site. One way of determining if a site is trust worthy is to measure the frequency of employees viewing a site. As enterprises embrace social though, there is the huge potential on how improving intranet search results.

David Amerland's book, Google Semantic Search, talks specifically about the internet and the influence of social on search results. Specifically, he states that based on individual interactions (social included) the search results are influenced. The ideas discussed in David's book easily translate to an enterprise intranet that has an Enterprise Social Network (ESN). David's list of influencers include:

• Commenting in a blog post on the website
• Responding to comments on a blog post on the website
• Commenting about a website in social network
• Responding to comments about a website in social networks 
• Resharing the content of websites and adding a comment to the reshare
• Resharing the content of websites without adding any comment
• Following websites that have a presence on a social network
• “Liking” or “+ 1-ing” the content of websites
• Interacting with the social network posts of websites

Why is this list so important? Because the list provides a way for people to show that they trust the content. And if they show they trust the content, than the there is a higher chance that the page or site should have an increased authority.  And if the content has a higher authority rank, then it should show up higher on the search results.  Without this type of interaction, enterprise search will continue to fall short.  

This note was inspired by +David Amerland 's book, Google Semantic Search - Amazon location 1560.

Trust and Authority of Intranet Sites to Improve Search

Photo by Eric Ziegler

My trek reading through Google Semantic Search book continues with some insights into trust and authority of pages and sites. I continue to see search engine optimization similarities between what happens in the internet and what should be happening in the enterprise. For instance, in this note, the idea of a page or site being authoritative can be applied directly to helping employees find content in sites that are created in a company intranet.  

Inside the enterprise, often there are many different types  of "sites". These sites range from sites or pages for policies, sites where projects occur, reference material sites, self help sites, business procedures sites and community sites. And for each of these sites, the level of authority of trust associated with each site varies. In addition, these trust scores vary based on the subject or topic of the site.

For example the policy pages/sites should have a high trust/authority score, since they are basically the rules the company and employees need to follow.  A site for a project should have a much lower trust or authority score. Project sites typically are working on future state ideas, and do not represent the current state.  Just imagine what could happen if an employee were to read and use content on a project site to answer an customers question.

Similarly, sites that are for communities of practice should have a higher trust / authority score for the subjects they are centered around. The Java community site should have a high trust / authority score on the Java topic. The customer support community should have a high trust / authority score on customer support. etc.

By improving the authority of specific sites, especially around subjects, the findability and discoverability of sites increases, making every employee's life in the enterprise that much better and makes each of them more effective.

This note was inspired by +David Amerland 's book, Google Semantic Search.

Engaging employees by empowering them through authority

Photo by Eric Ziegler

Still on the SEO spin.

This time around though, SEO techniques (new and old) have the potential to have positive impact on employee effectiveness.

By promoting individuals to build their authority (author rank) related to a company product or topic or even just the company itself is brilliant. Why? If author rank (even the defunct version) is built based on the social aspects of the individual, allowing them to post ideas, thoughts, etc. is a way of empowering the employee.  And by empowering the employee, leads to a more engaged employee which leads to a more effective employee.

This comment was inspired by +David Amerland 's book, Google Semantic Search - Amazon location 1471

The Personal Touch of an Individual

Photo by Eric Ziegler

As I read through different books, each books gets me thinking and the note I create might not make perfect sense.  And sometimes when I review my notes, a note causes multiple thoughts to occur that are really not related. Yesterday's and today's post are both the outcome of the same note from the same location in David's book.

Enterprises are often very quick to use organizational or departmental names when posting an article or piece of content, instead of posting the content with an individual's name. While this is viable and there can be argued some great reasons to do this, there are definitely reasons to minimize the approach of using the non-descript, non-personal organizational name.

Using an individual's name and associating it with the content provides that personal touch that an organization name or identity does not. And if you do it correctly, the arguments for using an organizational name becomes less of an issue (not going into the details on that subject here). As a company creates content and applies a person's name to the content, the person becomes a voice of the department or organization, and the individual becomes the voice and authority on the subject or topic.  In addition, the employees will embrace and interact with the content more often because they feel a person is talking to them, versus some non-descript organization.

This comment was inspired by +David Amerland 's book, Google Semantic Search - Amazon location 1457