Where should key words be included in order to ensure that our pages are picked up?
The wording of the question indicates there might be a misunderstanding lurking beneath, so I want to clarify one point first. The thesaurus is not really intended to improve the action of external search engines. The USGS search engine might be tuned to look at keywords in HTML pages (the tags in the HTML header), but its function will probably continue to be focused on providing full-text search. [USGS guidelines for use of keywords in HTML metadata are currently undergoing revision.] Index terms can indeed be put into web pages, and that may be helpful, but it is not the primary focus of our work to detect those index terms and act on them. Instead, we believe the power of the thesaurus can only be exploited by web interfaces designed specifically to work with index terms and catalog records. That said, some general guidance can be offered. First and foremost is to specify page titles well. Use clear terms and do not assume that every reader knows the scope within which your
