Tag Clouds & Folksonomies
Many content management systems (CMS) utilize what are know as tag clouds to classify the content of web pages. Blogs, wikis and CRM (content resource management) platforms often allow content creators to classify - or "tag" - pages with keywords which tell users what the pages are about. Knowing the benefits of these tag clouds for the purposes of SEO can potentially improve your SERPs by aiding the search engine spiders in categorizing the content of your pages.
Tag clouds are more technically known as folksonomies. In contrast to a taxonomy - a hierarchical classification system that is predetermined by content owners and publishers - a folksonomy is a classification system created by a site's users om a decentralized, ad hoc manner. According to Mark S. Choate, author of Professional Wikis, folksonomies are accomplished by allowing each user to assign tags to pages.
"Tags," Choate explains, "are really nothing more than searchable keywords that users decide to apply to a page." When these tags are chosen by members of a site arbitrarily, rather than by an editing staff selectively, they are called folksonomies.
Emergence
Though folksonomies are arbitrary, there is an order which emerges as pages are added and the folksonomy or tag cloud grows. In other words folksonomies produce an emergent order, as opposed to a pre-established or top-down order. No one content creator can predict exactly what that order will be, precisely because different content creators are adding and tagging pages as they see fit. "A system thus arises out of the interactions of many individual agents," Choate explains, "each operating under its own set of rules, much like weather patterns emerge from billions of atoms acting the way that atoms do, unaware of the larger system in which they are participants,"
An example of random folksonomies generating emergent order can be seen on our wiki. In creating the wiki, I simply went about the business of adding new pages, at random. Whatever content I felt like writing about, I wrote about. Then, I tagged the page as I saw fit. Thus, the creation and tagging of pages was arbitrary, random, not deliberate, unconscious.
Nevertheless, an emergent order has already arisen out of the arbitrariness (the wiki is only weeks old). I noticed a pattern emerged wherein the keywords "history," "internet," and "web," gained preeminence. This was completely unconscious on my part. As I thought about why these terms gained prominence, it of course makes sense; I am an Internet marketing professional. So, it's only natural that these are the subjects I would most frequently write about.
Semantics and Psychology
Freud would probably have a lot to say about this example of folksonomy and emergence. Not only is there an inherent order that arises out of seeming chaos, but the order which arises betrays the driving force of my own psyche, in a sense. No doubt this is true; I eat, drink and sleep SEO, Web technology, social media, the Internet. That these particular tags arose out of the wiki is akin to a Freudian slip, where a speaker's true intentions arise out of an accidental mis-speak; for Freud, a slip of the tongue was significant, psychologically, because it tells us what's really in the person's mind and heart. In the same way, Internet and Web is what drives me, motivates me, inspires me. It is my dream to become the greatest SEO the world has ever seen; and, dreams, according to Freud, expose the hidden desires of the unconscious mind.
Emergent Order: An Example of Fractal Semantics
At any rate, enough with Freud. Back to the concept of emergence.
I wrote an article a while ago about a little known SEO concept called Fractal Semantics. Fractals are patterns which arise out of seeming randomness. Examples include the Julia Set, the Mandelbrot Set and the Fibonacci Sequence. Fractals have been discovered in disciplines as diverse as mathematics, physics, music and astronomy. Fractal semantics, then, would refer to predictable or recognizable patterns of language that arise out of random words, phrases and content.
(Read more about Fractal Semantics and SEO.)
What am I talking about? Well, I'm getting there; just bear with me a little longer.
My point in all this is: Folksonomies are a kind of fractal semantics. The folksonomy of our wiki was randomly generated; no forethought was put into it; it simply emerged, as it were, by "accident." Nevertheless, a recognizable order was produced (e.g., the preponderance of the tags: "web," "internet," and "history.") I didn't plan to make these tags more numerous; it just "happened by chance," as it were. But the fact that these particular tags arose as preeminent - and not some others - is significant. It is significant, if for no other reason than the underlying psychoanalytic reasons I discussed above.
This emergent semantic pattern is also described by Choate in Professional Wikis:
The Web does not simply store knowledge; it creates it.
In other words, the web itself is a fractal, out of which an order arises - a semantic order which is not predictable or predetermined and which did not previously exist prior to the web's inception. This new "semantic order" is a third thing; it is something that was generated out of pre-existing information. Thus, Choate's statement turns out to be true; the Web - like Carl Jung's collective unconscious - does, in fact, create knowledge.
Thus, not only does the Web store and retrieve knowledge, based on preexisting meaning; it also creates wholly new meaning!
But this is a blog about SEO. So what does all this have to do with that, you ask.
My answer: Everything.
In short, knowing how search engine algorithms create meaning (and not just how they store, classify, sort and retrieve information based on meaning) is of supreme importance to SEO. In fact, it is this very thing that Gnosis Arts researchers are trying to figure out, for once we do, the SEO game is won, as we know it, and the the victors (us) will go the spoils!
Semantic Web and the Future of SEO
As many of us in the industry know, the Semantic Web is just around the corner. It is already here, in some small think tanks. This new development promises to dramatically enhance the IR systems (Information Retrieval Systems) currently in existence. Once the Semantic Web hits in full force, there will be nothing short of a revolution in the Internet as we know it.
Tag clouds - or folksonomies - are an important piece of that revolution. As folksonomies enable spiders to more easily classify and categorize a site's content, it pays to know that an inherent order emerges from even the most random of folksonomies. Paying close attention to this emergent order provides clues as to how to optimize the site as the folksonomy grows.
Additionally, knowing how web not only organizes content but creates meaning is, in a very real sense, the essence of search engine optimization, if you think about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment