| Excerpt from: Media Room Technology |
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| August 24, 2004 | | This is an interesting phenomena - sites that lay dormant until a crisis occurs. | Although I'm a big fan of preparedness, dark sites, Web sites designed to provide immediate response in the event of a crisis, represent some technological challenges. The benefit of a site is that it can be found. The purpose of a crisis site is that it shouldn't be found until such time as there is a reason for it to be found. By definition, the content in a crisis site is not known until a crisis actually occurs. This represents a number of quandaries. - How do you keep it "dark" and hidden from search engines until it is needed?
- How do you compel search engines to index it the moment it is visible?
- Are there ways to prepare a clean-sheen site that remains indexed but is non-polluting of the corporate message or sending signals that the business anticipates crisis?
- Should the architecture of a dark site be virtual (i.e., pulling content from a variety of places at the moment it is needed and not a second sooner)?
I don't have answers to these questions but I certainly admire the problem. | | |
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