Thursday, April 15, 2004

More on Site Maps & Indices

All of the following resources came from a discussion list (not my compilation). Apologies to whomever compiled this listing - I've forgotten so I can't give credit.... :(


Site Index examples:
Good:
http://www.peoplesoft.com/corp/en/indices/site_index.jsp
http://www.w3.org/Help/siteindex
http://www.montaguelab.com/Public/indexes.htm
http://www.census.gov/main/www/subjects.html
http://www.consumerreports.org/main/detailv2.jsp?CONTENT<>cnt_id=3171&FOLDER
<>folder_id=3167
http://www.writersblock.ca/common/index.htm

Not so good:
http://www.asindexing.org/site/backndx.htm
Different style / purpose:
http://unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/index/index.html

Product Index examples:
Good:
http://www.ibm.com/products/az/
http://www.peoplesoft.com/corp/en/indices/prod_index.jsp

Not so good:
http://www.3m.com/product/index.jhtml

Sitemap examples:
Good:
http://www.apple.com/find/sitemap.html
http://www.google.com/sitemap.html
http://pages.ebay.com/sitemap.html?ssPageName=h:h:smap:US
http://www.multimap.com/static/sitemap.htm
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/sitemap/

Not so good:
http://www.novuspetroleum.com/cmsaxs/site/1/5.asp?secID=18
http://www.miami.muohio.edu/sitemap/

Bad:
http://www.chaminade.edu/sitemap/content/sitemap.html (bad visual
representation)
http://www.chaminade.edu/sitemap/index.php (not much better - text w/
visuals once you click on a high-level section)
http://www.tamu.edu/00/sitemap.html?mode=d (too detailed, bad layout, no
logical order) http://www.raffed75.isgreat.tv/Sitemap.htm (yuck!)

The IBM Site Map Gallery:

Fascinating study of a big company dealing with lack of standards...map, map, who's got THE site map?

http://www-1.ibm.com/businesscenter/us/sitemap/ (simple)
http://www.ibm.com/investor/tools/iritsm.phtml (good use of bullets &
indention)
http://www-5.ibm.com/de/mittelstand/sitemap/ (interesting layout)
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/sitemap.html (jump nav at top good,
indention and level of detail bad) http://www.ibm.com/ar/sitemap/ (bad
windows explorer style layout) http://www.almaden.ibm.com/st/sitemap.shtml
(what's a link?)
http://www-306.ibm.com/e-business/doc/content/sitemap/sitemap.html (too
detailed)

Related Articles & Info:
http://taxonomist.tripod.com/indexing/design_checklist.html
http://www.asindexing.org/site/checklist.shtml
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/sitemaps_and_site_indexes_what_they_a
re_and_why_you_should_have_them.php
http://davidcrow.ca/2003/01/20/trends_in_sitemap_design.html
http://www.iaslash.org/node.php?id=2535#comment
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020106.html
http://www.evolt.org/article/evolt/4090/710/

Tools:
http://www.brown-inc.com/indexer/FAQ.htm

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