Future of meta-indices: site indexing proposal and Perl script

Robert S. Thau (rst@ai.mit.edu)
Tue, 22 Mar 1994 21:19:04 --100


Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 19:19:33 --100
From: Dave Raggett <dsr@hplb.hpl.hp.com>

HTML+ includes the ABSTRACT element for this. The "Summary" HTTP
header should therefore be reserved for a brief description.

Neat. Another twist for the next spin of the script, I guess.

However, (getting back to the original application) some of the files that
people want to have indexed may not have text set off as a formal abstract,
so <ABSTRACT> is not a 100% solution. I'm thinking of search-engine cover
sheets in particular. These frequently consist of nothing but an input
<FORM>, with no text that could be considered a proper abstract. For these
documents at least, I think I'd still need some other way of including
descriptive information which is not necessarily displayed, whether it's

<meta name="subject" value="...">

or

<meta name="iafa-description" value="...">

or even

<!-- INDEXER description "..." -->

Sigh...

Dave Raggett

rst