Message-ID: <4C487862.4030604@emolecules.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:57:06 -0700
From: Craig James <craig_james@emolecules.com>
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To: Greg Smith <greg@2ndquadrant.com>
CC: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Using more tha one index per table
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On 7/21/10 6:47 PM, Greg Smith wrote:
> Craig James wrote:
>> By using "current" and encouraging people to link to that, we could
>> quickly change the Google pagerank so that a search for Postgres would
>> turn up the most-recent version of documentation.
>
> How do you propose to encourage people to do that? If I had a good
> answer to that question, I'd already be executing on it. I've made a
> habit of doing that when writing articles on the wiki, which hopefully
> themselves become popular and then elevate those links (all of the ones
> http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Tuning_Your_PostgreSQL_Server for
> example point to current). I don't know how to target "people who link
> to the PostgreSQL manual" beyond raising awareness of the issue
> periodically on these lists, like I did on this thread.

You don't have to get everyone to do it.  Just get more people to link to "current" than to other versions and you win in the Google ranking.

Start by sending an announcement to every PG mailing list.  You'd probably get a couple thousand right away, which by itself might do the trick.

Once "current" reaches the top of the Google ranking, it will cascade: People searching for Postgres documentation will find "current" first, and will post links to it, which will further reinforce its popularity.

There will always be people who link to older versions, but since the versions change frequently and "current" lasts forever, its ranking will constantly build until it ultimately wins.

There's no downside to it.  It's easy to do.  The other ideas (like putting "out of date" disclaimers and such into older versions) might also be useful, but might be a lot of work for just a little more gain.  Creating a "current" link is simple and in the long run will be very effective.  The sooner it starts, the sooner it will gain traction.

Craig