One point worth remembering for FAQ maintainers who offer a Web based
version (either as the primary distribution point, or as a snapshot of an
email resource) is that Web spiders and search engines will tend to
catalogue your page and offer its URL up to people looking for answers in
your subject area. (This is especially true for engines like Google, which
rank its results so as to present "rich" hits first.)
This has several implications for maintainers:
* Try to pick a stable Web address - one that will still work months or
even years after you publish it. If you're forced to move, try to leave a
forwarding address on the old site. Not to cast aspersions on any
particular service, but if you have ever "found" an answer via a search
engine, and the link goes to something like
members.tripod.com/Sandcastle/1423984/forgetit919
then you know the chances are DIM what you're looking for will still be
there. If you're thinking of adding a Web source for your FAQ, take the
time to find a real home.
* If you have mirror sites, make sure your FAQ itself contains a list of
those mirrors and/or a link to the master site. That way when someone finds
a Moldavian mirror cache of your FAQ, even if it's a year out of date, they
can find the latest version.
* If your Web based FAQ is divided into subpages, make sure each subpage
has a link to the FAQ's front page. What tends to happen is that subpages
are returned as search engine hits, and the user goes straight to the
subpage. If the FAQ author or Web editor omits navigational links on the
subpages (perhaps assuming "they can just hit the Back button") then the
user may have difficulty finding the rest of the info they wanted. (For the
same reason, don't make the mistake of putting a link on the subpage that
says "Go back"! You don't know where "back" is for any given visitor.
Instead, say where the link goes, e.g. "Chapter 4" or "FAQ top.")
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