SEO for an open access scholarly information system to improve user experience

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to introduce a case of search engine optimization (SEO), especially designed for a national scholarly open access information website in the field of STEM.

Design/methodology/approach

Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) collaborated with the Google Scholar team to open and share the research outcomes of STEM in Korea worldwide. KoreaScience is a reference-linking platform for open access scientific and technical journals in Korea, operated by KISTI. KISTI worked with the Google Scholar team to embed machine-readable bibliographic metadata into its journal pages and to create an XML Sitemap to help Google find pages on KoreaScience.

Findings

As a result of implementation of metadata and creation of an XML Sitemap, the KoreaScience Web pages have noticeably increased the relevance of a search results’ list on Google and Google Scholar. In addition to this, the KoreaScience platform has received an increasing amount of its traffic from around the world.

Originality/value

Not much research has sought to understand SEO in the aspect of users and how it may be facilitated in “visible” academic Web environments such as search systems and open access information systems. For this project, the motivation for investigating SEO comes from its association with positive outcomes that range from personal benefits to global rewards, e.g. increased satisfaction in search user experience and, further, academic progress and scientific development by sharing and accessing scientific knowledge in the fast-growing field of STEM.

Citation

Park, M. (2018), "SEO for an open access scholarly information system to improve user experience", Information Discovery and Delivery, Vol. 46 No. 2, pp. 77-82. https://doi.org/10.1108/IDD-08-2017-0060