Editing Web indexing (section)

{{Short description|Methods for indexing the Internet}}
{{more footnotes|date=December 2014}}
'''Web indexing''', or '''Internet indexing''', comprises methods for indexing the contents of a [[website]] or of the [[Internet]] as a whole. Individual websites or [[intranet]]s may use a [[back-of-the-book index]], while [[search engines]] usually use keywords and [[Metadata (computing)|metadata]] to provide a more useful vocabulary for Internet or onsite searching. With the increase in the number of [[periodical]]s that have articles online, web indexing is also becoming important for periodical websites.<ref>{{Cite web|title = Web Crawlers:Indexing the Web|url = https://webbrowsersintroduction.com/}}</ref>

Back-of-the-book-style web indexes may be called "web site A-Z indexes".<ref name=kundu>{{Cite book|title = Advanced Computing, Networking and Informatics- Volume 1: Advanced Computing and Informatics Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Advanced Computing, Networking and Informatics (ICACNI-2014)|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=qjwqBAAAQBAJ|publisher = Springer|date = 2014-05-26|isbn = 9783319073538|language = en|first1 = Malay Kumar|last1 = Kundu|first2 = Durga Prasad|last2 = Mohapatra|first3 = Amit|last3 = Konar|first4 = Aruna|last4 = Chakraborty}}</ref> The implication with "A-Z" is that there is an alphabetical browse view or interface. This interface differs from that of a browse through layers of hierarchical categories (also known as a [[Taxonomy (general)|taxonomy]]) which are not necessarily alphabetical, but are also found on some web sites. Although an A-Z index could be used to index multiple sites, rather than the multiple pages of a single site, this is unusual.

[[Metadata]] web indexing involves assigning keywords, description or phrases to web pages or web sites within a [[metadata tag]] (or "meta-tag") field, so that the web page or web site can be retrieved with a list. This method is commonly used by [[search engine indexing]].<ref>{{Cite web|title = Indexing the Web {{!}} American Society for Indexing|url = http://www.asindexing.org/reference-shelf/indexing-the-web/|website = www.asindexing.org|access-date = 2015-11-25}}</ref>