Date | November 2017 | Marks available | 3 | Reference code | 17N.2.SL.TZ0.9 |
Level | SL | Paper | 2 | Time zone | no time zone |
Command term | Suggest | Question number | 9 | Adapted from | N/A |
Question
A museum has an online catalogue of its pieces. No new pieces have been acquired over the past 20 years, and the museum has already been at risk of closure for lack of funding. Its website consists only of static web pages.
It is suggested that the museum’s static web pages may be contributing to the museum’s lack of success.
Identify three differences between a static web page and dynamic web page.
Suggest two services, and the benefits that they would provide, if the museum were to redesign its website to be dynamic.
Explain how the provision of services on the museum’s website can increase its rankings in search engines.
It is also suggested that the museum’s basic catalogue be revised and upgraded with all of the museum’s pieces being catalogued using meta-tags.
Suggest how the use of meta-tags can be relevant for search engine optimization.
Markscheme
Award [3 max] for three differences stated.
Dynamic allows user interaction;
Allows parts of the content to be changed without uploading the complete page;
Can connect with server-side databases;
Gives different views for different users;
Includes the use of scripts / server side scripting, examples of;
Dynamic makes use of templates;
Static webpages are changed only by administrator;
It gives the same view to all users;
It displays exactly the information that is stored in the html file (and it may still include multimedia);
Simpler to develop/maintain, because it does not require major design/knowledge of web applications;
Source code edited directly in HTML generally shorter/less cumbersome than the one developed with web applications;
Award [1] for identifying a service and [1] for stating a benefit, for two services up to [4 max].
Book/pre-pay online for tickets;
More convenient for visitors (avoids closures/queues etc.);
Add a virtual tour of the museum online;
Increases the visibility of the museum / It becomes better known;
Add an audio-guide for smartphone to be downloaded from the portal;
So that users are already equipped before they visit;
(Targeted) pop up adverts/links;
Can increase revenue to the museum;
Award up to [4 max].
More possibility for the users to interact will make the website more popular;
More services online provides more ways for the museum to be linked from/to other external organizations/institutions (e.g. bank/tourist office);
The two combined would generate more traffic and more authoritative in-links;
This increases the possibility for the site to be found in a variety of ways when searched;
And this increases the website’s ranking;
Award marks as follows up to [3 max].
Award [1] for an example/idea of a meta-tag and its purpose.
Award [1] for understanding the link between meta-tags and indexing via the search operation by crawlers.
Award [1] for understanding the link between indexing and ranking via optimization/better classification by SEO.
Use of correct keywords allows the search engine to search and find those terms;
For Example
Title tags / keywords associated to the title of the page;
A description with tags may induce more visitors to visit the page;
Other keywords that appropriately refer to the content of the web;
(Even irrelevant keywords or hidden content however keyword stuffing might actually be punished by more recent algorithms for ranking);
Meta attributes for robots (such as follow/nofollow, index/noindex) that give indication about whether or not to index the page;
Meta language descriptors (for example to recognize in some language rather than English) to appropriately index content based on the dictionary of that language;
This is related to indexing, because web crawlers visit pages and inspect their content based on the terms that they have to search;
The ranking algorithms give value to the pages once that they are indexed, based on parameters that depend also on the ease of retrieving the pages/number of authoritative in-links/number of hits (or visitors);
The Search Engine can be optimized so that the best use of meta-tags can be made with the objective of indexing and ultimately ranking;