Accessibility, Firefox, Fangs, SEO...

On 16:42:57 11 February 2005 Ashley wrote:

Will browsers or search engines auto-detect a site’s accessibility compliance level in the future?

Just as browsers can pick up privacy policies, or digital signatures, is anyone aware that search engines, browsers, or other agents will be able to automatically detect a site’s accessibility compliance level?

For example, a user with a disability could set their browser to display only sites with level AA accessibility? Or Google could take a stance and decide to rank sites with higher levels of accessibility more highly than those which are inaccessible?
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Ashley, 

The short answer is yes!

I was interested to see what people had to say about search engine optimisation a few years ago, so I could compare the old ways with the new. Whilst checking out some old posts on the subject I came across your post. I must say, you have your finger on the pulse and I’ve explained why down below. The filters that are coming are even more intelligent than you think – or at least this is something we’ll be working towards.

Leading search engines and browsers are looking to make direct use of machine readable trustmarks and content labels to improve personalised search. Visitors can then make a more informed decision about whether they want to enter a particular site.

Taking this a step further, users will be able to set user-preferences for things like whether and how prominently a label is displayed. A user may only want to see search results belonging to websites that can be shown to be accessible or suitable for children (as defined by the child’s parents). An EU funded project called Quatro [1] is about to make this a reality. The Quatro project team is using Segala’s trustmark as a primary case study that demonstrates how machine-readable trustmarks can make a substantial improvement in 'personalised search.'

A range of trustmark schemes exist around the world. In each case, a website is awarded the right to display a seal of approval or trustmark following a review by an independent authority or internal assessor. Trustmarks normally hyperlink to a certificate page provided by the labelling scheme provider to authenticate its claims. In a related initiative, the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) [2] offers a self-labelling scheme for child protection purposes and is the world’s leading example of this self-regulatory approach.

However, trustmarks are invisible to search engines which limits their value. A user must already be on a website before they know it meets a labelling provider's claims. Moreover, the logo is often displayed on just a single page and therefore invisible to visitors who are viewing other pages on the site.

O2 Plc [3] is set to become the first organisation worldwide to apply the concept of machine-readable labels to Web accessibility and mobile content by using a trustmark that can be discovered by search engines and browsers, and can be displayed wherever the user is on a site. They will also add the same type of label for child protection. This is done using a method based on a W3C standard called Resource Description Framework (RDF) [4]. RDF is platform agnostic which means it works across web and mobile technologies. The basic idea is to place a META tag on web pages to declare the extent to which it meets W3C Web Accessibility Guidelines (WAI). Or any other claim for that matter. Web pages carrying the trustmark can be verified for authenticity by cross-referencing claims with a list of certified URLs on a server.

Leading search engines and browsers are very keen to pick this up. Look out for breaking news in the coming months!

Then I’d like to see users ‘rate’ the trustworthiness of a trustmark/content label/claim (whatever you want to call it) – similar to how buyers and sellers can be rated on eBay. This would mean that ‘trusted’ sites will be rated as such, by anyone who uses them. This is where the semantic Web really comes into play…

[1] http://www.quatro-project.org/  
[2] http://www.icra.org  
[3] http://www.o2.com/media/latest_pr.asp  
[4] http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-mt/ -  a bit boring so you might want to google it  

Have fun
Paul