Outdated and misleading information is felt to be nearing epidemic levels, as the Internet becomes a wasteland of abandoned web sites and leftover pages filled with valueless information. As time passes, more and more content is left behind and is felt to be harmful to information seekers that may not know enough to question the accuracy and quality of what is being provided.
For varied reasons, including web developers leaving pages up when updating web sites rather than taking the time to delete them, are said to be a contributing factor to the misinformation. “It is time consuming and costlier to properly take down the old pages,” agrees David Fuhrer of My Complete Event. Fuhrer went on to tell eWedNews that older information makes its way up in raking relevance simply because of the time it has been online. “It sits there and marinates over time; that’s why you’ll sometimes see information from 1998 or something,” said Fuhrer.
It’s been a decade since the explosion of the Internet and the Super Highway of Information. Now it is being said its become a traffic jam of irrelevant information, simply because of its inherent problems. The more content that is added, the more it will date; the more information dates, the harder it will be to manage and keep current information where it belongs: on top of searches.
But what about information that is used or spun to attract attention? In an unsolicited e-mail from Destination I Do Magazine, their claim that 18% of the 2,271,910 American weddings being destination based was questioned. The solicitation is designed to sell advertising in a publication claiming, “I represent DESTINATION I DO MAGAZINE, the leading publication focused on the destination wedding market. Destination I Do is published twice per year with a quarterly cover change to ensure consistent presence in the retail market. 90,000 copies annually are sold throughout the US and several countries around the globe at fine retailers such as Barnes & Noble, Borders Books, Virgin Records, Hudson News, Hastings, Safeway, Longs Drugs and many others!”
It remains astounding how such significant sponsors affix their names to information that may not be anything less that up-to-date, relevant and completely accurate. Attempts to contact Mike Walker, National Advertising Director for the organization, remain unanswered. eWedNews would like to know how his organization arrived at the numbers they released in the soliciation.
According to Shane McMurray of WETV Networks Wedding Report, the number is much lower. McMurray, a leading source for wedding data and information, felt the information may be old and outdated but added the number of destination weddings never rose above 12% several years ago and is significantly lower today.
McMurray has questioned information provided by the Knot and Get Married in some of their recent market studies and may be a reason why other companies will examine the way they gather and update their information in the future.
eWedNews
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2010
Posted on 06/03/2010
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