Well, we've seen how quickly we can get information out there - the 2007 guidelines for local authorities on elective home education are making the rounds very speedily indeed, despite their absence only having been noted a day or two ago.

If we continue to act in this way, we will soon ensure that all elective home educators (not to mention select committee members) can easily locate a working link to the guidelines on the first page of Google results - even if they remain unavailable on the DCSF website, which currently returns the top search result.

There has been talk of using search engine optimisation (SEO) to raise the profile of home education on the internet. I am cautiously supportive of this approach, if done in a responsible way. In order to understand what I mean, it's important to understand that the algorithm used by the main search engine, Google, has one purpose and one purpose only: it aims to return the most relevant result to the searcher.

So, for example, the work that we have done to make the guidelines more available is wholly in line with this objective. People who type "Elective Home Education Guidelines" are looking for what we have all written about and linked to. This is a very good thing.

Less good would be attempts to manipulate people into landing on sites of our choosing when they are actually searching for something entirely different. So, for example, if I asked you all to insert a link to my entirely fictitious site featuring "Luscious Balls in a posing pouch" every time you mention Ed Balls, that would be pretty spammy - and (I hope) not very relevant to the searcher. To be perfectly honest, if someone is searching for the "DCSF" - myself included - then they probably want the DCSF website, rather than a link to a vociferous blogging rant (ahem).

Google is very clear that its algorithm is continually changed in order to prevent such artifical manipulation and skewing of results, both of which are annoying and unhelpful to the searcher. In fact, any kind of spammy activity will do little more than reduce the inherent value of the fantastic, articulate posts that are extraordinarily prevalent across the online home education community, already offering great value to the people who are using Google to look for comprehensive information. My Google Alerts back this up - I run a daily search on key HE terms and all of the main blogs are spidered within a few hours if they mention these terms.

Of course, we do have the odd heretic in our midst. However, if people are genuinely concerned about the unhelpful nature of content they come across, then all they need to do is concentrate on ensuring their own content is as high-quality and accessible as possible. If you believe in what you are saying - simply carry on saying it as best you can!

Jax has a great intro post to positive publicity for home education here, which explains in a little more detail some things for you to consider. Here are my top tips (not that I necessarily follow them as I have hitherto blogged out of belief, not for promotion)  - but I certainly shall be a little more thoughtful in future:

Internally:

• Start writing a blog if you don't already!
• Content should be well-written, informative and and keyword rich
• Blog post titles should be relevant and keyword rich
• Make good use of links to external sites and consider how you present those links
• Link internally to other relevant blog posts you have written
• Ensure that you enable any features that allow readers to add your post to Facebook, Digg, Reddit etc.
• Encourage readers to reuse your information elsewhere, providing appropriate links back to your site
• Post on a regular schedule (frequency is less important than consistency)
• Tag and categorise your posts
• Update posts where necessary
• Ensure people know where to find the url for you post in case they choose to link to it
• Engage with commenters
• Don't just copy and paste other people's content - add your own content too, regardless of how little.

Externally:

• Set up a feed reader and read others' blogs by subscribing to their RSS feeds
• Make sure the RSS feed on your blog is enabled and easily visible
• Ensure you comment constructively on other people's blog posts and make use of any link feature back to your site
• Collaborate - properly! - on forums and groups
• Use other social media such as Twitter, Facebook etc to engage and spreat the word - but only if you are being genuine!
  

Mechanics:

• Submit a sitemap to Google
• Use Google Webmaster Tools to see problems that Google encounters when indexing your site
• Use Google Analytics to optimise the performance of your blog
• Use Google Alerts to keep an eye on where and when your content is featured
• Ensure your blogging software is set up to send pings to Technorati, Google and other blogging directories

All of these tips deserve their own blog posts, but it's not really my area of expertise. If you find this subject area interesting, you might want to check out problogger.net or seomoz.org for further information. However - if you've got any questions, let me know and I'll be more than happy to help out where I can.

And finally - here is a post in action. If we are all mindful in our blogging, then every home educating blogger - whatever their flavour - will achieve the PageRank they deserve on Google.

Can be found by clicking on this link to the 2007 Guidelines for Local Authorities on Elective Home Education.

Just in case any poor soul arrives elsewhere and can't find them.

As they seem to have gone missing, why don't you link to them, too? In order that no-one slips through the net (and we know how important that is to Balls and co.) please link back to here - and to everyblogger else who does this.

In addition to yesterday's links, you can find more information about the 2007 Guidelines for Local Authorities on Elective Home Education from:

Maire

Debs

The Jumps

Globeonmytable

AEUK

Lynn

Elaine

Irdial

Firebird

Sunnydaytodaymama

Annkrozeika

Sam

Carlotta

Chrisotherwise

Grit

Raquel

Merry

Well, the long-suffering Mrs Columbo will never hear the end of it.

Her relaxing game of quoits on deck with the captain - endlessly disturbed by her husband's ponderings as to where on Earth the 2007 guidelines for local authorities regarding elective home education could possibly have got to?

They were there on the DCSF website a week or two ago. And now... vanished!

Question - why would anybody remove guidelines during the time-limited consultation period following on from the review? Especially when people responding to the consultation are likely to want to make explicit reference to the document in their responses?

Question - why would anybody remove guidelines this close to the Select Committee inquiry? Especially when people making their electronic submissions to the committee are likely to have linked to the document in support of their evidence?

Who knows?

Of course, the review has been conducted with such careful conduct and rigorous attention to proper procedure throughout that it's likely a genuine error and the document will reappear, just in time for consultation respondents to make reference to it and for members of the Select Committee to peruse it in detail. At least, that's what the not-so-bumbling lieutenant will make you believe he is thinking...

But just in case, here's a copy for your information. I have emailed one direct to Kathryn Smith, Committee Assistant. I've also posted a hard copy to her here: Children, Schools and Families Select Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London, SW1P 3JA - just in case she doesn't have time to check her emails. I'm going to tweet this to @edballsmp as I am sure he will be concerned about this DCSF data loss development.

And you can be sure that Lieutenant Columbo has plenty of assistants doing similar elsewhere.