VMware Knowledge needs to be made Findable

Tomorrow is a special day for me.  I start a six month long rotation out of tech support into our knowledge management team as a Knowledge Champion here at VMware. The role is rotated through different members of the tech support teams globally, giving front line folks a chance to spread valuable knowledge both internally and externally.

A large part of the job is scrubbing rough notes that support engineers have jotted down in the haste of solving a customers crisis, and turning these diamonds in the rough consumable and re-usable.  I think I have something more to offer as well.  Running this blog and several others has taught me a few things about web sites and search.  For instance do a Google search for the phrase “vmotion fails“.  How is it that the number one result of this search is this blog, while VMware’s own Knowledgebase article Diagnosing VMware VMotion failure at 10% (1003734) is nowhere to be found? Another example is a search for “ESX logs“.

I know why.

No SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

I won’t go into the details of why here but the is that no one has made these important web pages search engine friendly. Microsoft has no trouble making their knowledgebase search able. Well, I’m really hoping I’m given a chance to help with that. Readers such as yourself will be able to find resolutions to your problems more easily and support staff will enjoy fewer repeat calls for the same problem over and over.  It’s win-win.

If you start seeing VMware knowledgebase articles in your search results over the next few months remember the VMwarwolf sent ya.