The robots.txt file for whitehouse.gov ran to 2377 lines yesterday. As of today it reads:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /includes/

I guess Obama is more of a rel=”nofollow” guy :)

The Whitehouse Site also got a makeover, one minute after Obama took office. It’s as slick and appealing as the rest of the Obama web team’s output, and I can’t wait to see if their deft hand at webamization filters down to the wider US government over the next four years. It’ll also be interesting to see how Obama’s (hugely successful) use of social networking and other online tools will change political campaigning in future.

Someone needs to sort out a 301 from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news to an equivalent URL on the new site though. Schoolboy error.

8 Comments

  • 1

    Let’s hope all President Obama’s new age ? efforts will gain us guys more work – he has proven the power of the social media and blogging

    David
    US via Devon, UK

    David Saunders | http://www.idoseo.com

    20th January 2009 @ 23:25

  • 2

    I did notice that as soon as he won the election he stopped tweeting (until the other week).

    Dominic Hodgson | http://www.thehodge.co.uk

    21st January 2009 @ 10:46

  • 3

    hey david, hope your good, thanks for the information we chatted about;

    well spotted, i guess a change of leadership, changes all; At least lets hope so.

    ck | http://www.homestansted.co.uk

    21st January 2009 @ 16:55

  • 4

    [...] Jason Kottke y Dave Naylor han notado que la administración de Obama está bloqueando muy poco de los buscadores, comparado [...]

  • 5

    “I guess Obama is more of a rel=”nofollow” guy”

    Hahahahahaha… That’s brilliant. But while it’s a nice gesture we all know there are various other ways to block or hide information… or simply delete it.

    Great PR stunt however :)

    Robert | http://www.propdata.co.za

    22nd January 2009 @ 12:47

  • 6

    Clearly they still have work to do, the site’s only a PR 9. lol!

    The new design is quite aesthetically pleasing, but the source code could use some decent formatting.

    Bronson

    27th January 2009 @ 11:37

  • 7

    I’m really impressed by Obama, he’s started up a Whitehouse blog or something like that – I heard.

    David Whitehouse | http://www.david-whitehouse.org/

    31st January 2009 @ 10:05

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