The portal of the Government of Montenegro and the portals of its departments and institutions on the gov.me domain, after this was not the case for a short time, are again, after an internet search, displayed at the top of the search engine list.
The Ministry of Public Administration (MJU) confirmed to "Vijesta" that there were problems with search optimization, they said that they registered the problem immediately after it occurred, that it was solved, and announced that in the course of the next year, they will further improve the user experience by introducing tools on based on artificial intelligence (Artificial Intelligence, AI) to create advanced content search.
For the portal of the Government of Montenegro, at the address gov.me, as well as the portals of departments and institutions whose Internet addresses are registered under gov.me, a search problem was registered a few days ago, in such a way that if the user goes to one of the browsers, such as Google, enter a search term - e.g. The Ministry of Public Administration will not get the desired result even in the first ten results.
Instead, it was the experience of the "Vijesti" reporter, the Google search engine as a result displayed, in order, the MJU page related to the professional exam, the organi.mju.gov.me subdomain, the MJU Facebook page, another MJU subpage, an account on X to the network... Among the results, neither by searching for that nor for other departments and institutions, users could not get the home page, in this case gov.me/mju.
From the Ministry of Public Administration, the department he leads Marash Dukaj, told "Vijesti" on Friday that problems with search optimization were registered immediately after they occurred and that administrators from the Ministry of Justice, as well as the vendor who, according to the contract, maintains the system, started to eliminate the problem.
"During the period you mention, when there was a problem, we directed users who contacted us, as well as editors from departments, to search through direct entry of URL addresses for individual departments on the Government portal. In this way, the problem could be solved and users could more easily get the required information", they told "Vijesta".
Almost 100 subportals and more than 150 editors
There are currently 99 active sub-portals on the Government portal, which, as the Ministry of Justice said, are now edited by at least 150 editors. When asked who is responsible for optimizing the results for government departments, whether the Ministry of Justice or each department from its IT sector defines it for itself, they said that it is the exclusive responsibility of individual departments and that the Ministry of Justice "cannot influence the accuracy and timeliness of the published information , the structure, that is, the organization of content on individual pages".
"As part of the system, advanced SEO optimization was created, which includes the possibility of individual manual editing of the display for search engines and each of the social networks by the administrator of each individual site. Also, it should be noted that 99 sub-portals are currently active on the Government portal, and therefore at least 150 editors, bearing in mind that some ministries have more than one editor. This is a significant number of people whose input and structuring of content depends on the quality of what the public sees and what can be found on the Government portal", said the department of Maraš Dukaj.
About 95.000 euros per year for maintenance
As they added, SEO optimization is part of the regular maintenance of the entire platform on which the Government portal and all sub-portals function.
As they added, the Ministry of Public Administration is in charge of maintaining the technical platform, and the costs for SEO optimization are part of the total costs of maintaining the platform.
"Maintenance of the Government web portal (gov.me) implies functional support and operational assistance in the work and maintenance of the entire technical platform of the Government portal, the site dedicated to digital nomads, the websites of diplomatic and consular missions, as well as the maintenance and design of the system for the digital services of the Government of Montenegro" , they told "Vijesti".
The maintenance of these services, as they said from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, amounts to 79.080 euros per year without value added tax (VAT), or 95.686,80 euros with VAT.
System maintenance, as they said from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, includes several activities, including ensuring the normal and complete functioning of the Government's web portal, adapting it in accordance with changes in the relevant legislation and changes in the organizational structure of the Government, planning and implementing regular backups (backup copies, . nov.), improvements within the existing system functionality, system monitoring, monitoring of the level of visits to the Government's web portal and its individual sites and preventive actions aimed at increasing visits, monitoring of SEO optimization and the level of e-accessibility...
The public administration department said that during the next year, the plan is to further improve the user experience by introducing AI tools for creating advanced content searches.
"Of course, the quality of the search will also depend on the quality and up-to-dateness of the content posted by the editors of the individual subportals and the way they link it to existing content, how they tag the content... The Ministry of Public Administration is therefore continuously working on the education of administrators and editors from the authorities", they state in to the answer to "News".
Visibility is also affected by changes in the organization of the Government
They answered affirmatively to the question about whether and to what extent organizational changes at the level of the Government and related institutions affect visibility on the Internet.
"Organizational changes really require quick and sometimes significant changes on the Government portal. The Ministry of Public Administration has so far responded to this challenge very effectively, on several occasions. After the last reconstruction of the Government, landing pages of all new ministries and administrative bodies were created within just a few days, in Montenegrin and English, with accompanying header and basic contact information. The Organization page has been changed and short descriptions of responsibilities have been added," they said and added that administrators from the Ministry of Education and Culture created editorial orders for all new sub-portals and updated the existing ones.
"Training was provided to all new users, in order to use the modular structure of the portal and create subpages in accordance with the scope and content of the information they want to display. Administrators from MJU provide continuous support to editorial teams when creating modules and uploading articles and documents to the site. Both written and video instructions are available, which are updated with each change in system functionality. Considering the significant number of visitors to the Government's web portal, the visibility of certain sub-portals of new institutions immediately after their establishment is satisfactory", the department stated.
However, as they said, the visibility could be significantly higher:
"If the quality of the content would follow the technical capabilities provided by the web portal, to which the Ministry of Public Administration continuously refers administrators and editors from individual bodies".
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