Hi Matthew
A couple of comments.
Changing URIs isn't something that should be done lightly - so
raising this issue on this list is sensible.
I wrote an article on Guidelines For URI Naming Policies some time
ago - see <http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue31/web-focus/>.
This article expans on Tim Berners-Lee's paper that /"//Cool URIs
don't change/, - see <http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html>.
Part of the rationale for this is the URI as an identifier of a
resource - and that identifier can be used for purposes other than as
the loication of a resource. As an example, the Wikalong wiki-based
page annotation tool creates a page on the Wikalong server based on
the URL of the page being annotated. Change the URL and the annotatiom
becomes dcoupled from the source - and is effectively lost. Now
Wikalong is a significant service, as far as I know, who who knows what
valuable services may exist which assume persistency of the British
Museum URIs.
The other point to make is that you may lose your Google citation
data - and the British Museum is easily found using Google. It would be
unfortunate if that was lost. Maybe this won't happen, but the
(undocumented) algorithms may well penalise changed domains (to combat
spammers).
Perhaps it might be helpful to try and make contact with Google -
perhaps you are big enough and noteworthy enough for them to take
special measures.
Hope this is helpful.
Brian
--
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Brian Kelly
UK Web Focus, UKOLN, University of Bath, BATH, UK, BA2 7AY
Phone: +44 1225 383943
Email: [log in to unmask]
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