Industry Recognitions and Awards

Semaphore has been awarded the iNetwork Supplier Excellence Award for its work with Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council. The Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council is the local authority of the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale in Greater Manchester, England. The metropolitan district council, one of ten in Greater Manchester and one of 36 in the metropolitan counties of England, provide the majority of local government services and information for locals, visitors and the business community on their website.

Rochdale submitted Semaphore for the award based on superior site search functionality supported by the Semaphore platform, which is deployed on the council’s website. Semaphore improves visitor search results using:

• Model-driven, rule-based auto-classification; Semaphore eliminates the hassles, saves time and reduces costs and errors associated with manual classification.
• Sophisticated classification strategies that leverage information to drive key business decisions and improve results.
• Page recommendations; the Council determines what information is displayed at the top of search results. This allows the Council to achieve its goal of providing users with the most popular content in the top 5 search results.
• Keywords, which are applied to the information, allow Semaphore to automatically associate relevant synonyms.
• A “Did you mean” function in the search results, which directs users to topics and concepts related to their search.

The strong shift in the design and layout of council websites to support a user-centric model influence how residents use their websites. Rochdale’s digital services are accessible, engaging and easier to navigate with the simple purpose of delivering a high-quality service to the people it serves.

Since its deployment the Council website has received a 4-star rating in May of 2016, has been awarded Best Local Authority website in-country for search, navigation and A to Z functionality, achieved Internet Crystal Mark for their dedication and promotion of precise and clear English throughout their website, classified as having faultless A-Z functionality and cited as having exemplary site search as well as others notable awards.

“The Semaphore team is excited to receive this award and thanks their partner Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council for the nomination. That our product is singled out by iNetwork as one that meets a tough set of criteria and rigorous evaluation is indeed high praise. This honor demonstrates that our customers continued commitment to Semaphore is validated by the people they serve” says Jeremy Bentley, CEO Semaphore.

For more information go to iNetwork’s site