All posts tagged ‘search’

File Under: Software & Tools

Aug

2008

Google Adds Insight to Trends

By Adam Duvander

Google released another data-mining tool meant to help its advertisers spend wisely. Google Insights looks a lot like Google Trends. In fact, I wonder why both tools still exist (Google has done it before: see Sites vs. Pages).

Insights does beyond Trends, with map visualization and categories. Like Trends, you can download the data for your own number crunching.

Here’s an example of how Insights lets you dig a little deeper. Say I wanted to find out when and where users have been searching for Sam Adams, the beer (and yes, the colonial U.S. statesman):

Well, there’s another Sam Adams I haven’t mentioned. I happen to know about him because he’s the mayor-elect of my home city, Portland, Oregon. Check out how blue Oregon is in the map, and how the graph ticked up dramatically around our May 20 election.

With Insights, I can restrict to just the beer by selecting the Food and Drink category. With that done, the graph and the map make a little more sense:

One feature from Trends that is lacking in Insights is the news view. This would have been useful to someone who doesn’t know about my city’s new mayor. In Trends, the graph of search term popularity is labeled with news stories that might explain the move up or down. Google Finance also has this feature, but it’s hit and miss correlating stocks with press releases.

User searching seems more rational than investing. For example, this Google trends graph explains the surge in search for “obama” in June with a link to news.

Insights doesn’t.

The other Insights features make up for it. Use it to determine which locales would be most open to your product/service or which presidential candidate has more buzz in contentious Michigan.

This is normally the spot where we would beg for an API, to automate our research, or build something even cooler on top of this data. Well, we might not have to. From what I can see, the download option acts as a de facto API. The same arguments sent to the web version can be sent to a CSV (Comma Separated File) version.

But that might not be the most exciting part of Google Insights. Notice in its logo there’s a “for search” tacked onto the end of the name. Also, the URL is /insights/search instead of just /insights. That suggests we might be seeing Google Insights for Something Else down the line. Any guesses?

See also:

Tags: data, Google, search, visualization

File Under: Uncategorized

Aug

2008

Future of Yahoo Search Makes Room For You

By Adam Duvander

The first few SearchMonkey (no relation) applications have quickly made their way to being part of Yahoo Search. It’s an important signal from the number two search engine: Yahoo wants you to do their innovation for them, but they also want you to get the rewards.

LinkedIn and Yelp are the first third-party sites to have enhanced search results included automatically. Over the last few weeks Yahoo has tested various SearchMonkey applications to see how ordinary users interact with the rich results.

What does this mean for you? If you make something users want, Yahoo will unleash it upon the masses.

Here’s how Yelp and LinkedIn SearchMonkey applications work. When searching for a restaurant on Yahoo, anywhere Yelp results would normally be displayed, users instead see a breakout box with address, review info, and more.

Yelp does not get result order preference, but as any eBayer will tell you, enhancements get noticed. Yahoo says they’ve seen as high as 15% more clicks on SearchMonkey results.

It’s common for companies to let outside mashups and add-ons fuel their own internal innovations. Yahoo is doing that, but in a more open way. Rather than blatantly stealing your work, SearchMonkey provides a means to easily bring your work into the search results fold.

That’s a small difference, yet at the same time huge. You get the credit for what you do. If the SearchMonkey application is for your own site, you get increased traffic.

Yes, we’ve discussed before that this may not be the most open standard, but it’s a start. Perhaps the foundation for SearchMonkey will be accepted by other search engines. Heck, before sitemaps became a standard, it looked very Google-centric.

You don’t only have to hope for Yahoo’s approval, either. For power searchers, Yahoo lets you customize your experience, including which SearchMonkey applications are included in your results. Even better, Yahoo lets you turn off LinkedIn and Yelp, if that’s what you want.

What do you think–is Yahoo opening up their innovation in a good way, or are there better approaches to let developers have a say in the next generation of search results?

See also:

Tags: Google, search, Yahoo

File Under: Software & Tools

Jul

2008

Cuil Becomes Third Largest Search Engine (For a Day)

By Adam Duvander

As we mentioned Monday, the apparent Google-killer was not looking scalable and robust when it launched. Founders of the new search engine, Cuil (pronounced “cool”), called the launch “overwhelming.”

According to the founders’ note, Cuil served 50 million searches on its first day. At that rate, Cuil would be the third largest search engine (based on comScore data via Search Engine Watch), behind Google and Yahoo, and just ahead of Microsoft’s sites.

Not expecting big league traffic, Cuil’s servers crawled under the load:

For a good part of the first day, the traffic volume simply outstripped our ability to respond. Some machines failed. Some bugs were found. Some of our redundancies… weren’t so redundant. This meant some searches didn’t get the best results. Some didn’t get any.

Those who saw search results were usually baffled with the image matching. Philip Lenssen has a list of bad Cuil searches. Most of the examples Lessen provides are people searches with pictures of other people. Or, like the case of Y Combinator’s Paul Graham, an orangutan.

The poor image matching appears unrelated to the site’s rocky start: the bad matches mentioned in Lessen’s post are still in search results today.

See also:

Tags: Cuil, Google, search, Yahoo

File Under: Software & Tools

Jul

2008

Wanted: New Google, Not So Fast Cuil

By Scott Loganbill

Why is there such an overwhelming interest in semantic search engines? Cuil (pronounced cool) in particular — a site literally crippled by first day interest? The site claims it can handle 120 billion documents, but apparently it can’t handle the amount of incoming traffic it saw Monday.

Site availability was up and down throughout the day. Webware reported Cuil was busy fighting fires and restoring servers. The problems apparently caused missing or questionable search results. Because of the issues, we have no idea whether Cuil stands to be the Google killer it proclaims.

The amount of press and chatter on Twitter suggests it is, and maybe they’re right. Senior ex-Google engineers are responsible for developing the property, and since they were responsible for the search engine giant’s development at one point, you’d think they would know what could beat it. Given the amount of research and development Google throws towards the search engine problem, perhaps the only way to beat the behemoth at its own game is to draw from its experience.

Cuil’s approach mirrors that of other up-and-coming search engines, such as Hakia and Microsoft’s recent acquisition, Powerset, who champion the semantic approach to search. The semantic search engines claim to have better understanding of the meaning of page content, and deliver better results because of it.

The search results, at least with preliminary tests, argue otherwise.

The secret of Cuil’s hype is a mystery. While Yahoo and Microsoft battle for second place, searchers may simply be more interested in finding a new Google. What do you think? Are you tired of Google?

[Hat tip to Webware and ReadWriteWeb for the links]

Tags: Cuil, Google, hakia, search

File Under: Humor, Software & Tools

Jul

2008

Google’s Knol: ‘Who Needs a Search Engine? Ctrl-F’

By Scott Loganbill

Browsing through Google’s Knol, released Wednesday, you’ll find the most curious thing above the “Plain old bag o’ knols” section: the distinct absence of a search box.

Actually, it is the pronounced absence of a search box. Instead is an advisement: “Who Needs a Search Engine? Ctrl-F.” See the irony? Knol was built by Google, a company known for its search engine? Funny, Google. Funny.

Pressing Control-F (or Command-F for Mac users) will initiate your browser’s search function, and will scour a hodgepodge of knols on the page. “Knols” are what the site is calling articles written by an assortment of contributing professionals on a range of serious topics.

Also markedly humorous is the prominent display of serious medical articles by surgeons and med-school directors on topics such as diabetes and lung cancer next to an article on toilet clogs. Editorial choices notwithstanding, the site launch features a good deal of interesting information and provides a author-centric, and therefore source-driven, competitor to Wikipedia.

Of course, search engine company Google wouldn’t really leave users completely high and dry. Knol’s search is located at the very top right of the screen. Google’s joke rings true, though. Why bother building a search function on your site if your browser has a pretty good one built in?

Now’s a good time to check out Wired’s coverage of Google Knol and browse the Wikipedia threat yourself.

Tags: Google, search, Wikipedia