Is this the the advent on Search 3.0? Google have unveiled a new format which could indeed seal its future as the king of all search engines? Squared offers a dissemination of information on a webpage described only as ’spreadsheet like’. Released close the another high profile launch of Wolfram Alpha next week, it presents another way of looking at semantic search. Sources from the San Francisco Chronicles outlines what to expect:
Google Squared, an experimental service, automatically compiles details from several Web pages and organizes them into a table on a single page, with multiple columns like a spread sheet. A search for “small dogs,” for instance, returns a list of breeds, an accompanying image and a brief description, plus the average height and weight of each breed.
I have to admit I’m slightly worried with the fact that these changes and added layers of search just won’t catch on with ordinary Joes (six pack?) out there in the world. It might prove a hit with those researchers but would the person off the high street want these filters, columns and such for finding a cheap TV. I’m not so sure. And I’m not so sure that Squared would be a regularly used feature either. I’ll be seeing what Wolfram Alpha does and looking very closely at its ability to deal with spam in particular.
This month sees the launch of Wolfram Alpha, the much talked about search engine created by Stephen Wolfram. Forget the fact that naming the engine after one self may constitute as a glorious vanity project. No, this baby looks serious with a hefty engine under the bonnet. Other search engines have tried and failed to dismount the oversized mammoth that is Google (Cuil anyone?) but WA has a chance to take a slice of the search pie from Yahoo! at least. Here’s why: its much hyped computional engine. WA essentially runs on big server technology sucking up all the data it can get its hands on via your website. Algorithms sift and filter this mass of info but not just a few. The blog states that tens of thousands of algorithms could be at work to get the information you need. A much detailed explanation can be found here.
However, the crux of the matter would be not necessaryily the relevancy of searches generated. Google’s initial popularity was helped by its simplicity over its rival, Yahoo!. Usability and to some degree how it spread by word-of-mouth would be defining factors on the success of Wolfram Alpha. I don’t think your Paris Hilton’s of the world would be much interested in ‘mathematica’ or its ‘world class algorithm’ if it works like a dog and doesn’t offer the simplicity of Google.
I’ll be watching this one closely and hopefully it wouldn’t fall over on launch.
Cuil launched today with some pretty decent coverage from the SEO press. However, today’s launch didn’t go according to plan as the server fell over itself due to high traffic! Not a great start to something being touted as a Google beater. I’m sure it will be back soon.
Danny Sullivan has written a good article testing the relevancy of searches compared to Google. Check it out here.
UPDATE: The site is now working but www.cuill.com with the two ‘l’s doesn’t even redirect to the main domain: www.cuil.com! Talk about branding issues! It seems Cuil does have its fair share of domain problems, being the unforunate spelling error could lead you to a hardcare porn site. FAIL AGAIN!
UPDATE01/08/0: www.cuill.com now redirects to www.cuil.com
Google has since launched the idea of ‘Universal search’ over a year ago and was detailed in a highly specifically by the chaps at Search Engine Land. So to re-cap, Universal Search was effectively a way of Google blending more search information in to its SERPs. By adopting this new feature, a user can access vertical areas associated to their search query, such as Book searches, video news or Maps . For instance, when a person types in “Star Wars”, he’ll not only get a few website links as expected but a whole raft of links to YouTube and News results as well. If a person types in a location like “New York”, the location map turns up at the top o fthe first page.
Now that Universal search has matured over a year what have the benefits been and what insights can SEO consultants gain from Google’s experiment on delivering for their cilents? Without doubt the changes last year has made search a richer experience for users of Google. It certainly helps that maps and news have blended in to the results. However, for SEO it means so much more. Let’s take on some examples. Back to “Star Wars” example; as an SEO consultant, we have to work out why some listings achieve greater ranks then some. Other considerations have certainly become more paramount in online marketing. Youtube listing ‘Lego Star Wars’ appears mid page with a nice thumbnail and make no mistake, Google favours its own products and would prefer you to see video from YouTube. Evil, I know and I’ve certainly never seen any other video networking site appear in this way. If we tap in a location like “New York” again, the local map will always appear at the top for 98%. Some movement in the rank maybe experienced but that is not the point. Google deems that the location map is the number 1 thing people will look for. Again, what does this mean to SEO-ers. Well, geo-targetting your website has been a buzz word for the past few months. Google has been known to take into account the ip address and references to physical ‘bricks n mortar’ addresses. Certainly people listing businesses on Google Maps helps in getting some exposure for your website in the SERPs.
Newer additions of Universal Search were launched earlier in the year. With vertical search expanding into product searches, a search result may include listings from Google Shopping section. Blog search listings were also blended this year into the SERPs, however, surprisingly the search “Star Wars” brings no such results considering the fanbase associated with the topic and neither do product searches appear. Perhaps it possibly could mean that Google considers the websites listed already are far more informative then any blended listings they provided? Odd behaviour anyway.
Semantic search has been the focal point of some intense blogging and opinion of late. What is semantic search? Essentially, it disseminates meaning of words and their context within the text to determine whether it is relevant to the search query or not. This is different from the approach given by Google which uses link authority to determine higher ranks.
As widely reported in the tech media in March, Yahoo has begun adopting some of the key aspects of semantic search into their engine: . Amit Kumar explained the shift in the Yahoo! Blog: http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000527.html. Through supporting microformats and a variety of web standard friendly practices, Yahoo! Search intends to to use this to increase the quality of information given to the user. An interesting note which I noticed was that fact that Yahoo! will embrace the Dublin Core initiative which has been discounted by myself as just code padding and superfluous to the crawl process given that the HTML meta tagging are already well established. I could be wrong there but now that Yahoo! Search has been opened for third party development anything is possible to improve its search services. Before we know it, the ability to tag and label content on a page will be widespread and will have to factored in on any optimisation process.
Google has recently been noted to have improved their own semantic search routines with stemming (e.g. run vs runners vs running) becoming more sophisticated. Also, recently Google group members noticed that synonyms (e.g sprinter) are now capable of ranking for sites. These observations bode well for the future of semantic search but will Google ever dump its PageRank formula? Unlikely given that PR has been a lynchpin of Google since day 1. Certainly we’ll expect the handling of semantic search to get much better over time
