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Search Beyond Google

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hand-that-mocked-them,-and-the-heart-that-fed dept.

An anonymous reader writes: "'Search Beyond Google', the cover story of the March issue of Technology Review, is one of the few current Google stories that discusses whether their technology can stay ahead of the competition in the months to come."

33 of 248 comments (clear)

  1. Vivisimo is not a search engine by morelife · · Score: 4, Interesting

    rather a document organizer. It gets some of its results from Google anyway and just reorganizes it. Search results have the flavor of


    See books about "more stupid f---ing shit" at Amazon.

    targeted organization as in targeted selling. All they want is your demographic datum.

    IOW google will crush them.

  2. bigco by oogoody · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What will stop google is not their technology,
    but the ossification that takes over every
    large company as it grows. Changes won't be
    made because it is too big a change. Changes
    won't be made because it's not cost justified.
    Marketing concerns will override technology.
    People we get fat and happy. And unlike microsoft
    i can switch to a different search engine
    in a second. Yahoo is looking pretty good...

  3. pagelink by millahtime · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Google uses pagelink to rank pages for their searching. This may be teir downfall. The porn and ad agencies have found out how to take advantage of this. I would say that unless Goole finds a new way to rank/sort that someone else will come up with one that filters out the crap and take Googles market share.

    --
    Evolution or ID?
    1. Re:pagelink by rholliday · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Exactly. I may have missed it, but has anyone mentioned the infamous GoogleBomb? When people can trick a search engine that easily, and that publicly and have it still work, then it's time to change something.

      I love Google. Google has saved my sorry ass more times than I'd care to admit, but it's going to be a close one. They'll have my search, but the market share is still up in the air.

      --
      Xbox reviews.. We think they're funny.
  4. A suggestion -- to stay competitive by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Keep it simple (as it is) and limit arbitrary changes.

    I'm utterly fed up with eBay with the bloodymindedness of their "enhancement" and roll-out policy. Holding a near strangle-hold on the online-auction market, they are blind to the aggrevations they inflict upon users.

    Radical changes to a familiar interface shouldn't take place without dire need, unfortunately some people think it's fine to dust users. Google is all I want in a search engine and it works very well. The only reason I'd seek another search engine is if they (Google) drive me away.

    BTW, did you know there's a calculator? I found it when I did a search for 'stones to pounds'

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  5. DejaNews by netglen · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Don't forget that they also took in DejaNews. Doesn't Google no offer a free language translation service too? I think Google might want to reconsider offering so many service.

  6. Still waiting by roman_mir · · Score: 4, Interesting

    for a p2p distributed transparent encrypted indexing system with voted super-nodes.

    --
    You can't handle the truth.
  7. I for one.... by Lxy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    welcome our new search engine overlords. No, really, I'm serious.

    Google is awesome, and is by far the best search engine out there. Google became the best by being the best. I use it because it works, and it works well.

    In order to be dethroned, a search engine needs to work BETTER than Google. I welcome any search engine that can beat Google, as it has to be DAMN good to take that title. Microsoft search flat out sucks. If I look for articles on linux, I get articles about linux alternatives (mostly M$ content). If I google for linux, I get real linux stuff. This is just an example, but it's true across the board. I have yet to see a search engine superior to Google, and I welcome any tool that can prove itself better.

    --

    There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
    :wq
  8. Re:All good things ... by Ernest+P+Worrell · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They haven't hit a wall. They're just giving up. There is always always room for improvement in searching ... sure you can have natural language queries and stuff like that. But, getting rid of the Search engine "spam", and all those fake self-refering sites. C'mon google, that can't be that hard to get rid of. I mean, assuming you have a PHD and stuff ... right?

  9. Re:Hopefully.. by millahtime · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The only worry would be if Google goes public and then shortly there after someone develops a new way to search that's better and Google looses a bunch of market share. Then the stock would go down quick. This is now a high stakes game.

    --
    Evolution or ID?
  10. Re:It's search people by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Interesting

    But look how that game has changed. Google's the one now bragging that they can search "6 billion items", while the others have worked at tweaking their sort routines to be more resistant to link spam... and there's the event.

    Google's starting to be the one wishing this was a non-event.

  11. Lots of PhDs doing much good? by JusTyler · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Google pays hundreds of researchers and software developers, including more than 60 PhDs, to man the front lines in this technology war

    Google is famous for only hiring the academic best (except for those they pick up in acquisitions), but I'm wondering if things are getting stale over there at Google. Google Labs has shown us some interesting concepts, but when a company opens the field to everyone and asks for people to develop ideas for them (as in the recent $10k prize thing), does it mean those PhDs are sitting around eating pizza all day?

    PhDs are not the guys you leave around to do server maintenance or fix up problems in the clusters. They also don't make great coffee. So if you've got 60 extremely bright individuals (we're talking way into the top percentile) sitting around for a few years.. and Google has tons of money.. why aren't we seeing some major stuff coming out of Google?

    My theory is that either 1) the PhDs are being stifled by upper management, 2) the PhDs aren't really as smart as they're meant to be, or 3) Google has something absolutely massive just around the corner... Take your bets, gentlemen.

    --
    Web Hosting Reviews
  12. Mousetraps by blogboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's what technology is, isn't it? The constant search for something better than what's available? And the approach of many companies (insert any NASDAQ 100 company here) is wait-and-see. See how the poineer does it, do the same, but throw some more bells and whistles in, or just market it better.

    Google has a brilliant algorithm, thanks their 60 PhD's. But there's plenty of other PhD's out there, some of whom I'm sure are just finishing up their newest, succeeding algorithm. It's a constant game of king of the hill.

  13. Re:Search engine spam is the key... by Mr.+Stinky · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Agreed. Until last week, I observed Google being bombarded by spammers of the 3rd level domain name. I belive that last week they tweaked their algorithm similary to the November 2003 tweak by throwing out results that contained the exact keywords in the 3rd level domain name. I run a legitimate business: snowboards-for-sale.com, and these jack-ass-holes have been funneling Googlers into their Amazon affiliate site by setting up shell websites like: http://flux-bindings.foo.com/ If you compare the result set between Google and Yahoo for the same query, I'm finding that Yahoo has slightly better technology for weeding out the spam; at least right now.

    --
    Nothing is foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
  14. Re:This has been the "story" for the past two year by FePe · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Although new searching algorithms and techniques are being developed and matured by researchers and used by new search companies, I don't think they will become more popular than Google is now. Google has reached a high popularity and is known by almost all Internet users. Maybe there'll be some who wants to use the new technologies that other search engines has to offer, but Google's popularity is hard to break down.

    And Google isn't exactly dead, its alive and coping with the new stuff all the time.

    --
    "Until you do what you believe in, how do you know whether you believe in it or not?" -- Leo Tolstoy
  15. Re:Search engine spam is the key... by DrEldarion · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The funny thing is that Google does this on its own sometimes, and not because people are manipulating it. I recently noticed that I've been getting a lot of hits from Google searches for "S635MP". I recently posted a deal for a S635MP motherboard w/ CPU for $5. (the deal is dead now, sadly, although there's one for $10)

    Google saw that link, grabbed it, and for a while mae me the #1 search result for "S635MP", even above the manufacturer. I've since been moved to #2 by another site similar to my own, and we're both still above the manufacturer.

    Now, I didn't TRY to do this. All I did was post a simple link in my forums. Google is filling itself up with spam.

  16. Teoma by nucal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    After just a quick bit of playing around with Teoma (mentioned in the article), it seems to be better than Google. I was surprised ...

    1. Re:Teoma by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Some might claim that Teoma actually has the best find-what-you-want technology right now, but is suffering from a lack of crawling resources and promotion since Ask Jeeves, Inc. hasn't been bought up by any of the major resources. They seem like a project only being held back by lack of funding...

  17. Google needs to Show some its Cards by toleransi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Google is in a no man's land, of sorts. It has penetrated enough to be considered almost quasi-public, yet it does not have the security that such a status would offer, and must constantly watch its back. The company should know by now that users are not happy with the level of transparency. Yet, we see Orkut christened with very little explanation. End-users won't support a company that is overly secretive if there are alternatives.

  18. The issue's moot... by sammyo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I kinda like this one, but not enough to not slashdot them. A cool pun, a funky gui, what more could you want in a nextgen search engine.

  19. Structure of Information vs Search for Knowledge by stuffduff · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Todays search engines work a lot like information sieves, or panning for gold. The idea seems to be to take a bunch of stuff and wash away the un-needed, leaving behind (we hope) what we were looking for. However the very nature of the web provides the opportunity for looking at the relationships between ideas, the synthasis of knowledge as opposed to just collections of information. While the 'tricks' from the microsoft research projects look promising; only a true 'learning machine' will be able to go beyond the information and delevop a 'meta-interpretation/representation' of the raw data in order to support a 'meta-understanding' that is traversible and navigable in that we can not only connect with what we don't know, but that we can explore the unknown in terms of its relationship with what we do know.

    --
    "Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
  20. Re:All good things ... by interiot · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Google is certainly trying to weed out the junk while keeping the good stuff. Anybody who's dealt with a spam filter knows how hard that can be, especially if you want to keep all the good guys happy.

    There have been two updates in the last couple months, named Update Florida and Update Austin by the SEO community. As typical, various webmasters have been devoting a lot of thought and emotion to them. But as a normal user, all I can see is that Google is definitely trying, and not succeeding yet.

  21. The bar will be raised everywhere by Ars-Fartsica · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Someone of course will come in not so much with a better search, but a different search, and that will be equated with better. The major search engines will have to fold in these innovations to stay relevant. The newcomer will have to adopt the best of the entrenched players if they want to last. All around its a big win for users, until that fateful and unavoidable day when people start to realize that uber-searches are the de facto "big brother" everyone fears will materialze at some point.

  22. Ranked by your internet favories by 8400_RPM · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Google should allow users to 'help' them. Install something on your computer so they can see when you bookmark something, and what bookmarks everyone has. For people have have 'good taste' in bookmarks, theres results count higher than someone with BS bookmarks. I think this would improve accuracy.

  23. I thought... by BlackShirt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... it could be great idea to publish unanswered questions as weblog.

    Even google cannot answer everything. Web is limited even if you don't believe it. You post your question. Answers will come through trackback, comments, email. Googling the web after you posted the question. Or not.

    All you need is some tag to mark post as answer or question. Hot list like metafilter to aggregate.

    Is it a good idea or does it belong to recycle bin?

    Mailing lists used to be about that. Discussing specific problems. Finding answers. Nowadays they are quite dead. Except some. Newbies, spam, whatever is the reasons. Problem is that those who possess knowledge don't have enough stimulus to share it. I don't solve that problem. The answer might be micropayments or gifts via amazon.

    But make a good deed today. Answer one or two questions. In a year it might make quite a lot. In some day you might need answer to something yourself.

    http://answers.google.com/answers/main
    http://i haventfound.blogspot.com/

  24. Building the wrong mousetrap by saddino · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A lot of articles (including this one) are focused with how Google (and their would-be competitors) can improve search via algorithms like PageRank; and again and again the proposed/imaged solutions are based on server-side computation. IMHO, the real solution to improving search is client-side -- and I don't mean search toolbars -- but rather using the computional power of the client to provide a better experience than what is available inside your browser. Searching in a browser is cool, but why not build a powerful Google search client app?

    As a simple example: if your a Mac user, Beholder is really a much more useful image search frontend than using images.google.com alone (yes, I've mentioned this before, but hey, a developer has to eat).

    1. Re:Building the wrong mousetrap by GenetixSW · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The thing is, Google's servers are many orders of magnitude more powerful than your PC. It can calculate more search algorithms in a millisecond than your (or my) PC can compute in seconds. Seconds mean a lot when you're doing something like this. Very few people have the patience to wait and wait and wait, even if yes, it's fast.

    2. Re:Building the wrong mousetrap by saddino · · Score: 2, Interesting

      True, Google has optimized its search ahead of time so that its basic search is simply a matter of very, very fast hash lookups -- ones that can be handled by their server farms given the number of queries they typically work on simultaneously. And that is exactly the reason why Google can't offer more advanced data mining server-side. If ten million people wanted to perform an exhaustive analysis, Google would slow to a crawl. For basic searches, Google is fast. But for the "future of search" my bet is client-side (even P2P) computation on streamed data from Google.

  25. Re:Meta search engines by NewWaveNet · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I quite like Vivisimo (after I figured out how to make it include Google in it's query by adding 'google' to the 'sources=' part of the query URL).
    When I first read that, it made sense. Then I went to Vivisimo's site and realized that was...stupid.

    Why would Vivisimo happen to have a Google API ready to be loaded up when 'google' is appended to the query string? Why would they trust the client's query string and go digging through whatever loadable modules they may have for ones specified in by the query string? Why would they use 'google' and not 'Google' since all of the other sources are correctly capitzlized (yes, capitalization does matter; see [L|l]ycos in sources get field)? Who the hell mod'd this parent up?
  26. Back in Undergrad by ducomputergeek · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Google really helped with research papers couple years ago, but now I find there's too much spam. So much so, that now I'm into Grad studies, I am going to Lexis-Nexis to find out information about topics. Also I have found that the Internet is certianly not what it used to be either in terms of quality of content. There used to be a lot more academic sites appear when I searching for information on a topic. Now, especially being in an political science related field, International Affairs, doing a web search on some topics leads to dozens of ranting bloggers instead of more academic type work.

    --
    "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
  27. Re:Google's speciality & ubiquity by SeinJunkie · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So, irrespective of the technical competence, or otherwise of Google, it is going to be around and the leader

    This isn't necessarily true, as Yahoo! had a great-working engine and very good brand recognition. Although the syllables in "yahoo" do not lend themselves very well to verb usage or even expletives, the name is very much still alive. There are reasons why a brand gets to the top position in the first place, but there needs to be lots more reasons why someone sticks with that brand.

    I hope Google stays fresh and at the top of the game, because it seems like the competition doesn't really care about the users at all. We can all agree that MS doesn't deserve a top spot for anything else. I don't think Yahoo! is in a position to take anything as far as search goes, but it might just be in my head. If Google needs to step their game up, certainly Yahoo! is long overdue. Their site seems to me woefully busy and somehow retains the look that nobody has messed with the design since 1998.

    All the other search engines either advertise too much to be useful (see: Ask Jeeves) or seem to withhold relevant information (see: About.com).

  28. Re:In 3 months? by glinden · · Score: 2, Interesting
    • [Google] News is my primary source for world news.
    In the shamless-self-promotion-department, if you like Google News, might give Findory News a try. It's similar to Google News, but which articles are featured depends on your reading habits.

    So, if you read many tech news related to Linux, for example, it will emphasis news articles that are interesting to people who like tech news on Linux. It adapts to your interests.
  29. Re:Search engine spam is the key... by justMichael · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you use a browser that supports keywords (don't they all now?) you can add them to the end of the keyword string

    http://www.google.com/search?&q=%s+-site:example .c om

    Of course you would have to add a +-site: for each one.