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Better Search Engines

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the finding-nemo dept.

prostoalex writes "Scientific American is seeking better Web searches. They report on all sorts of innovations happening outside the Google-Yahoo-MSN zone that the press is usually reporting on, including GPS-enhanced searches from University of Maryland, Shape Retrieval and Analysis from Princeton, musical search engine from New Zealand Digital Library Project, and some of the projects that A9 and Ask.com have been working on."

14 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. What I want by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is just some better work done on recognizing essentially similar documents. Like, if I perform a search, and 40% of the returns are the same wikipedia article copied to different sites, it would be nice if the search engine could only show me one (wikipedia). Or, like, if I'm searching for some kind of error I got while using Linux. Most of the returns I get will be various old Linux mailing lists, but only some of them will be relevant to my problem. There must be some way the search engine could logically organize them for me so that I could more clearly identify that block of returns that is most applicable to my problem of the moment.

    1. Re:What I want by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      What I want is a button that lets me resrtict my search for a thing to either a review of the thing, a forum/blog discussing the thing, places to buy the thing, or specs/datasheets on the thing. So many times I type in a product name only to get two dozen "find prices/read reviews on X" -- none of which actually have reviews ("be the first to review X!") or even more than a couple of not-so-great prices. A filter could be done by creating a statistical fingerprint of the page.

      I also want to be able to sort my search based on the amount of grammatically correct (or mostly correct) text on the page. Something would have to keep it from indexing hidden (white on white) words or keywords designed to grab top spots on search engines. There would have to be some more complex grammar checker (and place checker to make sure it isn't a bunch of tiny text at the bottom of the page) to accomplish this.

    2. Re:What I want by JesusQuintana · · Score: 2, Interesting
      "Like, if I perform a search, and 40% of the returns are the same wikipedia article copied to different sites, it would be nice if the search engine could only show me one (wikipedia)."

      Like, I agree. I have done some searches and simply find the same text on page after page. It would be nice if the search engine could provide some sort of heirarchy. It could say here is the authoritative source and here are all the sources that qoute it.

      I did say it would be nice, but it really isn't necessary, or it would seem very feasible. What if the authoritative source changed, but the subordinate sources are not updated? It would seem that this would apply to your Wikipedia example. And how could an algorithm determine the parent source?

      Yes, it would be nice. But better search is also a detriment. If we are an information economy, as the talking heads on television keep telling us, isn't part of our value as information workers our ability to deal with this information. In the old card catalog days, wasn't a researcher's job to take all of the information that is available and gather and interpret that information in a meaningful way? Isn't that still true of today's information worker? If your CEO can type something into Google and get the answer he wants, do they need you to find the answers for him? If software becomes too intelligent, then doesn't the human mind become obsolete. Frankly, I've always been proud of my ability to parse and understand information and then recapitulate it in a meaningful way.

      "Or, like, if I'm searching for some kind of error I got while using Linux. Most of the returns I get will be various old Linux mailing lists, but only some of them will be relevant to my problem."

      Well, you've probably got several problems here:
      1. Lack of relevant material due to smaller installed user base. (It will always be easier to find the answer to the Windows problem because more people are having it and writing about it.)
      2. Lack of need to publish material. Linux users are generally not computer illiterate so there isn't much need to write thousands of Linux hand holding articles.
      3. Lack of people searching for and linking to material. This makes Google's relvance ranking somewhat useless.


      Of course, all of this could be attributed to poor search criteria. As they say, "garbage in, garbage out." And that takes me back to my previous point. If your CEO can fix his computer with Google, why do they need you?

      In the information economy, knowledge is power and money. And if knowledge is easily obtained, then the laws of supply and demand dictate that the value of knowledge decreases. As a freelance video producer, I am watching the devaluation of my services occur as practically every Joe Schmoe can edit video on their home computer. The latest technological innovations have devalued the video/film production industry. The only people still making lots of money are the stars, because the work proactively to protect their value. I don't know why technology/information workers aren't interested in the same. If I buy a faster computer that enables me to produce videos in half the time, then I have also cut my billable hours in half as well.

      So, I am all in favor of poor search technology and lazy people. Simply, if I have the patience and the ability to skillfully use technology in ways that others cannot, then I am a valuable commodity. But if anyone can do it, then I'm just like an 18 year old who wants to work for MTV. That's why MTV staffs with interns, because there is an endless supply. If the supply is endless, then you have no value. You're a dime a dozen. You might as well be Chinese.
      --
      You said it man. Nobody f#%ks with the Jesus.
  2. Re:What we need is whitelisting by vbdrummer0 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    If we can whitelist sites, and reduce the total number of advertisments cluttering the search, the existing search algorithms would work quite nicely.

    I agree, but why not just eliminate all ads from search results? As far as I'm concerned, they can put real ads all over the result page as long as the results themselves are legit.

  3. Like Yahoo, Only Cheaper by mstyne · · Score: 2, Interesting

    From The Daily WTF:

    I want a website directory, like a yellow pages, or Yahoo. I want any web user to be able to add a link, under the relevant categories available, like...finance,real estate,travel,games etc. I would like the links to be approved before they appear. I want the search results displayed in the following fashion: A URL text, or URL image, with a little description underneath. I want the following tools - top 50 searches, most popular links, a search facility. A space across the top of the page to insert my own logo.

    --
    mstyne: real name, no gimmicks
  4. metadata by subrama6 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    as we get into video search and the like, aren't searches dependent on the quality of the metadata associated with the item? i just tried video.google.com, and was impressed that typing in "bauer" got me stills from recent episodes of 24. but surely that's based solely on the fact that "bauer" was a tag for the still. at that point, why is new search technology impressive? it's the metadata that makes it possible. am i missing something?

  5. GPS-enabled search by jxyama · · Score: 2, Interesting

    GPS-enabled search would be excellent, as more and more people probably will adopt accessing the web on their cell phones. (already happening in japan, afaik.)

  6. Musical search already exists... by Humorously_Inept · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It has been available as a service on mobile phones for something on the order of two years. The same thing, called TuneTracker, is available in Canada now under the MuchMusic brand. Put your phone up to the mystery tune and you'll get the song title and artist's name back in an SMS message.

    I'd like to see a search engine that can intelligently filter results for the word "review." When I search for a product review, I do not want some hole-in-the-net online store's product page with a link to 0 customer-submitted reviews.

    --

    ~Someday, I hope to be an aspiring author.
  7. Synonyms by e4ward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Odd, just before reading this story I wanted to google for:

    searchterm1 searchterm2 bogus

    and how I would have liked the search engine to actually search for:

    searchterm1 searchterm2 (bogus OR fake OR spurious OR wrong OR specious OR ...etc)

    by being able to specify a qualifier on bogus eg, bogus:synonyms

    --
    http://www.e4ward.com
  8. Re:Clusty = Innovative by lucabrasi999 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Use vivisimo instead of clusty. It is the same search engine/company, just different names. If you search use Vivisimo, the sponsored links aren't quite as obnoxious. Unfortunately, the firefox extension uses Clusty, not Vivisimo.

    As for the names, both of the suck big-time. "Vivisimo" and "Clusty". Geez. I remember a few years ago, Price Waterhouse Coopers Consulting decided to change their name to "Monday". I wonder if the folks at Vivisimo hired anyone from PWCC, because their names suck almost as much.

  9. Tools for scientific searches? by Pi_0's+don't+shower · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anyone here who's a scientist ever try to use "google scholar"? Unfortunately, it's not very good. What I'd like to see (as an Astrophysicist) is some way to do a search that combined results from difficult-to-navigate scientific sites, such as NASA's ADS abstract service, the Spires HEP database, and the arXiv.org preprint database. Finding what you need on these individual sites is often a pain, and to be able to search a compilation of them would sure be nice for me...

  10. how about google blocking a domain for good by Sark666 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When I get pages and pages of crap that we all know are ads, I wish I could just check a box, block this domain from future searches.

    Click on enough of them and a user might just see search results similar to circa 96

  11. Easy (relatively) improvement... by Nobody+You+Know · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The number one search engine feature that would make my life infinitely easier would be precise proximity operators in search engine syntax.

    (For those who don't have a clue what I'm talking about, LEXIS-NEXIS, among others, allows you to run searches like foo w/5 bar (the word "foo" within 5 words of the word "bar"), or even foo pre/5 bar (the word "foo", followed, within five words, by the word "bar". Good proximity engines allow you to search not only within x words, but also to order terms, to specify root words within terms, etc.)

    It would be great to have people reviewing and whitelisting page results, but that takes human interaction. Implementing precise proximity operators, though, can give you nearly the same benefits without any of the human cost.

    Many people here have suggested eliminating ad text from search results, but if history is any indication, any algorithmic system that we can come up with to do so will be circumvented pretty quickly. The one way to fix this is to allow me to say that I want the word "modperl" within 10 words of "solaris", rather that just specify any page that contains both terms. That will get rid of 95+% of ads right away.

    Surely, with all the bright people at Google, this is something that they can figure out pretty easily.

  12. Another cool concept in search engine. by geek2be · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This one connects you with people searcing for similar keywords. I guess the idea is to have another set of helping eyes.
    site: http://www.chatnsearch.com/