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Bhopu / Category /
Search Engines
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Posted On
Jul 18, 2008
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I just went through the site WebConfs' site and broke into laughter after having a look at this comic strip.
Just imagine how our life would have been if there was no Google. Plenty of books to scan through, piles of newspaper covered with dust that has to be searched, keeping notes of the major events, speeches taking around, as you never know when you will need it. I am sunk into a creepy feeling just by imagining those ‘antics’. But thank God there’s Google. Wonder, one day people will start looking for their soul mates on Google. Jokes apart, everything about Google is not perfect. Just type in the magical Google Search bar a keyword and it will come up with millions of results of which a good number is of not any use.
 LOUD3R is a network of exhaustive, topic-driven websites that gathers and publishes the best content from blogs, news and editorial sites, including photos and videos for any given topic. It ranks the content, pushing the most important stories to the top. All the news is published by an automated semantic engine that is guided by human editors, user behavior and community feedback.
For every great website out there, there are hundreds of not so great ones-some are just downright terrible. Sifting through the junk to find the content you want (the good stuff) takes a lot of time. Several content discovery tools have been developed to make this easier (RSS, Yahoo Pipes, Alerts, Search) but they are time-intensive, and generally do a lackluster job of filtering out repeats, spam, splogs and other bad content. Simply put, they can tell you based on keywords and popularity if a site is relevant, but they cannot tell you if it’s any good or not. To tackle this problem, Semantic Search Engines are fast springing up. LOUD3R is one such search engine that offers good content discovery search options. Read More
LOUD3R subjects range from motorcycles to wine; fashion to venture capital, each having its own dedicated website.LOUD3R owns more than 500 domains that share the "3R" brand, spread across a wide variety of topics. At present it has 25 domains live and plans to launch at least 10 net content destinations each month.
Working
LOUD3R's content discovery engine uses a combination of human intelligence and semantic technology to find and rank the best news, editorial, photo, video and other content related to a particular topic.LOUD3R sites are created by assembling a source list of websites and a semantic glossary of terms that teach the content engine how to identify the best news stories, photos, videos, and other content from hundreds of Websites related to a particular topic. The technology learns from user behavior, allowing the site to react to the community's interests and preferences. LOUD3R sites only publish the best content, and filter out spam, splogs, repeats, and other fake sites. The network has received 200,000 uniques since their launch last month.
Features
LOUD3R features a host of features which are very easy to use and helpful. It features sections like Most Interesting, Newest and Most Popular that have related articles with LOUD3R score.
The Hot Topics list shows various topics present with the most popular topic at the top. For example, the CRICKET3R page displays the topics like England, South Africa, Andrew Flintoff, Pakistan, International Cricket Council on the order of their popularity.
Drawbacks
However, there are certain drawbacks to LOUD3R’s Semantic efforts as there is little to null crossover between the sites ,i.e, the content present on different sites of LOUD3R may not be linked with each other which means the user may miss out on some key content. For example, if a user was browsing investments on FOUND3R, the latest news about those recently-funded companies might not be there, because they would be on BUZZ3R, the tech news site. It’s also a tad annoying to have to sign up on each site, so a network-wide login would do wonders.
They are rolling out six new sites soon: PREGG3R (pregnancy), TODDL3R (parenting), AMPLIFI3R (guitar), SPINNAK3R (sailing), ROOST3R (motocross), SHUTT3R (photography), and SUMM3R (a Beijing Summer Olympics site).
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Posted On
Nov 21, 2007
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 I must have read a number of articles looking forward to what’s going happen in the search engine bullfight? Will Google still rule or will Yahoo take the pie.
Even today, conducting a search on any of the major search engines can be classified as an "enter your query and hope for the best" experience. Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, while designed to take you directly to the number one results, could ironically be a truism for its entire search results (process?). Enter your desired search words into any of the search engines and you often end up crossing your fingers and hoping that they display the type of results you were looking for.
All these years we have search engines trying hard to enhance their search results to better anticipate the intentions of the searcher. Search for "pizza NY" at Yahoo, and you'll see that the top results include names, addresses, telephone numbers and even directions to pizza restaurants in NY, a great improvement on previous results.
Future Search Engine Technology
Over the past few years smaller search engines have also tried materializing and trying to improve their user experience. For example Grokker offers an interface that groups search results graphically, improving the way search results are segmented and displayed. On the other hand Eurekster, combines the social networking elements that are used by sites such as Friendster, and provides results that can be filtered based upon what members of your group are searching. While all of these are interesting and provide a glimpse of the future of search, it will not be the small companies that change the way we search. With Google about to get an influx of cash from its upcoming IPO, Yahoo re-vamping, and Microsoft finally jumping into the search arena, it will be these search engine powerhouses that enhance our search experience and take search engine technology to the next level.
What is the next level?
So what is this next level? What technology is it that I speak of, that will revolutionize the way we receive our search engine results? I believe that the search results we receive in just a couple of years from now could make current search engine technology look as old and cumbersome as picking up a Yellow Pages book is today.
Search In Your Mail
Another area with great potential for improving search engine results will likely be developed by Google.
Google is one search engine that has the technology to really take advantage of search within email. Why else would it even consider entering this arena? Imagine that, in order to use a free Google email account, you allow Google to provide advertisements and track your email activities. Google could change the way that search results and ads are displayed to free email users. For example, let's say you receive an email from your brother, the content of which, among other things, gloats about the brand new P4 desktop computer that they just purchased from Dell. As part of the interface you use to read that email, Google magically displays paid search advertising for desktop computers, including a link that will take you directly to the appropriate page on Dell.com. This information would be quite beneficial to you, as you may be interested in seeing how you too can be a proud owner of a P4 computer. Fantastic targeted advertising for Dell, as they know that if you click on the listing, they are halfway there to converting you into another satisfied customer.
We could be offered the option of paying a monthly premium in order to not have ads shown when we read our email, but if they are relevant to the content of a received message, why would we want to block them?
From Desktop to Internet
Imagine an operating system that monitors all of your activities -- with your permission, of course. Every file, every image, word document, mp3, even e-books could be monitored by your computer as it endeavors to anticipate your every need. Not only could an integrated search engine allow you to search files located on your hard drive, but it could also use the information it has collected from these files to make your online search experience even more enjoyable.
It is quite possible that Longhorn or a future OS (Microsoft, Linux or Mac) could become so intelligent that they know after listening to one of your favorite songs by the 80's rock band, Heart, your consequent search online for "heart" is more likely to originate from a desire to view the band's fan site, than that pressing need to visit the web site of The American Heart Association.
Expanding sneaks
Ask, one of the smaller of the top Internet search engines, has been using sneak peeks to entice searchers for a while now. Searchers who use Ask.com can mouse over an icon next to many results and see a screen shot of the website. No clicking needed. Google, always watching for search trends, seems to have noticed, because they’ve filed a patent for expanding their own snippets. Soon searchers on Google may be able to read expanded summaries of pages, or longer clips of page text. This tactic appeals to searchers who are now demanding more and more information faster and faster from the top Internet search engines, and who don’t want to waste precious seconds clicking on a link and then on the back button to find just the right site for their needs.
You may feel relatively satisfied with the current search offerings of Google, Yahoo, Ask and MSN. Search today is undoubtedly much better than what it was in the second half of the 1990's. But Internet search is still in its infancy and there's much room for improvement. Moreover, the super high valuation of Google on NASDAQ pushes investors and researchers to find better search solutions - to be The Next Big Thing. And these wannabes are not only working on discovering better indexing techniques, they're exploring new horizons like vertical engines, meaning-based search, intent-driven search, new clustering methods, and much more. In this post, we look into latest trends in the search industry.
Some Related Articles:
What are the top Internet SE doing?
The Search Engine scene in 2015
Search Engine Trends and SEO
Searching for a better way: 6 SE trends
Search Engine Watch
Google Trends
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Posted On
Oct 03, 2007
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 By now you have probably read numerous articles predicting "What will happen in 2008" or "Can MSN take on Google". While it is always worthwhile to look ahead and consider what may happen this year in the search engine industry, what about the things that we can't quite yet predict? Instead of looking at what will happen this year, perhaps we should look at what is happening in the search engine space if Google, Yahoo and MSN are truly able to revolutionize search and enhance the user experience.
Search had been a low priority--even a loss leader--for big Web portals like AOL, Microsoft MSN and Yahoo! Now search engines are bubbling over with new functionality and assuming a central role in Web life. They're attracting surfers in droves, making them a promising source of Web sales for entrepreneurs--even entrepreneurs without Web pages.
Relative newcomer Google deserves total credit. Google found a way to actually return relevant results--at least, in the first few of the 32,000 page hits any search generates. Google added a little populist secret sauce to the usual battery of search technologies, its PageRank takes a page's popularity into account, countering some of the placement games played by less-relevant Web sites.
Basically, Google built a better link trap than the next guy--and now, the world is beating a path to its door. According to on-demand Web analytics firm WebSideStory, Google owns more than 42 percent of Web searches--twice MSN's share and double digits ahead of Yahoo!
Google's big, cash-rich competitors are no longer content to let it have this business, even incubating it on their Web sites. Yahoo! and MSN are bent on a comeback, and many lesser players have their own dreams of out-googling Google. That kind of competition can only mean lower prices and more innovation. As both search engine users and advertisers, entrepreneurs will benefit more than anyone.
The New MSN Searh entering the Bull fight
 MSN launched the “new” Live Search portal covering four main areas of concern:
- Relevance (why you use the search product)
- Speed (patience is a virtue, but not what users really want in search query results)
- Streamlining Concept (better usability)
- High-Interest Content (universal search product anyone?)
What MSN has done to really affect your experience with Live Search:
• Sitelinks-like addition to the first result for major search terms
• Related Searches in the right sidebar, above Sponsored Sites
• Stock Information
• Sport Teams Integration
• Image Integration
• News Integration
• and all of these new features have feedback areas to respond to MSN weather the new additions were helpful.
What does this mean for MSN Live Search?
At first glance it appears that the MSN Live Search development team is working to bring value back to their search engine (users too), by focusing on the extras that keep users coming back.
Developments on Yahoo and Google local search
One of the most exciting new developments on Yahoo! and Google is local search. Surfers can limit their searches to neighborhood businesses, and businesses pay only for clicks from local customers. Making the largely national and international medium relevant to local businesses bas been tried before. But this works like you wish the Yellow Pages would and could truly open the Internet to millions of local businesses.
Also promising, are pay-per-call services like FindWhat.com. Even businesses without Web sites can advertise in local search results and be accessed by toll-free phone calls.
Search looks to be the next big battleground for our hearts and minds. Google's offer of a gigabyte of flee message storage for anyone willing to look at contextual ads is particularly threatening to businesses currently renting those eyeballs to advertisers. E-mall is even more important than search for keeping surfers stuck to a portal.
New browser toolbars from Google and others also change Web traffic patterns, and Google's Deskbar lets you search without even opening Internet Explorer. Talk about tugging on the lion's whiskers.
Future of Search engines
One thing's for sure, It's going to be an exciting ride. Conventional search engines are so frequently used that their spectacular development will be not a surprise. Search Engine Optimization is now a vital part of every website life, so the Search Engine’s results are also vital for a Web site. It will be not the small firms that change the way of search; Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, the search engine powerhouses will take search engine technology to the next level.
We are all living a miracle; a simple and affordable device is allowing us to take a topic and scan millions of Web pages and in seconds bring back product announcements, names of experts, research papers, and more, much more… all those results are very difficult or impossible to find otherwise.
The immediate future is even more spectacular. The technology will find a way to personalize the search engines so that they know, for example, that if the user is an IT professional and he is searching for mouse, he is probably in need for information about PC devices than about animals. This Concept is called QueryTracker.
The next generation of search engines has arrived, the theme engines. Search engines must now fight a losing battle to provide relevant results while combating spamming and duplicate pages. The goal is the same, but the engines need a way to store more pages, combat spam, and still provide pertinent results.
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Posted On
Aug 23, 2007
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StumbleUpon is an intelligent browsing tool that gives it users a whole new way to experience the Internet. Instead of searching for specific items on search engines like Google, Stumble Upon users only have to tag specific personal or professional interests and then ‘channel surf’ the web by simply clicking on a button on Stumble Upon tool bar.
Upon doing so, the users are directed to the website of their interest. Users can then choose to tag the webpage they are on to indicate if they want to see it again.
Users can also use the Stumble Upon toolbar as a form of social book marking. By surfing the web and tagging or submitting specific websites, each user can keep track of which websites they like and share it with others.
To start you have to install the toolbar, which is very compatible with I.E. and Firefox at Stumble Upon’s website. After that you can check if your website is already listed on Stumble Upon. You can do this by visiting this page and typing in your site’s URL.
This site can do wonders, it can drive massive traffic to a specific webpage or website that’s been stumbled. If you just wrote a great article or created a website which offered creative and useful content, you’ll want as many eyeballs on it as possible.
Once your website gets stumbled, it’ll usually start to immediately receive visitors from all over the world. This gives a rapid exposure to your website or brand. It further helps you establish a reader base for your blogs and add back links from Stumble Upon visitors with websites.
The site has been described very addictive by Om Malik from Gigaom. This social browsing tool has hit more than one million users in 2007. I think this is particularly since StumbleUpon has reached out the mainstream and not Firefox only. This has created a virtuous circle: more sites in the database means more utility for the users - that leads to more signups and longer session times. Perhaps this indicates that the information being displayed appeals to quite an extent to the visitors.
What to Expect?
With so many gigantic companies hitting the Internet on a daily business, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate one's small and average company from others. One needs to constantly strive to get their brand noticed. Stumble Upon has not only made it easier for small companies to underscore their brand.
Here is a discussion on how a company called Seomoz.org started at StumbleUpon with an article and got over 13,000 visitors to the article in just 5 days. As said by Flux a Web developer from Seomoz
“I know we've said it before, but we're continually amazed at Stumbleupon's ability to drive traffic. If you have good, linkable content, it will send you a few visitors. But if you create truly great content, it will strike a cord with a lot of people and send you lots of traffic. How much? Well, here is a chart of the top 10 referrers to the Mythbusters page since last Friday. 13,000+ visitors from Stumbleupon. Word. That's more than every other referrer except Gorillamask (next 2 bars). It's 11,000 more than Netscape (6th bar). Goes to show you how much power is placed in good content”.
Ebay enters the online search war by buying Stumble Upon
 Ebay paid $75 million for StumbleUpon. This has added Stumble Upon to other Ebay offerings like PayPal and Skype. From 2006 to 2007, StumbleUpon showed 150% YoY growth. I think this has been done to help StumbleUpon to further grow to its full potential. Ebay and StumbleUpon do fit together as they hold the same approach of connecting people. The best thing is there are not many changes to the website, they run StumbleUpon separately within eBay Inc., and are still focused on developing features based on feedbacks.
Is StumbleUpon the future of Web?
Certainly, Google is getting monotonous as one has to wade through hundreds of sites from various companies just to find the relevant ones. StumbleUpon works best as a brand and a link blinking tool. It’s ability for exposure across a wide demographic has helped companies build an online blog’s reader base.
StumbleUpon has stumbled upon the secret to the future of web surfing! Lets just hope they don’t start considering the results in favour of commercial gain over the wealth of content on the net.
Have fun stumbling!
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