Learnings about Search Engines
From Computers in
Libraries 2006
AskJeeves has become Ask.com, but more than the name has
changed. Four of the five major reviewers of search engines say that Ask is now
the leading search engine in terms of best meeting users’ needs. (e.g., see
Wall Street Journal http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20060330.html).
All of the search engines are
seeking to become more than just search tools, but information portals and even
more. For example, see live.com, yahoo.com, or personalize your google home page (www.google.com/ig).
While there are thousands of
search engines, been acquired, merged, or otherwise dropped out. There are now
four major search engines—
1. Yahoo! is still #1 in page visits (including all offerings).
Their search is on a par with the other three majors. Their beta offers an autocomplete instant results bubble through
2.
Google has a
unique method of relevance ranking that shot it to the forefront as a search
engine. They rank pages according to how often it is linked to by other pages
within the search results. While usually positive, there are drawbacks. For
example, the actual search term may not appear on the resulting page—only in
the links to it (to get around this, use intext:). They have 52 servers and each is a little different.
Just reload and you may get different results—see http://www.webrankinfo.com/english/tools/google-data-centers.php). To get around the 1 hit per domain limit, add
&filter=0 to the end of the search results URL and press enter. Google
cache is wonderful (see what the page looked like when they indexed it). If
Google cache page says “supplemental result,” it is a really old one. Google is
constantly experimenting with new features or interfaces. You may see something
and go to show it to someone else, but you may never find the same feature
again. Use standard syntax to use google search as a
calculator--e.g., (127.5*13)/1.5. For more information on google
advanced search, see www.cwire.org/data-mining-using-google/
or google CheatSheet at www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html.
Check out Google Suggest at www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en.
3.
Ask.com has
the most successful natural language search, presentation of related data, and
suggested links that are relevant to your search. Maps have the best zoom, and
can overlay street maps on satellite imagery. Check out the features of the
search tools box to the right. Use the advanced search, which is unfortunately
hidden on the next screen of search tools, or advanced help at about.ask.com/en/docs/about/site_features.shtml .
4.
MSN search
(becoming live.com) is slightly smaller than the other three. It has two useful
unique features – search results link to Encarta. When clicking on an Encarta
link from your search results, you automatically get 2 hours of free access to
Encarta (normally a fee-based encyclopedia). Also, their maps are the best. For
example, you get different directions depending on whether you are walking or
driving (you CAN walk the wrong way down a one way street).
Sometimes, you would like to
search a specific site and are having trouble using the search box on their
site (or they don’t have one). Just insert site:edu at the beginning of the search box, then your
search term.
While each of the search
engines seeks to have up-to-the date results, sometimes the links are old. With
Google, click on “cached” to see just how old the results are.
Possible future enhancements:
·
Take a look at Exalead. It
has some great features that undoubtedly the majors will copy to prevent Exalead from stealing more than the 6% market share it has
grabbed in the past 12 months.
·
Gigablast allows
you to create custom searches. Enter the URLs of up to 200 web sites, and Gigablast will create an index that will allow you to
restrict your search to those 200 domains.
·
A9 is a scaled-down version of Google for Amazon.
It searches for book content. You can search the content of many current books.
It has superior results zoom features. Also, if you find a book using A9, you
get an automatic discount if you then buy it through Amazon.
·
Try Soogle (incorporates advanced search into basic search).
Alan Mann, April 2006