PAGE 3 of 4
|
Direct Hit, as inventor Gary Culliss relates:
"represents a third kind of search, one that's user-controlled, because
search rankings are dependent on the choices made by other users."
|
 |
As users choose to go to a listed link, they keep track of that data and use the collected hit-ratio to calculate the relevancy. So the more people go to the site from Direct Hit the higher it will appear on their results.
which runs as a research project at Stanford University since late 1997, also
attempts to improve relevancy rankings. Google
uses PageRank, which basically monitors how many sites link to a given
page. The more sites and the more important the sites that link to a given site
the higher the ranking in the result list.
It does give a slight advantage to .gov and .edu domains. Basically, it is trying to do what Yahoo does but without the need for costly human indexing.
Another way of fixing relevancy rankings is by selling prominent placement as Goto.com does. Founded by idealab and Bill Gross, this practice caused quite a controversy.
Apparently, there was some doubt as to the actual relevancy of its paid prominent listings. Goto insists that their clients must adhere to a "strict policy" of relevance to the corresponding keywords.
Their corporate site defends its approach:
| "In other search engines, there is no cost to spamming or word stuffing or other tricks that advertisers use to increase their placement within search results. When you get conscious decisions involved, and you associate a cost to them, you get better results... GoTo uses a revolutionary new principle for ranking search results by allowing advertisers to bid for consumer attention, and lets the market place determine the rankings and relevance." |
For the right amount of money you can ensure
your site is placed #1.
Check
out the words that are still "unbidden".
 |
Look similar? That's for the courts to decide now. Goto.com has filed suit February 1999, against the Disney owned Go Network. |
 |
As search engines try to index the entire Web, some search engines have found their niche by narrowing their field to a specific subject or geographical region.
Argos was the first to offer a Limited Area Search Engine. Launching October 3, 1996, they index only sites dealing with medieval and ancient topics. A panel decides on whether a site is suitable for inclusion.
Their mandate was to combat such problems as this example (from their site):
| "At the time of this writing, a search for "Plato" on the Internet search engine, Infoseek, returned 1,506 responses. Of the first ten of these, only five had anything to do with the Plato that lived in ancient Greece, and one of these was a popular piece on the lost city of Atlantis. The other five entries dealt with such things as a home automation system called, PLATO(tm) for Windows, and another PLATO(r), an interactive software package for the classroom. Elsewhere near the top of the Infoseek list was an ale that went by the name of Plato, a guide to business opportunities in Ireland, and even a novel called the "Lizard of Oz." |
Such specializing has also proven effective for MathSearch, Canada.com, and hundreds of others.
 |
Ask Jeeves'
niche is making search engines more searchable
for the average user. (Who really knows Boolean anyway?) Founded in 1996, but not really well-used until recently, Ask Jeeves has a more human approach. Refining natural language queries so that users can ask normal questions. For example, "Whatever happened to Upper Volta?". |
When a question is answered it matches similar queries it has already received and offers these as its results. This is supposed to help guide users to the desired location when they might not know themselves how else to find it.
There is no denying that these sites are among the most popular websites. They mark the daily entry point into the Web experience.
Search engines are trying to offer more and to be more. Whether it is Northern Light’s private fee-based online library or Yahoo offering free email and content (news, horoscopes, etc.). Search engines are continuing to evolve.
We are seeing the sophistication of the spiders in finding and indexing sites, the increase in user-friendly searching techniques and interface, the expanding of databases and the improved relevancy of results from the database.
(Now if they could just make some money doing it, as most of the companies mentioned continue to operate at a loss.)
As I learned while researching this topic, search engines may open up the door to the World Wide Web, but not without some difficulty. Searching is far from easy or perfect.
As the Web continues to grow rapidly, the need for better search engines only increases.
PAGE 3 of 4
by Glen Farrelly, July 1999