Bloggle

'Search Engine Purity' based on xkcd 435

Based on the original xkcd 435 (Purity). Remix by me. Please share this...you can download it here (png format).

This post is not about the iPhone

Photo by ten safe frogs

You might have noticed the myriad of iPhone stories everywhere and perhaps you are getting just a little sick of them (Google Blogsearch shows about 200 posts about iPhone in the last hour).

Oh how I'd love to tell you about my iPod Touch 2.0 software update woes.

But instead, let me tell you about Scour. It's a new 'social' search engine in the same vain as Wikia (the hackable search engine). However, this time the difference is that you get 'paid' for searching and voting results up or down the rankings (an SEO's dream?). In fact you don't get paid, you get points, which apparently translate into a VISA gift card after you got millions enough. A nice variation on Microsoft Cashback.

How does it work?

Scour shows you the top results from Live, Yahoo and Google when you type in a query but ordered dependent on how useful people in the Scour community found that result.

"...we take the results from the 3 major search engines, (Google, Yahoo, MSN) Taking into account their current rankings. We then weight them against our own database to see what our users have said about where positions should be, and apply that weight to the results."

Interestingly, for each result, Scour shows what position that result had on Live, Yahoo and Google which means it is very easy to use Scour for monitoring search result positions across all the major search engines. It's not perfect though - some results show number 1 for Google but no ranking on Yahoo but then a quick check of the SERP on Yahoo.com shows a top 10 position for that same keyword. In other words - Scour isn't right every time.

If you are interested then have a look at the YouTube video here. Of course the most important and most relevant question is:

Will it be popular? No.

p.s turns out this post wasn't really about Google either. Sorry.

Head of Search Quality promises openness. Reveals nothing at all...

Maybe I'm just cynical or maybe it is just because I work in search marketing but when I read a post by Udi Manber (Head of Search Quality) on the Official Google Blog promising greater openness about search rankings...I wasn't expecting great revelations.

"...being completely secretive isn’t ideal, and this blog post is part of a renewed effort to open up a bit more than we have in the past. We will try to periodically tell you about new things, explain old things, give advice, spread news, and engage in conversations. Let me start with some general pieces of information about our group. More blog posts will follow."

So here's what Udi told us that we didn't already know...

"..."

Loads.

Having said that he did tell us that Google are always evaluating how good their search results are. Nice to know. And...you've heard of Moore's law (probably) but there's a law you perhaps didn't know...(Udi's law?)

"Just as Moore's law governs the doubling of computing speed every 18 months, there is a hidden unwritten law that doubles the complexity of our most difficult queries in a short time. This is impossible to measure precisely, but we all feel it. We know we cannot rest on our laurels, we have to work hard to meet the challenge."

I've no doubt these guys do a brilliant job. Google's success started with their great search algorithm. They continue to provide brilliant results in less than seconds. People use Google every day and rely on it to give them the information they want. Good job.

I would encourage to come good on their promise of more openness. I look forward to them making more 'effort to open up a bit'. If they don't then perhaps we'll have to invent Google's law - that though they promise much, they deliver little.

Google celebrate increased search share - every hundredth percentage counts

Photo by Hey Paul

CNET News reported today that Google increased their search share (yet again) in April compared to March bringing their dominance to a total 65.9% share. The losers were predictably Microsoft and Yahoo who went down to 6.26% and 20.28% from 6.65% and 20.29% respectively.

Yet again the results are about as surprising the English Premier League. Down in the relegation zone, Ask pulled a major victory out of the bag and increased their search share to 4.17% compared to 4.07% in March.

Experiment with Google

One feature of Google you might not have used before is 'Google Labs'. Described by Google as 'Google's technology playground...our favourite ideas that aren't quite ready for prime time', Google Labs contains lots of products that are still in beta. For instance, Google Ride Finder gives you up to date locations of taxi's in some US cities. Sound good? Well it's useful if you find that there is a taxi right outside your house...or you can get Google on your mobile.

The Google Blog has announced new search views that are available by going to Google Labs and then choosing 'Experimental Search'. 'Alternate search views' is just one option but it allows you to display timelines, maps and more just from a regular search. Other favourite options are 'left hand search' particularly helpful for those left handers, and my favourite...'Keyword Suggestions' which gives you ideas for keyword searches as you type.

You might find something you like - but you can only join one experiment at once (don't be greedy!) and you need to go to the experiment search page whenever you want to try out your chosen experiment.