Comments on: Why Search Is Broken, and How Semantic Search Fixes It

By: Georg Rehm

Georg Rehm — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 11:45:48 +0000

Thanks a lot for mentioning eyePlorer.com in this interesting article. By the way, this is what eyePlorer.com knows about “cat food”:

http://eyeplorer.com/eyePlorer/?conceptTerms=Cat%20food

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:52:12 +0000

I agree that 93 millions results are not needed. The engines need to do a better job of understanding what is being written on the web and then translating that into more targeted and customized results for the user’s search.

But when you think about the query “best cat food” is there really an authoritative or correct answer? No. There could be thousands of relevant opinions from cat owners around the world on the subject and are thousands of results any better than 93 million? It will still take too much time to sort through all of that information. It comes down to allowing the user to filter and manipulate the results more easily to find what they need.

By: Terry Van Horne

Terry Van Horne — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 22:20:15 +0000

Twitter is now officially overhyped on the Webmaster T scale of hype! Twitter if used as search would not work quite simply because it would be choked with spam. Realtime spam but… spam nonetheless! You’re talking about scaling MickeyMouse services into Mighty Mouse services! Ummm gonna almost surely be degradations in the services…1 good result is all I need… Google has not failed me in literally years.

By: gdog

gdog — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 05:54:50 +0000

what is the best cat food. who can answer. NoW!

By: Sam Cannon

Sam Cannon — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:04:24 +0000

First, we forget that the human is an analog being. This means that we “slide” into meaning, rather than obey a bifurcational calculus.

In addition, much of the good information is in what we DON’T expect. This is where the creativity is–new connections. Perhaps we could spend some time developing our vocabulary and concept formation faculties, like flexing muscles, rather than expecting a binary machine to “help” us.

Google ‘orthomentoring’ for example. Is there meaning in the word? What is its uniqueness score and frequency? And what other words triangulate on it or connect?

Morale: Purpose of the mind is to grasp and make meaning. For this, we need richness and a little work, not predetermined and value-corrupted answers. When we mix in the analog machines, there will be improvement.

At least I think so!

By: PDB

PDB — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:22:58 +0000

One semantic search startup to watch is Swingly. There’s an interesting blog post on the Ft. Worth Startup Blog that talks about their goals — very similar to what is espoused here.

http://www.fortworthstartups.com/2009/03/18/a-real-semantic-search-engine-is-coming-qa-with-swingly-ceo-andy-hickl/

By: alienbinary

alienbinary — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:42:31 +0000

I think this is very validating for developers, frustrated with explaining why there is no magic solution to getting to the top of search rankings. While we all clearly feel that our content is the most relevant, there are hundreds of other people who are probably thinking at the exact same moment that they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that their content is the absolute most relevant and important page on the web. Meanwhile, there are a thousand other users at the exact same time who acknowledge that the keywords they’ve injected into their sites, either through meta tags, index spamming, alt tag tweaking or what have you, are comfortable so long as people visit their sites.

What we should take away from this as users, however, might not be to make search engines more discriminating, but to encourage users to be more active in their quest for whatever it is that they’re looking for. No one walks into a library and reasonably expects that by saying a handful of words to the librarian, he or she can produce the most relevant text from the vast collection, otherwise there would be no need to peruse the stacks. Ultimately, the librarian’s job is to point the reader in the right direction and help them along the way. As a medical researcher, I don’t expect information to reveal itself to me unless I can find the best way to conjure it up. Simply put, there are no shortage of ways to tweak a google search. With a built-in language that allows savvy searchers to toggle even between respective filetypes and within specific domains, even going so far as to search a specified region of the document only, there are many ways to get what you need and fast.

By: Brian Ratzker

Brian Ratzker — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:33:43 +0000

I understand what you mean Josh but wouldn’t you rather the results be more accurate to the point that the “best cat food” might actually be the best food or at least the food considered to be in the top 5 or something?

By: Josh Millrod

Josh Millrod — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:50:30 +0000

As someone who knows how easily the system is gamed, I’m not sure I want search engines to be much smarter. Think about it.

Every time you search for a product, ie “best cat food”, you let a machine make a decision for you. That machine doesn’t know anything about cat food, nor has it sampled even 1 brand of cat food.

Yet, most people trust Google implicitly (roughly 43% of searchers automatically click the first result). Should we give that machine more power over our decision making processes?