Google's Test Search Engine 138
Bengt noted Google's SearchMash which is a testbed search engine. Google spokesbot says:
"The goal of Searchmash is to test innovative user interfaces in order to continually improve the overall search experience for our users.
The experimental search engine looks very different from Google's Web sites and lacks Google branding. In this way, Google believes the site will yield more objective feedback from users."
feedback on the feedback (Score:5, Informative)
There is a small area asking for feedback:
Were these results useful to you?
Web Pages Yes / No
Images Yes / No
Wikipedia Yes / No
Well, The page results were as expected so Yes, as was wikipedia (even though it was closed to start with) and the results for images would be useful if I could see them (they were at the bottom of the page and not visible at first, so I clicked no).
How can I tell them that the images would be really good if they were somewhere else on the screen?
If they want feedback, they should let people give feedback.
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Maybe they can set it up like the Google home page so that you can drag around the frames as you wish them to be.
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My suggestion is that they allow you to remove wikipedia entries from your searches all together but I guess that's just as likely to happen as people wanting them to filter blog entries.
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http://code.google.com/apis/soapsearch/reference.
Parent could have been referring to that.
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Re:feedback on the feedback (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:feedback on the feedback (Score:5, Interesting)
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yes for wikipedia (Score:5, Informative)
Re:yes for wikipedia (Score:5, Informative)
As for me, I have a local home.html in which I put every search I use, with the html stripped of everything I don't need, and the options I use pre-selected.
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BTW, Safari users can get plugins for quick search here [pimpmysafari.com]. I particularly like Inquisitor [inquisitorx.com].
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no fancy "site:" needed
"google censorship" (Score:4, Interesting)
Web Pages - about 190,000
And relevent wikipedia articles
I guess it works.
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Hmmm I wonder who could be knocking on my door at this time of night?
apple/mac like? (Score:2)
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questionable reference built in (Score:1)
Re:questionable reference built in (Score:4, Interesting)
I also wonder if Google, aside from this, has donated anything to the wikipedia foundation? Google does claim they support open products, and Wikipedia has been at the top of most regular search results for a while. That doesn't give them any obligation of course, but would be a good-will-promoting-and-tax-reducing-act towards a non-profit that complements Google's offerings.
Of course the real controversy here should be that does including Wikipedia as a special-case in search results lead to a greater trust in the accuracy of Wikipedia's content? And is that trust merited?
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(Not that I have anything against wikipedia, btw. Well, not that much against it, anyway.)
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How is that controversial? All the other search engines do it.
What this article should have been called... (Score:1)
There's nothing really innovative about it, besides asking for feedback. It's what would have happened in A9 and Google had a baby.
It looks like ... a search engine (Score:1, Troll)
How is this revolutionary?
Re:It looks like ... a search engine (Score:4, Insightful)
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1. You can (or at least could at one point) rearrange the search results by dragging them up and down - Future application on influencing the ranking on sites.
Or how to democratize Google-bombing by not having to set up a webpage to do that anymore, just make sure George Bush's official page is on top of your results when googling for 'miserable failure'.
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Although it seems somewhat ripe for abuse, I wonder: Will Google use this to customize your search results (assuming you're logged on)? IE, if I search for porn (hey, it's slashdot right?!) and want my favorite porn sites up top, and drag them there... if I search again next week, might they appear at the top?
That sort of thing might be useful, r
Requires javascript (Score:1, Insightful)
Text browsers (Score:3, Interesting)
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There's also a links2 that has a graphical mode. I don't have a link nor do I know if searchmash works in it.
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yea, i know i'll get lots of flamebaits on this, but you're still the douchebag that got pwned
Nice with the wikipedia links (Score:2, Informative)
OLD (Score:2)
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Leechy (Score:3, Interesting)
So how is this different from google.com? (Score:2, Interesting)
The one "new" thing are implicit image search in each search...and google was already doing that with some searchs
So how is this a "testbed search engine"? And why the article writes "the experimental search engine looks very different from Google's Web sites", when from a first look it clearly isn't?
Horrible (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Horrible (Score:4, Insightful)
They are using it to do some nice stuff here, such as expanding a single page arbitrarily instead of generating the usual set of "" index buttons that obscures previous results when you navigate between pages. I like this UI a lot... no more trying to remember how many times I need to hit the Back button to return to a desired result.
Re:Horrible (Score:5, Interesting)
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And it's much slower than regular Google.
Re:Horrible (Score:4, Insightful)
The site is essentially a test harness for working on new UI ideas and techniques. Why in the world should they slow themselves down by catering to people who don't want any of the 2.0 stuff the site is engineered to develop?
What's next, you going to complain that it's not compatible with NCSA Mosaic? Just use the regular Google page, FFS.
Re:Horrible (Score:4, Informative)
My main problem with the JS there is that it breaks a pretty universal UI feature: scrolling the page with arrow keys. When the search field is visible, it takes focus no matter what, so you cannot scroll with arrows -- or even with PgUp/PgDn! You can try this neatly by scrolling to the very bottom; from there you can scroll up with the keyboard, but only until you see the search field. I came across a similar problem very recently on another site, and promptly complained.
Some JS effects are actually quite useful, like Slashdot's new discussion system. [slashdot.org]. Such ideas can add to existing functionality without breaking the old, which is nice.
I used to think scrollwheels on mice are useless gimmicks, since the arrow keys provide the same functionality. It seems the solution is to disable the oldskool way via software, so you can sell more mice. Or you can probably use the scrollbars on the side/bottom, if you prefer the extremely inconvenient way of life.
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Sorry but i have to disagree wi
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Googles feedback page! (Score:5, Informative)
Googles Web Help Center [google.com] There is a link at the bottom of the page, that will allow you to send them comments ala suggestion box style. I already suggested that being able to move the content around ala the google.com/ig site, would be nice, as well as a link or webform, that would let people truly feedback would be great.
Oh, goody ... (Score:2)
To be fair, Google is not the only cuprit, just a high-visibility repeat offender. Time was, when companies paid people to be in focus groups and help them market-test new ideas.
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And as far as paying testers? Wel
Still no "non-commercial" bit (Score:5, Insightful)
And when I want to use Wikipedia, I do not need to go via Google. Google would make themselves useful in a more unique way if they offered optional filtering of sales sites. Let me see pages on Catholic Saints that don't involve "special price" candles with pictures of them, give me information on my car without hundreds of businesses offering to replace it. And when I do want to spend money on the web (which is way less often than the times I look for information), I'll tell you Google, thank you very much.
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I agree that google should concentrate on finding information rather than commercial sites, since that's what people use it for. They could have information/commerce buttons to flip between the two modes. Given that Google make their money from paid advertisements, you'd think it'd make it even more attractive
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You are absolutely correct - Wikipedia is filled with virtually every kind of pseudo information except advertising.
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Unfortunately, this is a nontrivial problem to solve. If something like it happens, expect a whole new wave of "astroturf" where disguising product/store ads as serious reviews and criticism becomes very common. I don't know...the best you're going to get is Google Book Search [google.com] and Google Scholar [google.com], both of w
Images at the Side Pane (Score:1)
Since its about user interfaces, why not a contest (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, like firefox has skins and other goodies the users create and share.
So how about an easy to use skin development package to the google APIs?
I like the idea of seeing samples of other searches, like images and groups though I might be doing a search on web.
I know google is about advertising for their income so somehow thats gonna need to happen.
Requires javascript. Thumbs down. (Score:2, Informative)
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I use Prefbar and it has a js on/off tick, but being able to configure it by site is better
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Nice! (Score:1)
There's also a firefox search plugin [googlepages.com], btw.
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I don't get it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Images: yes / no / dumb location?
Does Google *really* need user feedback to know this is a dumb layout? Why not move the pics to the empty area in the right margin? Oh, that's right- that's where the ads will go...
Um, how is this different? (Score:1)
This site is a little messed up (Score:5, Funny)
Is this some kind of joke?
I just typed in "hd-dvd" on that searchmash.com website. And at the bottom of the page was a guy sucking another guys dick. Don't believe me? Try it yourself.. that's not the type of thing I'd expect to be seeing on a Sunday morning.
MrJynxx
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Re:This site is a little messed up (Score:4, Informative)
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The link seems to go to a totally pedestrian arstechnica article. Anyone know how that worked?
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He replaced the link with a dodgy one instead which includes a statement towards ars.
Googles' image filtering isn't highlighting it because the rest of the site is as you say pedestrian.
(Incidentally, since it gets past strict filtering I have informed them about it)
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Re:This site is a little messed up (Score:4, Funny)
Re:This site is a little messed up (Score:4, Informative)
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I liked the more webpages feature (Score:2, Informative)
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Reminds me a bit of Google personalized homepage (Score:1)
Failure (Score:1)
So either searchmash's algorithm is still susceptible to the same Google bombing technique or Bush has actually failed.
Reorder search results around? (Score:2, Informative)
"space bar for more" is nice (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe that's why it uses javascript, which others have been complaining about.
Dragging Results (Score:2, Interesting)
Searchmash? (Score:1)
Doesn't work in Konq (Score:1)
Problems with "++" searches (Score:3, Interesting)
Strangely enough, I had trouble searching for C++.
For example, C++ jpeg gets turned into C jpeg, and returns a bunch of C code. If you search with quotes, "C++" jpeg, you get "C " jpeg. Search for "devc++", and you get "devc " and information on Devcon international.
This doesn't make the search engine particularly useful for C++ coders. ;) -- Paul
Cool tip that eliminates clicking for "next page" (Score:3, Informative)
GET query doesn't work (Score:2)
This means I can't add it as a keyword search in Firefox.
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Now, I can just type the search in the address bar, no prefixes, and it works great.
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You can do boolean searches with Google/SearchMash. By default everything is AND, but you can use OR (all caps) if you like.
Just because typing in words into the search field is so intuitive doesn't mean there isn't useful information in Google's help, you know...
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