Better Search Results Than Google? 487
Mechanik writes "CNN has an AP article about the next generation of up and coming search tools, which try to cope with the glut of hits that result from 'conventional' search engines such as Google. One tool, Vivisimo, "is like a superfast librarian who can instantly arrange the titles on shelves in a way that makes sense. [...] But unlike libraries, Vivisimo doesn't use predefined categories. Its software determines them on the fly, depending on the search results. The filing is done through a combination of linguistic and statistical analysis." Grokker, another, downloadable program, "not only sorts search results into categories but also "maps" the results in a holistic way, showing each category as a colorful circle. Within each circle, subcategories appear as more circles that can be clicked on and zoomed in on." You have to love the author's use of trying to look for a hotel in France with the terms 'Paris Hilton' as an example of searching gone awry."
I still won't be happy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I still won't be happy... (Score:5, Interesting)
One way to improve google would be to filter any domain that has more than one hypen in it.
You know those results from - "buy-mobile-phones-cheap-now-online.com" that you get when you searched for "linux patch".
Re:I still won't be happy... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I still won't be happy... (Score:4, Interesting)
They could get sued. It's an interesting thing legally, it's not really been tested yet. If Google deliberately block a site from appearing in it's results based on a matter of taste (i.e. they think it's poor content), then they leave themselves open to legal action.
And that is the curse of Google. It's downfall started about six months ago. It's still great for solving technical problems but trying to get product reviews or searching on any brand-name etc for info is a waste of time. Just the official page and a hundred links to "portal" sites that have wormed their way up page-rank, each trying to sell you something.
It was inevitable I suppose. Once the lay public got their hands on it en-mass, the search-spammers targetted it. Once the google users hit a certain critical mass, it all went downhill.
Perhaps we should just keep the next best thing to ourselves...? ;-)
Very specific to your search, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I still won't be happy... (Score:3, Insightful)
I got a bunch of games for Xmas, and when I've gone looking for strategy sites or even walkthroughs (for Morrowind for example), its practically impossible to separate the real sites from those we-sell-u-stuff-cheap-online-from-hungary.morrowi
VERY AGGRAVATING.
Re:I still won't be happy... (Score:2, Interesting)
(I'd link to the story but I couldn't find it. Damn you, Slashdot search!)
What I want... (Score:5, Interesting)
I would prefer as an alternative to regexp (since that obviously would be way too much power and too many exploits) is simple logic operators.
Most search engines now have AND and OR but none have nested logic or short hand
for example I would love to do this in google: (linux && modems) || ("AT commands" && !windows)
Re:I still won't be happy... (Score:2)
Re:I still won't be happy... (Score:2)
that'd be fun
Not quite (Score:5, Interesting)
But, and here is the beef, it should be obvious to anyone that there must be a interface change in the short term future of search. A textbox is a very limited input to express a complex search. Using regexps and regexp-like operators is not enough. This Vivisimo is a step in the right direction, but there's a lot of way to go through.
For example try to make this search using any engine (Vivisimo, Google, Yahoo, Altavista, etc): who was the red-haired singer that recorded a song with Tom Morello a few years back?. At least I can't find an answer because one of the main aspects I'm using (the red hair) maybe is not as important as other aspects used to describe the situation by anyone else.
There must be a interface revolution in the years to come. Come to think of it, are we still using a textfield to express every possible combination in a google search? Gross!!!
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Informative)
The search phrase was:
"red hair" singer "tom morello"
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not quite (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not quite (Score:3, Interesting)
You've got a whole page of results context to pick some common words from (either pick words from bad results to exclude or from good results to include). The one thing Google doesn't do so well in (IMHO) is searching for information on a product - you normally end up with a ton of links to places selling the product, and these are not always easy
Re:Not quite (Score:3, Insightful)
Using something like Grokker gives you some more insight into the whole available field.
Re:Not quite (Score:3, Informative)
6 out of 10 links on the first page of google are still about "hotel chain heiress Paris Hilton".
Even including the quotes gets you 4 links to pages about the star of the infamous video, and one to an "award winning desktop toolbar with 45 tools!".
Re:Not quite (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Informative)
The most under-utilized feature of Google I think has to be excluding keywords. For this query, I would use:
+"paris hilton" +hotel -tape -porn
and probably get much better results. If the word "naked" is never ever going to appear in a legitimate result page, you might as well exclude it.
Same goes for other things. I was looking for information on Microwaves and WiFi the other day... not the ovens, so -oven -food and I got infinitely better results.
--Darren
Re:Not quite (Score:3, Informative)
You've been able to do this for a long time in most search engines. Personally, I find myself often including the words -"buy" or -"search results" in Google to avoid all the spam.
Re:I still won't be happy... (Score:2)
Re:I still won't be happy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I still won't be happy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Infinite loops (Score:4, Informative)
Bullshit. (Score:3, Interesting)
Atoms, modifiers, and conjunctions.
Atoms are character classes (letters, ranges, or bracket expressions), conjunctions of said classes, or a paranthetized expression (like in maths).
You have two conjunctions. The first is concatentation is what you get when you put one atom right after another (they both have to appear in that order). The other is alternation (pipe) where either the left atom or right atom must appear.
Finally modifiers are an optional number of repe
Re:regexps suck (Score:3, Interesting)
I think if you spoke to any linguistics major, they would disagree. If you are interested in structures in human languages, a good place to start is with any of Chomsky's linguistics work, because he studied how words combine into phrases and phrases into sentences (think of it as a tree). In fact, every sentence in every human language is formed from a noun phrase, auxillory, and a verb phrase. It is kind of similar to token types combining to form sucessivly
Re:regexps suck (Score:3, Interesting)
Vivisimo (Score:5, Funny)
Problem occurred while using Vivisimo::
Currently under heavy load. Please try again shortly
Please go back to the Vivisimo home page and try your query again
Re:Vivisimo (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Vivisimo (Score:2)
Better search results than Google? It will happen! (Score:4, Interesting)
1)Will it gain the enormous foothold in the collective consciousness that Google has acquired? To Google is now a verb... and it gets mentioned on Buffy, which is as good a cultural barometer as we are ever likely to have.
2)Will the UI and secondary services (such as the ODP, and Google Groups) be as good as Google itself?
Also, while I'm sure that it will happen one day, I'll believe it when I use it and not before... Oh, and the Paris Hilton thing? LOL! That sort of anti-result comes back from search engines *a lot*. I was just talking to my mom about searches of that type of ambiguous nature the other day.
Re:Better search results than Google? It will happ (Score:5, Interesting)
A search engine that ignores specifically commercial sites would also be helpful.
Any ideas on either of these type features in current or upcoming search engines?
Re:Better search results than Google? It will happ (Score:5, Insightful)
There are a number of bright people on both sides of the aisle. When one side discovers a new technique, the other will work hard to neutralize said technique. This continues until either: it is too expensive for one side to continue, or too complicated for the consumer to bother with anymore.
Re:Better search results than Google? It will happ (Score:5, Funny)
Gawd help us. Society now sucks if that is our barometer.
Google, the verb, has been mentioned on Law & Order. _THAT_ tells me it has entered the mainstream.
Re:Better search results than Google? It will happ (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Better search results than Google? It will happ (Score:2)
A good point. I switched to Altavista back in the days, because they had a relatively clean layout of the search results, which came up on the screen really fast. Later I switched to Google because of their even cleaner and more functional UI, not because I was getting better search results from them (there wasn't much difference that I noticed).
Google is simple, fast and uncluttered, as opposed to som
Re:Better search results than Google? It will happ (Score:2)
In the stated example, a simple change in the request should give far better hits. A Google search with these keywords would do the trick: "Paris France" "Hilton Hotel"
"I'm feeling l
Re:Better search results than Google? It will happ (Score:2)
I tried this earlier... (Score:5, Informative)
Also, I already do not like the search results showing up in the sidebar with search engines (with mozilla), as that is one of the features I kill as soon as I install mozilla. So, I guess, this search engine has a ways to go before I prefer it.
The searches didn't seem too bad over all, I tried looking for "linux kodak 4530" and its results were not any better or worse than googles. I tried a couple other searches and they seem to be on target about as well as google though.
Re:I tried this earlier... (Score:2)
Can't tell if it helps, until the Slashdot Effect (tm) diminishes, though...
Grokker reminds me... (Score:5, Interesting)
Gah.
Antarti.ca is still around (Score:3, Interesting)
Every so often... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't get excited about "Google alternatives". Google satisfies my searching needs as it is. Sometimes "knowing what to search for" is better than a super intelligent search engine.
As far as I'm concerned anyone with a clue can produce the results they need with a little bit of practice and common sense. They don't need new search engines.
Clif
Re:Every so often... (Score:2)
Every once in a while my dad asks me a question and I find the answer on google. He inevitably asks me "how'd you do that? I tried it on google and I didn't find what I wanted."
Paris Hilton is a good example of this -- searching for Paris Hilton results in the top five entries being about the celebrity -- but as soon as I searched for Paris Hilton Hotel I found the Hilton in Paris... It's not really that hard (to me -- I may be more advanced than the target audience of these other search engines)
Re:Every so often... (Score:3, Interesting)
I am often stupified by how stupidly some people search. I still think that early search engines like Webcrawler and Lycos forced me to really learn how a search engine works, how to make boolean and grouping by quotes work for me. The power is incredibly but so little used.
Advanced operators [google.com] help immensely but I wonder how many searches use them. The concept of narrowing or wideni
Re:Every so often... (Score:2)
The problem is that most people don't know what to search for. I've seen my mom search google for "R Crumb" when she's looking for tee shirts with his characters, and I always have to point out that she should add "tee shirts" to the query.
Another thing was with this girl I was trying to get into the pants of... She was always asking me for help with internet-based research for her various papers for school because she would google and yahoo for hours and find nothing, I'd do one search and IM
Re:Every so often... (Score:5, Informative)
You mean, like this - Google WebServices [google.com]?
Re:Every so often... (Score:5, Funny)
A few cut and pastes and I got at least a B+ every time.
Who needs a search engine when you've got a push up bra?
Re:Every so often... (Score:2)
Recently, I was wrestling with a commercial application that involved an improperly functioning Help System.
Have you ever tried searching for help on Help? I found it impossible to get any sort of meaningful result.
In this particular case, a 'super intelligent search engine' would be useful.
Re:Every so often... (Score:2)
AP strikes again (Score:4, Funny)
What if... (Score:5, Interesting)
What if you want that glut of hits? Sometimes you have to dig through some pretty obscure hits on a search to get what you want, and categorizing them or putting them in funny circles just complicates the process and can make the search take longer. I'll hang with Google and Teoma, thank you very much.
And I certainly don't want a downloadable search app running, that's just another possible inroad for spyware. I've been burned enough times by apps I thought were "clean" that went off and chewed up enough bandwidth to choke a horse.
Re:What if... (Score:4, Insightful)
"System Requirements
Windows 2000 or Windows XP
Pentium III at 400MHZ or higher
128MB RAM (we recommend 256MB or more, if you're going to use the file indexing service for the My Files keyword search)
100MB of free disk space (or 20MB only if Java 2 is already installed)"
Myself I kind of like the idea of the graphical results, but not if my box is doing the grunt work. I think Google has them beat on that point.
Not to mention that Grokker "Contains a fully functional Web browser based on Internet Explorer". How would one go about updating the various patches for this browser?
http://www.groxis.com/service/grok/g_products.h
Visimio (Score:2, Interesting)
Many search results now overly commercial (Score:5, Insightful)
Despite the problems with Google, it's still the best place I've found to get good info. The trick is to be very careful about how you search for something by adding in search modifiers such as "-sale" or "-bargain" or "review" to weed out the overtly commercial results. But even then, things have changed and not for the better.
-S
Re:Many search results now overly commercial (Score:5, Informative)
Searching for info about electronic products is the worst on google.
I use the following along with any thing i want to search and it usually does the trick
-shop -shopping -price -buy -order -shipping".
This no doubts subtracts one or two sites which are good but atleast filters out most of the shopping sites.
Are you going to pay for unbiased results? (Score:2)
Search engines are not a public service. They have to satisfy users and advertisers. Thats the balance. You could try to start a subscription-based totally-commercial-free alternative, but I suspect there is little interest in the larger internet audience.
Re:Are you going to pay for unbiased results? (Score:3, Informative)
Google doesn't spam its own listings in return for ad bucks. They do occasionally throw in a "Sponsored Link" but those are always color-coded and usually off to the side of the main list.
What your parent is saying, and I can echo their sentiments, is that there are a million and one crap sites that are keyword-spamming the crawlers. Some really sell the product in question, but most seem to be stealing the review copy from other sites
Re:Many search results now overly commercial (Score:4, Insightful)
These days I always include other search terms like "epinions" (for reviews) or "wikipedia" for information to get the most out of google. Someday there will be a search engine where you can specify "no commercial s$*t", but till that day...
The same idea for images (Score:3, Interesting)
An article about this is available here: Clustering visually similar images to improve image search engines [rwth-aachen.de].
Google disintegrating... (Score:2)
Even if.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, that being said, one thing the CNN article doesn't talk about in great detail is the technology behind this company - Google started out at a major university - what's the background of this company? While I agree something should be done with all the advertising that occurs with PageRank, I find it highly doubtful that it's going to be another company (rather than Google itself) that will fix it.
Google is Better Because... (Score:2)
Querying slashdot effect... (Score:3, Funny)
Shiny tin foil hats for all! (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh boy! Where do I sign up for my free registration! Here's my name, age, adress...
Sigh.
Grokker's kinda cool (Score:5, Informative)
search interface (Score:2, Interesting)
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about better ways to interface with data, generally with searches but it applies to most anything. Naturally this was inspired by reading some Sci-Fi (Saturn's Race by Niven and someone...the book is in the other room.) I got to thinking, the perfect interface I can imagine is much like an actual room, things laid out visually where you would expect them. The normal 2D GUI has always seemed a bit unnatural to me.
When this is applied to searches, I'd like to see in
How will you navigate such an interface quickly? (Score:3, Insightful)
Intuitive does not mean good.
It should be efficient, and become good through acclimation. Just like riding a bicycle. It seems garish at first, but it makes perfect sense later on.
Just look at the interface fro
That's all we need... (Score:4, Funny)
You can already get better results (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is about having good quality results with a very simple interface, one that anyone can use. Go to an academic library and look at the various journal search engines like "America: History and Life" or PychINFO, or better yet just try out MedLine [nih.gov]. See anything wrong? Busy page, weird syntax, a huge instruction page about "how to search".
Engines like Vivisimo may make it if they can keep Google's simplicity and ease of use and only add value with categorizations. And personally, I think they better get out of 1996 with the frames. Yech!
Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Man, I must have been sleeping...
When did google become a conventional search engine...?
While we're discussing alternatives to Google... (Score:2)
I've been told it's cool, but I've got 50 spacebucks for anyone who can explain how Kartoo [kartoo.com] works and why is more useful than a search engine that returns "normal" text results.
I've read the FAQ, I even ran a few searches through it and fiddled with the results, but I still don't get it. Near as I can tell, it's just a way of making spaced-out pictures of words with circles and arrows around them - you know, like PowerPoint, but with fewer distractions.
Is it because I don't do drugs?
Visualization tools still toys (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's face it (Score:3, Interesting)
google reminds me of that old pizza commercial with the new employee 'big dummy'. When he finally gets something to do, he runs off exclaiming "I am HELPING!!!" - not
Worse after "Florida" / alltheweb (Score:2, Informative)
alltheweb.com [alltheweb.com] has pretty decent search results.
Interetesting Timing... (Score:2)
Better than Google News (Score:3, Insightful)
Google works, but it doesn't need better filtering (Score:2)
Right now you take a webpage, look for words on it, relate the words then goto the most popular page for a given search. This works most of the time, but when someone types in a term they can mean very different things. For example, if I type in porn, I may be looking for freebi
Searchlores (Score:2, Informative)
You can still find old mirrors of the reverse engineering site, but the only active one I know of is at www.woodmann.com/fravia [woodmann.net]. The message board is at www.woodmann.net/forum [woodmann.com], no crackz, serialz,
Knowing how to search (Score:5, Insightful)
You do not need to completely redign a search engine to get your desired results. You need to refine your search. Search google for Paris Hilton Hotel [google.com] and the first three results are directly related to a Hilton Hotel in Paris. I would not find this hotel any faster using his circle method with Grokker2. I use a search engine to find exactly what I am looking for. Displaying all the results on some chart, graph, or 3d display still requires me to browse around to narrow my search.
Re:Knowing how to search (Score:3, Interesting)
The Paris Hilton Hotel Sex Tape (Rated R)
Re:Knowing how to search (Score:3, Funny)
Vivisimo can't keep up with the traffic (Score:2)
Currently under heavy load. Please try again shortly"
Sure it's cool and everything but I'm not gonna use something that only works half the time.
kartoo (Score:2, Informative)
100% successful (Score:3, Funny)
Vivisimo Categorization is language independent ? (Score:3, Interesting)
I have used Vivisimo a few times but never realized that their method of categorization was quite langaage independent.
If it really is then DMOZ, the Human Edited Directory, ought to incorporate dynamic categorizations like this, infact to the point that someday each user should have his/her own unique categorization of the all the websites in the world ...
Meanwhile, are they using the words in the headings to determine categories ? Or is it words that have in some way been emphasized ? And to do this in a way that transcends language ...
I am really curious as to how the words that determine "categories" in a sentence/para/section/page can be identified and sifted away from less important words. And how to determine the "keywords" that are not as important as "categories" but still more important that the "filler words" on the page. Keyword for Google is what you are searching for. That is easy. But how does Vivisimo take it further and establish it as a category?
Re:Vivisimo Categorization is language independent (Score:3, Informative)
If you're up for some maths and some fairly dry reading, check out the paper "Authoritative Sources in a Hyperlinked Environment" [cornell.edu] by Jon Kleinberg. He describes a search method which takes regular text-based search results and then examines the link structure around those pages. The idea is that pages of comparable content exhibit heavy interlinking. Clusters of such pages can be identified with a recursive algorithm a little like Google's PageRank, and then distinguished with some nifty eigenvector math
Depends on what your searching for. (Score:3, Funny)
Disclaimer: Just kidding, not work safe.
Filtering e-stores (Score:3, Interesting)
The search tools are really not the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing I have noticed to be the greatest single limit on web searching is the operator. I can regularly find things on the net that my co-workers cannot. This is because I understand keyword boolean searching at a deeper level than most people.
I blame this on the level of education of the common population, as opposed to being evidence of my own superiority. 8-)
In a world where most people have never actually met or "dealt with" a librarian (archivist, whatever 8-) it should surprise nobody that these self-same people have no idea what it means to take personal responsibility for organizing their own approach to knowing things.
Having grown up near and actually talked to librarians all my life I actually understand how to group information. Applying that knowledge to a search for some words and against others isn't that far a stretch.
It is a personal pet peve of mine to have to listen to people bemoan Google (etc.) when these self-same people have never even *noticed* the advanced search link, nor even learned the power of the minus ("-") in the standard search bar.
There is no technology that can "fix" bad user inquiries that won't in turn "ruin" good ones.
Single gripe... (Score:3, Interesting)
That's Google's largest flaw, IMHO.
At least they have a sense of humour (Score:3, Funny)
What Makes a Search Engine Better? (Score:4, Insightful)
Another thing that Google really lacks is detection of duplicates. Google tries to do this, but does it poorly. I remember recently doing a search on Google for an obscure DB2 error code, and getting the same page out of the IBM manual over and over again, all on different college websites.
This is another area where linguistic/statistical analysis could really help. Most knowledge-base products offer a "More Like This" feature that is an index of linguistic similarities between items. An easy way to detect duplicates with such a system is to have a fine scale and place an uppler limit on similarities, i.e. any two items with a similarity > N are likely to be duplicates.
All of this being said, I would be surprised if Google does not address these issues in the very near future. I do not think they have gone down the path that many large companies go down where they stop trying to innovate and instead just try to protect their turf.
Oh, I have to do it..... (Score:5, Funny)
Google not always fastest (Score:3, Funny)
A colleague just asked me a technical question. He said he'd normally look it up on google, but figured it would be faster to ask me.
There's probably a moral there, somewhere.
...laura
Re:Nice work, people (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Paris Hilton (Score:2, Funny)
Fallon: Is it roomy inside Paris Hilton?
Hilton: Yeah, might feel a little spacy for you, but other people find it cozy.
or something to that extent
Re:Google Search for Paris Hilton (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Man alive... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Google beat the scientolgists... (Score:3, Funny)