Humans get bigger role in search
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(InfoWorld) - Just a few days after the introduction of a search engine that works primarily using human labor, Google says, "Me too." "People think of Google as pure algorithms," said Matt Cutts, search quality engineer at Google, speaking at the Search Marketing Expo in Seattle on Monday. "We've recently begun trying to communicate the fact that we're not averse to using some manual intervention." Cutts' comments follow the launch Wednesday of an early version of Mahalo.com, a new search engine that operates using people who dig through the Internet manually looking for quality sites. Mahalo.com currently can deliver results for 4,000 popular search terms with plans to reach 10,000 terms by the end of the year. Workers weed out spam sites, sites with overbearing advertising, pages that regurgitate information without giving appropriate credit to the source, and sites of unknown origin. Over the last couple of months, Google has altered some explanations on its Webmaster Guidelines pages to reflect changes it may make in how much human interaction affects its search results, Cutts said. Google has changed the wording in places from saying that certain functions operate 100 percent using the company's search algorithms to now saying more vaguely that the company uses scalable and robust techniques, he said. "We're trying to make the distinction that humans are a wonderful way to improve search quality, but we have to do that in a way that is scalable and robust. Our Webmaster Guidelines have changed to reflect this possibility," he said. Some Google functions do fully work using the algorithm. For example, the algorithm designed to prevent Google bombing, where people cause certain sites to rank, usually for an obscure or humorous search term, uses no human intervention, Cutts said. "The Google bomb algorithm is completely automatic," he said. It runs once every three or four months, he said. Google uses human interaction for a variety of different functions such as acting on spam, he said. "Google does reserve the right to use humans in a scalable way," he said. Additional human interaction might come if Google decides to allow anyone to report people who buy links in order to try to improve their search rankings. "I wouldn't be surprised if we add something on the Webmaster console to report that," Cutts said. He also said that Google may rewrite its guidelines to include more detail about the types of techniques that could get sites banned. Currently, the guidelines include often vague instructions, such as to avoid link schemes designed to boost a site's popularity. That can include a number of different tactics, which Google doesn't spell out. "It would be great to start giving more examples," Cutts said.
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Until recently, the needs of visually impaired users wasn't a top priority for search engines. That's changed, but there are still issues that need to be resolved, according to people with vision challenges.
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Human-assisted search site ChaCha.com offers its work-at-home guides a way
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As the virtual world booms, users yearn for something more than a subpar search engine--and work is now under way.
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The fumbling of Googleâs largest challengers has not dampened the enthusiasm of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists for entering the search game.
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With Google Desktop Search, users can sift through their e-mail, files, Web history and chats to find information in the same way they search the Internet.
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The search giant seeks success with the biggest and the best.
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A new search engine, slated to be completed by the end of 2007, uses natural language techniques to better interpret the meaning of the information a user is seeking, and thus provide more relevant results.
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Google has launched a new feature that tries to guess what people are looking for as they type queries into a search box. Google Suggest quietly debuted this week on the company&#39;s Labs site, which showcases
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Desktop search means a new battle for dominance between a wide field of competitors, and the warfare has begin. The technology promises users an incredibly fast way to search for data on their drives.
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Last week, Search Engine Strategies made its debut in Sweden, drawing attendees from all over Scandinavia, Europe and even Africa and India.
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When computer users hunt for information on the Internet, they typically turn to Google or Yahoo. When analysts working for US intelligence look for documents and data stored on computers
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By Oren Dorell  The same technology that keeps cellphone users in touch with their cellphone companies can also help locate people who are lost.
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Revamped search engine allows users to store and share results.
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Businesses in several markets are starting to use expanded search technologies used by military and government agencies to combat terrorism.
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By MICHAEL LIEDTKE SAN FRANCISCO - While the Internet's major search engines keep adding more computers to scan the Web and run increasingly sophisticated algorithms to pull up meaningful results, dot-com luminary Jason Calacanis thinks there's still a place for people power.
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Search patterns provide a surprising window into the minds of buyers and sellers in the current unsettled market