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Community powered Google search
Community powered search is not new, you find another version on the main page of this blog the “Swicki“. What is so special with the new Custom Search Engine from Google?
- Saved By: Olaf
- Tags: google , search , and web development
- Group: search engines.
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Olaf - have seen your blog before. Glad you found us at Searchles. You might want to check out this case study we did on Google CSE: http://www.searchles.com/misc/docs/Searchles_vs_Co-op_at_Perez.pdf We consider Google CSE, Eurekster and Rollyo to be "automated" search engines rather than custom search engines because they do not take into account unique site characteristics or user intent in returning results. The Perez case study illustrates this well. (That's not to say they don't have value - but for original content sites with a critical mass of users or a large audience, they aren't the right solution). Hope you'll keep posting!!![Reply]
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Just checked the pdf and you are right, why? because of this: The discussion, groups, friends... I think both have a different rule, CSE to search selected websites and searchles (as the name said) checking links from other peoples.[Reply]
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True but there's more to it. The case study meant to compare raw search capabilities and the quality of the results returned against one standard site, perezhilton.com rather than to compare the full range of differences between Searchles and CSE. The point we were trying to make is that an automated search engine like CSE is quick to set up, but the quality of the results is not great because of the way the headlines return, the fact you can't sort by date or relevancy and so it will take you alot more time to find what you're looking for with CSE. CSE's ability to search across multiple sites is likewise only valuable if it saves you time. I do alot of research and when I experimented with it by creating an engine to search multiple sites, the generic headlines made it really difficult for me to zero in on what I was looking for. I found that it was faster to just go search each of the sites. I believe CSE also allows you to add, remove and influence the order that results are returned - by yourself or with the help of others. But who has time to do this and keep it up? Especially if the CSE engine is for multiple sites with alot of content. At Searchles, you are effectively creating your own search engine as a bi-product of your web surfing and bookmarking. For example, I am very interested in identity theft and identity theft legislation. I have two groups on those subjects and post regularly to them from multiple sources - more sources than would be manageable as part of a cse engine. If you were also interested in the subject, you would find it far easier to begin your discovery efforts by searching what I've already put together, and then you could also add to that knowledge base by contributing your own links as you did additional research. And because of tags and the tag clouds, it's easy to spot trends and drill down immediately to exactly what interests you. You can also choose whether or not you want your peers to influence your results. We're trying to create ways for people to search both smarter and faster. Connecting and collaborating with others is an important part of that but ultimately, we want to put you in charge of who influences your discovery efforts, when and how.[Reply]
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Right if I know that I can find every source while searching at searchles I will quit using Google... What if I'm looking for sources about "php upload with curl"? Its difficult to find some with google and I'm afraid its impossible to find an answer here. Of course the CSE is only so good as the included sites (btw. I think you need to mix the CSE with regular results)[Reply]
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Not yet, but we're working towards that over the longterm. Searchles is actually an evolution of the search engine that our founder and CTO spent the last few years developing. It's very compelling, but then reality hit. The amount of investment ($$$) required to crawl the entire web on a google scale and build a critical mass of users would be extraordinary, so we looked for a way to apply the technology in a way that is both rational and scaleable. If another user has posted links to Searchles on "php upload with curl," you can easily find them here. If they have not, what you may want to consider doing as you find relevant links is creating a "group" on the subject, submitting and tagging those links and briefly describing why you found them relevant. As you do this, you're in effect creating a searchable topical library on the subject that will make it easy for you and others to understand trends on the subject. Over time, you're also setting yourself up as the "go to" expert on the subject and it will be easy at Searchles and actually through Google or Yahoo and any of the other engines for others to find you. This is true on about any topic. As for mixing in search results from one of the large engines, there are many valid reasons why we don't want to go that route. 1) we'll crawl the entire web at some point after reaching a critical mass and would prefer to do this with the company's technology itself; 2) we use a different algorithm than the other engines that determines actual popularity of people and links rather than the simulated popularity of something like a google PageRank and so if we mixed their results in, Searchles would not be as effective; and 3) studies show that most people just go directly to google, yahoo or msn depending on their preference when they want to search the whole web anyway.[Reply]
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"What is so special with the new Custom Search Engine from Google?" Not much in my opinion :)[Reply]
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You can build a search engine only with the websites you (and the community) think that are related with the subject. Often websites need a lot of time and inbound links to get visible in the SERP's of Google with CSE the chance is bigger to find them too (if included).[Reply]
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Social search, in my mind, is having the users influence relevancy. You can;t do that with Google CSE. You can add entire sites, which has its uses, but the product isn't very powerful. You could do the same thing with gigablast just by specifying a bunch of different sites, and even do it dynamically changing it for every search: http://www.gigablast.com/adv.html .[Reply]
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I think we are talking about different things, If I talk about search I would like to search the whole internet. a webdev related search can help people to search first in related sites and then in regular results. All the social bookmarking communities is more like reading news or new websites/articles, this is not about searching...[Reply]
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We are changing that. The reason why (until Searchles) they are not about searching is because their search functionality has been poor. For a site like digg it's all about the front page. For Searchles, it's about you creating a repository of knowledge with your peers that leverages your input to enhance the relevancy of searching the contributed content. If you are connected to many linux experts you can search through all of their content with one search and benefit from their expertise. You can also extend that so you are searching through all the people they are connected to. This is a very powerful concept, and one you won't find anywhere else. This, in my mind, is what social search is all about.[Reply]
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Ok, we need to collect more websites ;) but right if you have build this source you will be asked to sell the website ... hehe[Reply]
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