Google launches major tweaks in formula to refine searches
http://www.livemint.com/2011/11/06222557/Google-launches-major-tweaks-i.html?atype=tp
This article is about the way that Google uses and constantly changes certain algorithms to update its search engine and the effectiveness of its searching services. According to the article, a new algorithm was created that allowed Google to update its search engine up to the very minute of searching. In the past, Google had used PageRank, which counted the number of links to a page to determine the importance of the site to users. However, Google is consistently updating is searching abilities, but providing at least one update daily, and up to 500 updates every single year. Google must do this because of its relevance in the searching market. According to the article, over 90% of all searches worldwide come on Google, with only about four and a half percent coming from its next biggest competitor, Bing.
The newest rendition of the algorithm used at Google is referred to as “Caffeine,” which allows Google to quickly search the internet for all new content and indicate how relevant it is to the topic being searched. The algorithms used apply more than 200 different signals to aid in the quality of the searching, so that more relevant information appears first in the results. However, Google does use human testing to determine the effectiveness of the searches. The ideas for change will be presented to raters at Google, who will report the change as either positive or negative. The positive responses will then be tested on a small sample size to see which pages are the most important. After these tests, Google will have much more information regarding the quality of the websites being posted and in which order they should be placed in.
However, Google’s effectiveness has come into question. Apparently, Google comes in third place in effectiveness of searches according to Experian Hitwise. Using Bing and Yahoo, the company reports, users will go to a website after a search over 80% of the time, while with Google, a user will only use the site 67% of the time. This is said to be attributed to the many books on Google’s database that inaccurately draw a reader to them. However, Google has said that while its searches are not foolproof, they are very effective in guiding their viewers in the right direction.
This article relates to the class because of our discussions on web searches. While we mostly discussed PageRank in class, it can be seen that search engines constantly update their processes for determining the quality of websites, and PageRank can be quickly outdated. Search engines are constantly creating new algorithms to determine the most quality web pages based on each search, and many search sites have updates down to the very minute, but the effectiveness of the searches will seemingly increasingly only get better.
-Ben Rosenthal
Google started as an intelligent algorithm (Pagerank) which resulted in more accurate references than it’s direct competitor, Alta Vista, which used just a large index for quick results, but not accurate results. When Google became more widely used, it’s page results got economic value for it’s users and advertisers, and here the automatic algorithms lost due to human ingenuity where hits determined the amount of cash flow for both Google itself and it’s advertising customers. Now the war on search engines will be a continuous Tom & Jerry cartoon with no immediate winners I believe.