Google’s Search for Better Results
Google, the world’s largest search engine, just made a major algorithm change. The have called it their “single biggest positive” algorithm change every, affecting up to one in every ten queries. The completely altered which words in the search are prioritized, are based the search rankings on those. The old algorithm was a lot more basic than the newer, as it emphasized these “important words”, which were basically the subject and adjectives of the sentence. The major issue with this method was that there was no context provided to these “important words.” However, the new algorithm is much more advanced, focusing on a different set of words, to allow more context to be interpreted. In one example, the sentence “can you get medicine for someone pharmacy?” is given. While the old algorithm would have focused on words like “medicine” and “pharmacy,” the new algorithm places interest in the phrase “for someone,” showing the intention of not getting it for yourself, which opens up results on whether you can pick up someone else’s medicine as well. This more accurate reflection is the query will result in better search results for consumers, better prioritizing specifically what the searcher is looking for.
I think that it is always important for technology to keep advancing, and continue to get better. With this algorithm change, I believe that Google is doing such, as it is better adjusting its product to the wants of its consumers, providing a more accurate service for them. This entices people to keep using Google as their search engine, as it lessens the need to look in other places for the information they need. This helps Google get more money, and probably make more ad revenue as well. In class, we have discussed search engines, hubs and links a lot recently. Google’s algorithm change brings them more traffic, and prioritizes more useful links for the users.