Elliott C. Back: In Aere Aedificare

The more I look at visual search engine SearchMe, the more I like it. In a way that text-based search engine Google has never done, SearchMe brings thumbnails to search results without losing any of the textual indicators we need to process relevance. SearchMe is also innovating in clustering search results into categories or topics, something Google has experimented with their sets demo but never implemented into the larger search engine. Perhaps the best way to show you how much more relevant SearchMe can be is through a short example, searching for “Obama.”

The first thing I get, as I type “Obama,” is a list of categories that SearchMe finds relevant. I click on “Politicians” and it takes me to the next screen, the main area for exploring search results:

There are a few features you should note that set the SearchMe results apart from their competition. First, they keep the list of categories you’re interested in just one click away from instant filtering at the top of the results. Second, all of the available space of the page is filled with a gigantic preview of the search results. The title of the website is shown at the bottom, along with the site URL when you mouseover the results. Essentially, their search results are a better version of Apple’s coverflow, applied to websites. Clicking on a preview will take you directly to the page of interest, in the same tab, just like most search engines do today.

Their dynamic snippets code is nice, as well, highlighting the search terms you used in multiple colours. It appears to have been implemented directly in the coverflow-like flash engine, or behind the scenes is coming back as a new layer of image, as it loads only after the high resolution preview has loaded. An unfortunate side-effect of their highlighting algorithm is that when searching for multiple words, like “Calderon de la Barca,” the words will be highlighted separately, even if found next to each other.

Not all their results work well; for example, searching for “China” leads me into irrelevance, regardless of the category I choose, and also brings up this half-rendered view of NBA China, that my own browser renders properly. Other search terms also return odd categories and funny previews, but I imagine that this is something that will improve over time. The big problems for a search engine, responsiveness and interface, are already solved as SearchMe is both lightning fast and beautiful.

If you’re interested, you can go check out their blog or signup to the private beta. Apparently, the venture is Sequoia backed, according to Techcrunch, which probably means it’s serious about being a big web search contender in the future. According to Louis Grey, the searchme spider is aggressively hitting his blog, too. It will be interesting to come back and a year and see how SearchMe has evolved. The most likely outcome for this is being acquired by one of the big four–Facebook, Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft–since it’s hard to imagine unseating any of them in the popular mindset.

Oh yeah, I’m a I’m a baller! You know you’ve made it when you get your own supplemental link unit section from Google! I’ve been waiting a long time for these, and now I’ve finally got them, even if they are a little bit incorrect. I think I’ve got some 301 redirects that need to be changed…

If you go to Ask.com and start typing, it will try to help you find what you’re looking for by displaying a list of suggestions it thinks are relevant to your query (and give the arrogance of Ask’s marketing department, probably your life as well).

But not every suggestion is a hit; most are ok, reasonable extensions, but in nearly every phrase I type in there is something hilarious. Take, for example, “learn to speak” which has the usual suspects Spanish, English, Italian, German, and the most unusual Gibberish:

If you ask me, it’s the most expressive language in the world

While most people want to learn to play a guitar, freestyle, or draw, little Johnny is learning to levitate objects:

With his mind, what else?

Americans love to sue you. They’ll do it for wrongful imprisonment, slander, or just about any kind of distress they can of, including tubal ligation failure:

I’d rather check her phone logs…

Ask’ers don’t know much about themselves, so naturally they don’t know if they are pregnant or not, as seen in this query for “how can i:”

Also, your dog is expecting!

A typo on “how do i find” led me to this gem of feng shui confusion:

Since when is this a verb?

I saved the best for last, which is the auto-complete results for “is it legal to,” a horrifying look into modern culture:

The answer is a categorical NO!

There’s an indication that this data is filtered–try starting lesbian, for example–so I’m not sure if I believe these results. My operating assumption is that this is a marketing gimmick to try and get some churn on the blogosphere and free PR. It wouldn’t be hard to drop in a single unlikely phrase to spice things up, now would it?

p.s., don’t type “how should I” or “can I sell my” or “ask me about” because they’re sophomoric. I bet Google’s users are equally idiotic, but they certainly don’t go out of their way to show that to us!

The blogosphere today is in collective shock after Google downgraded the pagerank of many leading blogs and news sources. The response tends to fall into several categories: we knew it was coming, pagerank doesn’t matter, and we deserved it. Techcrunch does a pretty good job of examining the evidence behind the update:

The only clear change appears to be among large scale blog networks and similar link farms, where each site in the network provides hundreds of outgoing links on each page of the blog to other blogs in the network, in some cases creating tens, even hundred of thousands of cross links. Previously such behavior has been rewarded by Google with high page rank, although it would now appear that this loop hole may now be shut.

Here’s a table of pagerank changes organized by the percent difference:

An interesting tidbit comes from Syntagma who note that “the majority of these decreases happened after a human review.” So, it might not be easy for you to fix your linking strategy and regain Pagerank automatically.

Ironically, this coincides with GOOG hitting $666 today. And, Silicon Valley is calling us “Pagerankled.” For you people out there running blogs, an immediate solution is the following:

• Make sure you nofollow any links that you don’t directly control
• Avoid using static link-farms like directories, like linking to every blog in your network from every page
• Don’t let your commenters add links to their sites

Here’s an example of the link distribution of my site after I’ve properly annotated some links with nofollow:

The green areas (header, footer, content, and some meta data) represent regular links, the red areas (advertising, sidebar links, tags, and related stories) are nofollow links, and the blue areas are dynamic links (javascript widgets) which don’t need updating. I am not sure if I want to nofollow anything else–what do you think?

Update: Forbes weighs in, “it could also be Google simply taking into account the growth of the Internet.”

It wasn’t my intention, when I wrote about how Google wouldn’t index one of my sites to make it to the #1 keyword for “Google Sucks” but it happened anyway. That’s a story for another day–right now my gripe is with infamous search engine Yahoo, which doesn’t index any of my sites at all!

Try searching for name, Elliott Back on Yahoo and you get absolutely nothing:

I tried adding my feed to Yahoo Site Explorer but it’s been 50 minutes and it hasn’t been indexed yet. I’m going to contact Webmaster Support and see what comes. My suspicion is that this is a side-effect from the rapid adoption by others of WP Autoblog, which links back to me, one of the reasons I stopped distributing it.

Update: I submitted my feed at 05/17/2007 14:18:01 and it was processed on 05/17/2007 14:26:18. Apparently it took a long time to get reported as processed, but the processing itself happened within 10 minutes.

Update 2: Well so far nothing. If any Yahoo people stop by, drop me a note or give me a call and we can get this sorted out.

Update 3: I emailed a friendly Yahoo employee who might be able to help, and also signed up for their paid search inclusion, “search submit basic,” which hopefully can nudge the site back into the index. Although, I don’t feel right paying for being indexed, it feels too black hat.

Update 4: I got the following email back from Yahoo:

Hello,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Search.

It has been determined that your site may not comply with Yahoo!’s Content Quality Guidelines located at: help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/deletions/deletions-05.html

Below are some answers to common questions regarding this issue:

Q: What are some of the common reasons that a site may violate Yahoo!’s Content Policy Guidelines?

A: Yahoo!’s Content Quality Guidelines (link above) outline what we are and are not looking for in pages that we index. Listed below are some of the more common reasons that a site may violate these guidelines:

- Cloaking (showing crawlers deceptive content about a site)
- Massive domain interlinking- Use of affiliate programs without the addition of substantial unique content
- Use of reciprocal link programs (aka “link farms”)
- Hidden text
- Excessive keyword repetition

Q: If my site has a judgment against it, can I use the SiteMatch inclusion program?

A: All pages submitted to SiteMatch are editorially reviewed. If a site has a judgment against it, it is likely to be rejected by the SiteMatch program.

Q: If my site has a judgment against it, can I use the Yahoo! Express directory inclusion program?

A: Yes, the Yahoo! Directory and Yahoo! Search Index are different systems. Inclusion or exclusion from one does not affect the other.

Q: How can I have my site re-reviewed?

A: Please review our content quality guidelines to make sure that your site meets all of them. When you feel the site is ready, please complete the form located at: add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/ysearch/cgi_rereview requesting a re-review of your site. You may wish to include an explanation of unique features on your site, or details of changes to your site’s content that may assist our editors in their evaluation.

Please allow several weeks for the review process, YST indexing, and a complete refresh of the database before checking search.yahoo.com to see if your site is listed in the Yahoo!Search Index. We do not offer specifics detailing how an individual site is not in compliance with our guidelines, but we will review your site individually. You will not be
receiving further notification regarding your request for a second review, and we are not able to offer the option of another review.

Thank you for taking the time to make the Yahoo! Search Index better.
Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.

Regards,
Evan

Yahoo! Customer Care
www.yahoo.com/

Uh, this email contains no information that could help me understand why I’m banned from Yahoo, or how to correct that ban. Thanks for the … wasted bits in cyberspace!