Search engines reveal their research projects

All of the main search engines are constantly developing new search technology and applications, many of which are made available online in beta formats for web users to try them out and, if required, provide feedback. The latest projects from Yahoo! include a new twist on generating relevant search results.

The Yahoo! Next page displays a showcase of new developments, the most interesting of which, from a search marketing angle, is Yahoo! Mindset. This tool displays the standard Yahoo! Search results initially, but then gives the user the chance to move a slider one way or the other to revise the results by whether they are commercial or not (‘informational’). At each point along the cursor, the search results will be presented in a different order based on a scoring system that Yahoo has allocated to each site to identify the type of content they provide.

This is a technique that has been considered for some time to try to remove commercial sites from results if users may be looking for unbiased information and advice, or vice-versa. Results are by no means perfect – try searches like ‘email marketing’ or ‘rover cars’ and see the difference in results at both ends of the scale – but this may be one way that search engines will go to try to refine and focus results for the user. This technique is also similar to the ranking sliders included on the new MSN Search tool, although it takes the classification of sites to a new level of detail.

Other new search developments can be viewed in the Google Labs and MSN Sandbox, some of which we shall review in future editions of this newsletter. Each new development tends to be supported by news or feedback options, such as blogs or forums for developers and users. A good summary of these activities has just been published by SearchEngineWatch.

If you’d like to know more about these new search technologies and how they may impact your search marketing in the future, please contact us for more details.

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