Why search is (still) hard.

-
Techmeme led me to this write up on ReadWriteWeb.
The write-up is a summary of a talk titled "Search is a Hard Problem" given by Udi Manber, a VP of Engineering at Google.

The article confirms that the devil is still in the details. Two little things from the article struck me:

  • The query pre-processing being attempted even before the search is run:
I knew Google did little things like stripping out articles from search strings, playing with participles/prefixes/suffixed and tenses to deliver better results, but I didn't realize they did stuff like this:

"For example, Google understands that 'GM' stands for 'General Motors', while 'GM foods' is actually 'genetically modified.' If you search for 'B&B AB', Google knows that is 'bed and breakfast in Alberta', while 'Ramstein AB' is 'Ramstein Airbase'."

  • The localization that is already part of the search engine.
That is typing in "government" in the US, takes you the the US government homepage, whereas typing it in, say, Australia take you to the Australian government's page.

Effective search results are really about getting at the intent of the user from what he/she has typed in and matching it to the attributes of the data that you've chosen to store. And given, that according to him, 20-25% of the queries they see each day they haven't seen before (and most of the world is still getting online) its going to be an ever-present challenge.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A short love letter to ~8 years on Google Search - 8 things I’m grateful for.

-
  After a few weeks off, I started a new gig within Google yesterday and it hit me that for the first time in almost eight years I won’t be working on some part of Google Search. Eight years ago, I told the team when I was interviewing that I was “looking for a place to call home for a while and grow there”. My experiences here more than met that need.  I used to write a regular “10 things about…” listy column for a while at a college newspaper. So in that style here’s 8 things (one for each year) I feel grateful to have experienced/learned in this time. Also, like that column which I banged out the night before it was due, this post is something that I don’t need to do, yet I feel somehow compelled to do (and so it’ll likely be longer and less crisp than it should be :-))    It actually is awesome to work on something so many people use and love, and that positively touches people’s lives. There’s a talk I give externally about Search and a line I often end up using is how the mission
Read more

Why don't you love Chocos, America?

-
Image
A few days ago I had the following conversation with a customs agent at San Francisco airport - as an Indian returning from India I get sent to the customs line even when I check "No food" on the customs form. :-) Agent: "Any food?" Me: "No" Agent: "Sure? No jira or cadipatta ? Me : "No....     well actually I do have a box of cereal." Agent: "Huh. What? Really?" Me: "Yes. Its a brand you don't get here." Agent: "Seriously. Even in the Indian stores? I've never heard that before." Me: "Ummm....yeah." I love reading local customization stories, particularly about how international chains tailor their offerings to local markets - the food industry has the best examples of these - check out this McDonald's story about the McPaneer , or how KFC is incredibly successful in China . But I seem to have missed that the customization extended to breakfast cereal. Turns out the
Read more

What might Twitter and/or Facebook have cost us if they were invented earlier (or should some things stay deliberately un-social?)

-
Image
So I was reading an ebook last week, and came across a quote that I liked. My first thought wasn't "I should write this down" , it was "I want to tweet this." My ebook reading software wasn't equipped for it, and it wasn't trivial to do so I didn't, but I expect most ebook reading software will be updated to do this in the next couple of releases and probably encourage me to as well. Why should reading be left behind? Twitter is already saving live TV . As I look back on the last week watching the Cricket World Cup , a huge part of it for me was watching my Twitter and Facebook feeds for reactions and being part of them. My parents were the only ones that actually called me during the match, but I felt connected to so many more people through FB and the Big T . Wether you're shopping, eating out, playing games, even searching ... apparently "everything gets better with social." We all have a very human, internal urge to express ours
Read more