The Future of Search

Chris Chaplow takes a look at radical new search engine innovations that might change the way you are searching.

You may have read articles about Google and its latest innovations such as books and maps or heard news that Microsoft is trying very hard to take on Google in the search sweepstakes.

While it Interesting to look ahead to what may be what may happening next in the search engine industry, the technology is still most definitely in its infancy.

Overcoming the lack of relevant search results

Conducting a simple search on any of the major search engines can be classified as an "enter your query and hope for the best" experience. To get the best the searcher still needs the patience and determination to filter the first set of results either by eye or by conducting a second search with a technically better phrase.

A few minutes studying the basic help page in Google http://www.google.com/help/basics.html will prove invaluable to everybody from the novice user to the seasoned searcher alike.

The search engines know that very few of us will study the correct syntax they are trying very hard to better anticipate the intentions of the searcher so that they can enhance their search results. Their future depends on it.

Imagine you are building an extension to your house and are interested in finding out more about windows. search with the word "windows" you can see that Google and Yahoo assume you are interested in a Microsoft computer operating system. Ask Jeeves (www.ask.co.uk) the chirpy English butler will offer suggestions on how to narrow your search with better phrases such as "Microsoft Windows", "glass windows", "replacement windows", "Windows updates", "House windows", "glass windows", "windows companies", "Windows media player".

This is called related search and is fashionable at the moment.

Getting Personal

If you desire to be able to enter a term as ambiguous as "windows" and expect to see relevant results, you'll first need to give up some personal information to the search engines.

Google has now launched a beta edition of its personalised search. As they explain,

"Personalized Search orders your search results based on what you've searched for in the past. Early on, you may not notice a huge impact on your search results, but they will continue to improve over time as you use Google."

To understand "windows" you would have to give up some of your privacy and let Google learn whether you were a computer geek or a DIY freak. Would it be worth it if you could save yourself time and energy by having search engine results more relevant to your desire? The debate continues.

Microsoft are not far behind with personalised search and the development of their new Longhorn operating system to replace windows. Imagine an operating system that monitors all of your activities - with your permission, of course. Every file, every image, word document, mp3, even e-books could be monitored by your computer as it endeavours to anticipate your every need.

Intelligent Search

If you were to type the question, "Tell me about technology patents in the Far East," into a search engine you would get millions of documents containing one or more of the words in that phrase.

A future search engine that understands natural language, would analyze the query and toss out "tell me about" and "in the" as irrelevant words. It understands that "Far East" is a concept that includes countries such as Japan, Korea, and Singapore, rather than interpreting it in a strictly Boolean sense and finding documents that contain phrases like "far away" or "East of Eden." Likewise, "technology patents" is a concept that might include things like patents on software.

We are eagerly waiting for the big breakthrough in this field.

Small is beautiful

New smaller search engines have also materialized each offering to improve the user experience. They offer a community angle.

Eurekster, (www.eurekster.com) combines the social networking elements that are used by sites such as Friendster (www.friendster.com), and Tribe (www.tribe.net) and provide results that can be filtered based upon what members of your group are searching.

While all of these are interesting and provide a glimpse of the future of search, it will not be the small companies that change the way we search.

Going local

Recognising that many, not all, searches relate to both a subject and a place. Google has added a 'local' tab on its home page. This promotes the local search concept. Try "Hotels in New York" The results listing is accompanied by a map of Manhattan showing the location of the hotels. It also works for London but as yet does not understand the location called Madrid and as for Marbella. The best it could do was the Marbella Hotel on Camberwell Church Street, London SE5. Well it is the future!