The%20Future%20Of%20Search%20(sort%20of)

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The Future Of Search(sort of)

• Danny SullivanEditor-In-ChiefSearch Engine
  Landhttp//searchengineland.com

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The Future? Its Now!

• Hard to predict since two key things I expected
  to happen HAVE happened
• Personalized results
• Blended results
• Internet Librarian, November 2001

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Read My Mind (Nov. 2001)

• Sept. 11 dramatically illustrates the main search
  challenge the need to somehow automatically hit
  the correct dataset
• Images for search on pictures of spain
• MP3 files for search on madonna
• Movie info for search on Harry Potter this month

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Invisible Tabs (Dec. 2003)

• Answer to everything is not a web page
• Search engines will begin to hit specialty
  databases in the right occasion, pushing the
  right tab behind the scenes
• Pictures, Buying, News Headlines

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Federated Search Hits The Web

• Or is it?
• Meta search
• Universal Search
• 3D / Morph
• Answers
• Shortcuts
• Blended results or Blended search more
  generic and clearer

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Google Universal Search May 07

• Automatically queries
• Books, images, news, video, local web
• More sources added in the future
• Relevancy of each vertical silo assessed and
  measured against others, Google says
• Morehttp//searchengineland.com/070516-143312.php
  
• Lets see

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Ask 3D Morph June 07

• 3 pane design
• 3rd pane uses Morph algorithm to select
  relevant verticals
• Blogs, news, news images, video, Wikipedia,
  dictionary, more
• More http//searchengineland.com/070604-211402.ph
  p
• Lets see

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Microsoft Live Sept. 07

• Pushing Microsoft Answers
• Health, Shopping, Entertainment/Celebrities,
  Local
• Smart Motion Video Previews
• More http//searchengineland.com/070927-034138.ph
  p
• Lets see

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Yahoo Oct. 07

• Pushing Yahoo Shortcuts
• Events, music, movies, travel, sports, health,
  shopping, businesses, and restaurants
• More http//searchengineland.com/071002-012729.ph
  p
• Lets see

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Blended Overview

• Verticals becoming more prominent
• Metaphor / presentation still being worked out
• Ask 3D didnt generate boost toolbar download
  did, and now iWon ramp-up
• Live saw gains through Search Club
• More on bothhttp//searchengineland.com/071001-1
  11050.php
• Still, exciting time!

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Will Crawlers Survive? (Nov. 2002)

• Link analysis saved them from drowning in spam
• Now link manipulation has become issue
• Bloggers Lets googlebomb to help sites we
  like
• Site owners Lets create artificial link
  networks
• Site owners Lets just get links Google likes
• SearchKing (and others) We got good links for
  sale!

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Whats The Solution (Nov. 2002)

• Theyll come up with new link analysis abilities
• I still believe personalization of results will
  come
• Specialty search may finally now recovered from
  the dotcom crash
• OriginSearch.com charging per day
• Scirus.com still going strong
• Crawlers may take new lead Google revamped news
  search and shopping search expected
• And help others with targeted paid listings

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Personalized Social Search

• Focus on a particular topic, such as news
• Reshaping results based on
• What you personally do or visit
• What others you know do or visit
• What people in aggregate do or visit

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Google Personalized Search
Results are reordered based on whats deemed to
be your personal preferences. Pages move up,
down, in or out of top 10
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Personalization Influencers

• Google Personalized Home Page content
• Google Bookmarks
• Search History (Clicks)
• Web History (Visits)

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Search Web History
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Social Search

• Eurekster experimented with friend clicks
  reshaping results in 2004
• Yahoo My Web promised to let us tag and use a
  network to reshape results

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Yahoo My Web
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Yahoo My Web
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My Web Old Search Features
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Social Search Reality

• Neither really has succeeded
• The Promise Reality Of Mixing The Social Graph
  With Search Engines
• http//searchengineland.com/070827-121805.php
• Eurekster says swickis much better
• Yahoo dropped many features quietly
• But what about Facebook?

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Facebook Search

• Social graph (ugh) / social network data is
  potentially useful
• Watch what others are searching on
• Monitor clicks in a more trusted environment
• Reshape results based on what you friends seem to
  like
• But who are your friends

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Future Facebook?
http//www.dumpfolder.net/?p193
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Facebook Search

• Do you have to filter to true friends?
• Do you then still need to consider what youll
  share?
• Does Facebook instead work on aggregate level?
• And whats the underlying platform? Theyll
  likely remain dependent on someone else

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Facebook Search

• Go vertical? People search?
• Plenty in the space
• http//searchengineland.com/lands/people-search.ph
  p
• Or events search
• Upcoming rival
• Others?
• Or discovery

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Search Versus Discovery

• Search is an on-demand, have particular need to
  fulfill activity
• Discovery is related but less specific in what
  you want
• StumbleUpon, Digg
• iGoogle related magic tabs

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What Else?

• Natural Language Search!
• Sigh
• Powerset not out
• Hakia.coms clustering interesting

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What Else?

• Human refinement!
• Mahalo.com sometimes feels cluttered but nice to
  see the attempt
• Search Wikia remains to be seen
• http//searchengineland.com/061229-193718.php

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Overall

• Verticals to continue growing
• Personalized should survive privacy issues and be
  helpful
• Perhaps social will indeed play role
• Lots of room to grow
• Report 7 Out Of 10 Americans Experience 'Search
  Engine Fatigue

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Overall

• 72 experience search engine fatigue (either
  always, usually, or sometimes) when
  researching
• 65 percent say theyve spent two or more hours
  in a single sitting searching
• 1000 adults by Kelton Reseach for Autobytel
• http//searchengineland.com/071023-093541.php

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  hp)
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