Using the geo.position meta tag
When we recently released an updated version of our SEO Basics white paper, we added information about the geo.position meta tag. Using this tag allows webmasters to let the search engines know where the organization is physically located by providing longitude and latitude data.
This is a useful tool for location sensitive organizations, but it is not as helpful to all organizations.
Is Bing More Innovative Than Google?
Google may still command over 60 percent market share when it comes to searches, the Microsoft-owned Bing is making steady headway ever since its introduction in June 2009. However, current data shows that Bing and Yahoo search engines’ share in the marketplace is growing – as the expense of Google. Yet due to its smaller size, Bing is quicker to innovate with new features, like the brand-new taxi cab fare calculator, as well as its intuitive answers and shopping engine. In recent months, Bing has continued adding more features – like integrating Twitter and Facebook status updates into its search results.
The change toward making search sites more user friendly (and more insightful with information) is enhancing the search experience for the average internet user. To give users an idea of what’s going on around their neighborhoods or in interesting parts of the country, Bing has partnered up with Foursquare to provide geo-location based information about restaurant specials and user recommendations. Bit by bit, these social media innovations help Bing stand out among its competitors – and woo social media junkies away from Google’s grip. Bing is also the official search engine within Facebook.
Further applications – whether it be the Bing Shopping iPhone app (with bar code scanner) or the Bing Health section – continue enhancing Bing’s search capabilities. Thus far, Bing commands only 12% of the search engine market share – but its rate of growth suggests that big things may be in its future. If nothing else, Microsoft’s innovative use of social media data (twitter, foursquare, and Facebook) shows its understanding of the power that user-generated content can have on search engine traffic.
For a side by side comparison of the two sites, check out – http://www.bing-vs-google.com/
Search for Children
As I have worked at The Bivings Group, I have focused on helping design websites and applications for specific audiences – professionals and adult aged individuals. Many of the clients I have worked with don't need to focus on children, and young web surfers have unique needs.
Recently, I was introduced to the International Children's Digital Library (ICDL) website. While the site has a rather conservative and standard design – in my opinion – I am really intrigued by its book search feature geared towards children.
On this page, children are presented with a search interface that is different from an interface geared towards adults. Adults are asked about keywords, authors, and titles, but children may not know such information. Further, children are probably more prone to browse when searching for a book instead of having a specific author or book title in mind. That is why IDCL provides children with different search options. For instance, a child can search for a book that has orange on its cover. Or instead of searching for historical fiction, children can search for “Make Believe Books” or ones that have “Imaginary Creature Characters.” Further, they can search for books based upon age groups and type – picture or chapter books.
Another interesting feature is that the search options are presented as graphical buttons that children can easily suss out the meaning of. The search results are also presented by showing the book covers, and children can also flip through the entire books on the computer.
I think that this is an interesting search feature. Imagine if Google or Yahoo! was set up like this…
Start Your Decision Engines
Search engines meet social networks in Hunch.com , while Bing.com delivers fewer search results with higher relevance – welcome to decision engines.
Flickr creator Caterina Fake Monday launched Hunch.com, a search engine guiding users to their ideal sites and products for searches on business, travel, shopping and even life advice.
Type in a question like “Am I in the Friend Zone?” and Hunch will lead you through a series of questions about your personal relationships and to your answer.
Outside of being an exaggerated version of a Cosmopolitan quiz, Hunch offers quite a bit more analysis and learns about you the more you – and others – use it. The system blends social media advice and internet data to get users to answer other users’ questions as the system builds.
Fake sees Hunch as a useful tool that will grow into an enormous resource.
“It might take five years for Hunch to reach maturity,” she said, according to SearchEngineLand.com. “Right now, it’s like Wikipedia circa 2002. To me, what makes social software great is that it improves over time.”
Also giving traditional search giant Google a run for its money is Bing.com, marketed as a “decision engine” and launched late last month as an answer to overwhelming search results on traditional engines.
Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim reported in May that 42 percent of internet users “are constantly unsatisfied with our initial search results.”
“Search engines do a decent job of helping people navigate the Web and find information, but they don’t do a very good job of enabling people to use the information they find,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in a statement.
Like Google, Bing aggregates all types of content on a particular search term, but organizes it in a more useful way. Type in “Rome” and you’ll get searches organized by the city’s history, weather, events, travel deals, etc.
While it remains to be seen how big an impact systems like Hunch and Bing will have on traditional internet searching, it’s clear that innovative technologies focused on quality over quantity and a way to utilize community intellect cannot be ignored.
Wolfram Alpha is intriguing, but will people use it?
The much hyped “computational knowledge engine” Wolfram Alpha launched over the weekend to what can only be described as a mixed reaction. I played with it for a few hours and came away with two primary thoughts:
- Wolfram Alpha is something completely new, and that is fascinating.
- Everything about Wolfram Alpha is going to be compared to Google, and the engine will suffer due to the comparison.
And now for something totally different.
Wikipedia has been around forever, but I still occasionally go on Wikipedia binges where I’ll search for something and then end up following various links and learning lots of things I didn’t intend to. Wolfram Alpha inspires similar explorations. Starting from the examples page, here is a list of some random things I learned about as a way of showing what the engine is like:
- AIDS deaths in Africa
- Largest countries by population
- Stats about my birth day
- Weather forecast for today in Washington and the weather in 1995
- The current time in London
- The distance from San Antonio, TX to Washington, DC
- Current exchange rate between dollars and pesos
Pretty cool, huh? I love Wolfram Alpha’s user interface, with its focus on visual search results. And I love the way it encourages you to explore.
Will people use it?
While I find Wolfram Alpha fascinating, there are certainly idiosyncrasies. You will simply not get results for a great many of your searches and you will run into strange results at times. The site is clearly not yet a finished product, and this will frustrate some.
But I think the biggest challenge is the point of reference many users will bring when using the new engine. Most of the reviews I read focused on comparing Wolfram Alpha to Google, and found it lacking. Indeed, it seems that the first thing a lot of people did when playing with Wolfram Alpha was search for their own name, which isn’t really the point of the tool. Fast Company sums up the problem pretty well in its article titled “Wolfram Alpha Isn’t Google, so Stop Comparing Them.”
Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. Google is so dominant in the search space that a service interruption recently caused a 5% drop in overall Internet traffic. Most of us have used Google so often for so long that if you put a search box in front of us and ask us to type something, we can’t help but compare the results we get to Google. Google is our defining search experience.
In my mind, Wolfram Alpha isn’t really a Google competitor, any more than Wikipedia is. I see it as something totally new, that can enrich my search experience when used as a complement to my daily Google use. This shouldn’t be seen as Wolfram Alpha vs. Google, as I don’t see it as a zero sum game. Unfortunately, I think most others do see it as an either/or proposition, in which case it is going to be difficult for Wolfram Alpha to truly catch on among general users.
What do you think?