Mar 15, 2012 at 4:26am ET by Danny Sullivan

The Wall Street Journal is out with a story saying that Google is about to make one of the biggest changes in its history of offering web search, providing more direct answers and gaining "semantic" smarts to understand more about what words mean. I'm scratching my head, since Google already does this. Methinks Google's PR has exploded in ways it didn't expect. Beyond Blue Links! From the story, we learn things such as: Over the next few months, Google's search engine will begin spitting out more than a list of blue Web links. It will also present more facts and direct answers to queries at [...]

Google, Content Farms & Why This May Be Blekko’s Moment

Jul 26, 2010 at 10:16am ET by Greg Sterling

At the beginning of Google's "Searchology" event in early 2007 original Google employee Craig Silverstein opined, "If Google had started a year or two earlier, it wouldn't have worked." That's because prior to that time (1998) the internet wasn't yet large enough to require Google or enable people to see the value of its approach. As sites and pages multiplied exponentially Google became an increasingly necessary tool. We're all familiar with the story. Now Google controls a majority of search traffic in most countries around the world. It has become a seemingly unstoppable force. The in [...]

Will the “Deep Web” Slay Google?

Feb 23, 2009 at 8:27am ET by Greg Sterling

There are arguably two parallel tracks in the "what will succeed Google?" meme. An emerging one is "will the feds intervene to block Google?" The second is much older and involves the hypothetical "semantic web" or sometimes "deep web." Essentially this asks, "who will do search better than Google?" (A third line of argument might surround "social search.") Two pieces in two days in the NY Times reflect the two former strands. The first article is Everyone Loves Google, Until It’s Too Big and picks up on the monopoly discussion. I responded over the weekend on my personal blog Screenwerk. [...]

Powerset Launches “Understanding Engine” For Wikipedia Content

May 12, 2008 at 12:01am ET by Danny Sullivan

After nearly two years in the making -- and plenty of hype -- Powerset has finally rolled out a "natural language" search engine. It's not a Google killer. It's barely a business model right now. But at least it's something the world can finally play with, and under the hood, there's lots of potential. By the time you read this, the Powerset site should have changed into a tool that allows you search against material within Wikipedia. Why bother using Powerset rather than using Wikipedia's own search tool or even Google set to look only within Wikipedia pages? The Powerset pitch is t [...]

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