Last year, Common Craft produced a great, short video explaining RSS "in plain English." The company is back now with another wonderful one, Web Search Strategies in Plain English. It's less than three minutes long and does a great job explaining how to use some of the most simple "power" commands at searchers' disposal -- the minus sign and quotation marks. Be sure to check it out! The video is also below: [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Features: Commands | Search Features: Query Refinement | Search Resources

Blink, and you might have missed it. Google's now doing synonym searching. It's something they quietly noted in a past Google blog post and one that comes up again today in a post that covers how Google uses experiments to improve the search interface. Back to synonym searching in a moment. The main focus of today's post is how small changes can have a big impact on how users interact with search results. Some before and after screenshots of various search results are shown. Most compelling to me was how by making the + symbol thicker in a "Plus Box" that allows for stock quotes [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Search Customization | Google: Web Search | Search Features: General | Search Features: Query Refinement | Top News

After being in testing for literally years, Google Suggest is finally coming to Google.com. This is the feature where as you start to type in the search box, related searches automatically appear below where you are typing. For example, start typing [olympics] into the search box at Google Suggest, and below the box, you start seeing suggestions such as: olympics 2008 olympics schedule olympics tv schedule olympics 2012 It's easy to move your cursor down to any of the suggestions to select that as your search. Google Suggest was rolled out as a Google Labs project back in December 2004. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: User Interface | Google: Web Search | Search Features: Query Refinement | Top News

The Yahoo Search Blog announced that they have released a new version of my favorite search browser plugin named Inquisitor. The upgrade makes the Apple Safari search plugin faster, cleaner, and multi-lingual. By faster, Yahoo has integrated Inquisitor with BOSS, enabling a faster return on your Yahoo queries. Yahoo has cleaned up both the Inquisitor home page and the client to be simpler and more streamlined. Finally, Yahoo has expanded the language support to Japanese, Korean, Traditional Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and German. Here is a screen shot of the new client [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Features: Query Refinement | Search Features: Search History & Personalization | Toolbars & Add-Ons | Yahoo: Search

About two years ago, I wrote an article called Why Search Sucks & You Won't Fix It The Way You Think. In it, I explained various ways people have tried to make search "visual" and why those have largely failed. That's mainly because "list view" or "10 blue links" still works for lots of search activities. But visual search has picked up some attention recently with new players coming in. Is visual search the future, where we'll be flying through our results Minority Report-style? Maybe in several years, but for now, I still see a lot of eye candy and no real b [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Engines: Experimental | Search Engines: Other Search Engines | Search Features: Query Refinement

Google Video has introduced related searches and suggestions in a horizontal layer just below the search box. These suggestions broaden or alter the scope of the original search query. It's a way to drive additional volume and page views on Google video. However, YouTube accounts for 98 percent of video viewing on Google-owned properties, according to comScore. Source: comScore (4/08) [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Google: YouTube & Video | Search Features: Query Refinement

Google announced that the related search feature is now fresher then ever. What that means is when you search on certain queries, Google may show you a line just above the search results with related search queries. Those related search queries are fresher, in the sense that they now should show more related searches based on your query but also based on current events. For example, a search on apple returns two relates searches, including [apple iphone] and [apple store]. Yes, the apple iphone is very current with the upcoming 3G iphone, and I assume people searching for Apple at this tim [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Web Search | Search Features: Query Refinement

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 [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Engines: Hakia | Search Engines: Powerset | Search Engines: Wikipedia | Search Features: Natural Language | Search Features: Query Refinement

Yahoo has acquired my favorite search browser plugin for Apple Safari, Inquisitor. Inquisitor is an extremely useful search refinement and search aid tool for the Apple browser market. Inquisitor offers autocomplete, refinements, suggestions, and also allows you to add any search engine you like, plus create your own personalized and advanced query operators, much like OpenSearch. I spoke with Ariel Seidman, the director of product management for this product, and he answered a number of questions I had about the acquisition. David Watanabe is the developer behind Inquisitor, and he is al [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Search Features: Query Refinement | Search Features: Search History & Personalization | Toolbars & Add-Ons | Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Search

I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable about how I spotted a WebmasterWorld thread that has three members noticing Google Suggest like features on Google.com. Basically, when these users go to Google.com and begin typing in a query, Google begins to offer search suggestions. Google has implemented this feature as a default on other non-U.S. based search engine home pages but never as the default at Google.com. Both Yahoo and Ask.com offer search suggestions as you type, Yahoo's feature is known as Search Assist. It would not surprise me to hear that Google is testing this on some user [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: User Interface | Google: Web Search | Search Features: Query Refinement

You know that aggravating feeling you get when you've done a search and your results are OK, but you're sure there's something better if only the "obvious" results weren't totally dominant? Or if you could somehow come up with a cleverer way of expressing your query without wasting a bunch of time diddling with variants of your search terms? Vivisimo's new remix clustering feature helps solve both problems. Vivisimo was a pioneer in introducing on-the-fly clustering, grouping results into topic folders. Do a search on Vivisimo's Clusty meta search engine and you'll see these cluster folders [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Engines: Clusty | Search Features: Query Refinement

Yahoo UK has launched Search Suggest at Yahoo Search for UK users. If you do not see it now, you will probably see it in the "coming days," a Yahoo representative told me. When you begin to type a keyword, Yahoo will now offer their UK users suggestions. I covered the US launch of search suggestion back on July 12th. Yahoo has also been beta testing Search Assist, which I happen to now see as of this morning. Search Suggestions On Steroids: Yahoo Search Assist from Danny Sullivan a while back showed off many of the features of this new beta interface. I am personally able to see it in N [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Features: Query Refinement | Yahoo: Search

Today, Just Behave welcomes the second of our guest columnists, Larry Cornett, Vice President of Search Experience at Yahoo.—Gord Hotchkiss Where do you go to get your daily fix of fresh information? If you are like millions of other users out there, you hit sites like Digg, Delicious, Techmeme, or just open your favorite RSS reader. Or, you tap into your Stumbleupon toolbar to see what your fellow Stumblers have found interesting lately. Most people don't automatically think of search as a place for serendipitous exploration. Search is best when you have something specific in mind [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Search & Usability | Search Features: Query Refinement | Search Features: Shortcuts | Stats: Search Behavior

The Yahoo Search Blog announced that downloads of the Yahoo Toolbar for Internet Explorer will now have "as you type" search suggestions functionality. Yahoo has been on a search suggestion frenzy lately, last month launching search suggestions on Yahoo.com and beta testing Yahoo Search Assist. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Firefox | Search Features: Query Refinement | Toolbars & Add-Ons | Yahoo: Search

I chuckled a bit over the buzz Yahoo got when they launched Yahoo Search Suggest earlier this month because I knew something even better was coming: Yahoo Search Assist. Finally, it's going live and in the wild for lucky people who are selected at random for testing. If all goes well, eventually everyone will get to use this new search refinement feature that I find very compelling. Yahoo Search Assist is smart, in the sense that it shows up when you need it. Yahoo Search Suggest, as well as Google Suggest (and other tools like them), are cool in how they start to suggest things as you type. B [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Features: Query Refinement | Yahoo: Search

The Yahoo Search Blog announced that the search box on Yahoo.com now offers search suggestions as you type. For example, as I started typing "danny s", Yahoo offered suggestions, including "danny sullivan." What is important to note is that search suggestions are not the default at search.yahoo.com. Don't like the search suggestions at Yahoo? No worries, you can turn them off by clicking on "more" and then selecting "Disable Search Suggestions," as I show in this screen capture. Danny gives some further background about how Yahoo and others have used predictive query refinement opti [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search Features: Query Refinement | Yahoo: Search

The Ask.com blog posts today about Ask's new home page, which they are particularly proud of, and I think rightly so. They talk about their icons, suggest feature and skins, all of which are worth a quick peek. The nice neat new icons are consistent across the interface and across country versions. There is the "suggest as you type" feature, although there's nothing particularly new about that, since Google has had Google Suggest for some time now. Interestingly though, Google Suggest kicks in immediately you start typing, while with Ask, it takes two characters. However, from a very brief [...]

Related Topics: Ask: General | Channel: Search | Search Features: General | Search Features: Query Refinement

Google's Udi Manber - Search is a Hard Problem from Read/Write Web has an interesting write up on a presentation that Udi Manber, Google's VP of Engineering, gave the other day at Supernova. In his presentation, he covered why "search is a hard problem." But a few of his statements really stood out from the others. Manber said 20 to 25% of the queries that Google sees today have never seen before. Wow, 25% of the queries people enter into Google today, were not seen before today? Manber also said that Google is rolling out a new search function that interprets questions better. Manber ga [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Google: Web Search | Search Features: Query Refinement | Stats: Search Behavior

Belgian company loses lawsuit against Google from IT World reports that Google has won a suit brought against them by ServersCheck, a Belgian company. The company complained that the Google Suggest feature was helping people find pirated versions of its software. ServersCheck said that Google Suggest returned results for "ServersCheck Crack," ServersCheck Serial," and other suggested searches of illegal versions of the ServersCheck products, when a user began to enter in "ServersCheck" into Google Suggest. ServersCheck sued Google on May 17, 2006. The Commercial Court in Leuven, Belgium, ru [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Legal | Legal: General | Legal: Security | Search Features: Query Refinement

Threadwatch spotted that Google has added "related phrases" to the Google definitions feature. For example, a search on define:car shows at the top: Related phrases: car rental cable car trailer on flat car stock car tank car pace car car kit champ car box car racer Here is a screen capture: [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Definitions | Google: SEO | Google: User Interface | Search Features: Query Refinement