Search engine bias?

I notice that "Measuring bias in 'organic' Web search" by Edelman and Lockwood, is simply "posted" on a Website (http://www.benedelman.org/searchbias/), rather than being a peer-reviewed paper, so I'm not sure why anyone is paying it any attention. The authors suggest that Google is biased on the basis of what is probably the most trivial bit of data collection one could imagine.  It's easy to replicate.  One search term they used was "mail" and, sure enough, when I use this in Google, the first item retrieved is a link to Gmail.  However, when I use email - presumably equally likely to be used by searchers, the first item is a link to Hotmail and the second is to Gmail; when I use "e-mail", the first link is to Yahoo's mail service, the second is to Wikipedia, the third is to Hotmail, the  fourth is to news on e-mail and only the fifth is to Gmail.


In other words, to base a proposition of bias on one possible form of a concept is to write absolute rubbish.  Still, these are Harvard Business School people and no doubt self-advertisement is the primary motivation here.

New from Information Age

The industry journal Information Age has some interesting items in the current issue - all of which is on the Web.

First, 'cloud computing' is on the agenda, offering potential for cost cutting in hard times. However, it's likely to be small- to medium-sized companies that adopt first, since:

Certainly, for organisations that have spent thousands of man years and millions of dollars building their own bomb-proof infrastructure to support complex, and often highly regulated systems, there is simply too much at stake for them to abandon this investment in favour of a set of shared resources that are out of their control.

Next there's an article on 'enterprise search', with a couple of interesting case studies that suggest getting the equivalent of a siimple Google search box is simply not on the cards.

Finally, something on the 'semantic Web' - that never-ending fascination with the idea that, somehow, we're going to get some meaning recorded - but don't hold your breath.

Google search technology

The Technologies Behind Google Ranking are the subject of an item in the Official Google Blog. The title is a little misleading, since the article tells us what the technology does rather what it is :-)

Search behaviour

There's an interesting article on the Boxes and Arrows site: Search Behavior Patterns, by John Ferrara. The article drew my attention to a new(ish) search engine called "Easy Search Live", which offers a 'live view' feature. Click on "live view" beside any item and a window opens to show you the site. Quite a neat feature for finding useful sites within the search output, rather than clicking and opening a new tab or window for the site.

"Advanced search"

Stephen Turbek has an interesting post in his Weblog on the 'advanced search' function found with many search engines.

Advanced search is the ugly child of interface design -always included, but never loved. Websites have come to depend on their search engines as the volume of content has increased. Yet advanced search functionality has not significantly developed in years. Poor matches and overwhelming search results remain a problem for users. Perhaps the standard search pattern deserves a new look. A progressive disclosure approach can enable users to use precision advanced search techniques to refine their searches and pinpoint the desired results.

Designers of library catalogues please note!