Hornet’s Balls and Gold Mining

Hornet balls

As much as I love exploring search engines and how they tick, sometimes it’s good to get away from behind the monitor and go exploring outdoors. I’ve been writing recently about how search engines might mine data found on the Web and in their log files to learn more about the intent behind searcher’s queries. … Read more

Google’s Affiliated Page Link Patent

Affiliated links

An Affiliated Page Link is a Link between Pages From the Same Owners Might Google rank links to pages differently based on a perception of how related or affiliated those pages might be to each other? For instance, if three pages authored by the same person link to a fourth page, and two other pages, … Read more

Facebook Places vs. Yahoo’s Who, What, When, Where (W4) Communications Network Patent?

A new location-based service from Facebook is rolling out this week, known as Facebook Places. The announcement on the Facebook blog, Who, What, When, and Now…Where, describes Places as a way of letting your friends know where you’re at and what you’re doing in realtime when you check in. The Facebook blog post title caught … Read more

Not Brands but Entities: The Influence of Named Entities on Google and Yahoo Search Results

named entities

Does Google favor big brands when showing search results? That question has been bandied about on the Web for a while, but the answer may be more complicated than just a matter of brands. The question arose this morning on Malcolm Coles’ blog, in his post-Google treating brand names in search terms as site: searches? … Read more