Changing Pattern of Searching

When we seek information online, search engines come to our mind first. And indeed, search engines cater to an overwhelming percentage of information seekers on the web. Led by search engines themselves, our search queries have now qualified from simple search to more categorical, like image search, news search, local search, book search and so on. Yet, search engines may not often answer your queries to your satisfaction.

 

With the development of information-flow on the web, 2 definite patterns emerge – first, that from search engine to user, and second, from user to user. In the first case, search engines respond to search queries by fetching the most relevant web pages from their database. This is the most common form of flow of information.

 

In the case of latter, information flows from one user to another either real-time or after a time-lag. Blogs and forums are good examples here (emails and chats are not considered because they are personalized exchange of information). In recent time, there has been significant advancement in this type of information flow.

 

To peruse the point further, let us look at 3 renowned web entities, Google, Wikipedia and Yahoo! Answers. Of the 3, Google is an example of one-way information flow from it to users, for which it depends on data it has collected and stored in its database. Wikipedia and Yahoo! Answers, on the other hand, are dependent on users’ voluntary contributions. Since all three have emerged as hugely popular, it is apparent that getting information online will become rather easy in sharp contrast to gruelling exercise of yesteryears.

 

Google Search

 

Except for Book Search and Google Map, nearly all other Google offerings are founded on historical (and ongoing) search-behaviour data, culled by Google over many years. These are bare-bone data, devoid of flab or color, because the searchers have willingly provided them without any thought of favour. These data are therefore very valuable source to derive meaningful information.

 

Since the huge mass of people, who surf the web, come from nearly all segments of society, from all countries and dispersed among all age groups, they leave behind a rich resource of search-behaviour patterns that change from place to place and over time. With such a disparate aggregation of people using their service, it is evident that the first thing search engines will try to do is to broadly classify the users’ respective demands, so that it is possible to offer more value aimed at each demand-group.

 

This is akin to what giants like Google and Yahoo have been doing for the past couple of years. Making use of large amount of search-behaviour data in their respective repositories, they are mining them to work out and offer a slew of refined search experience. Google’s news search, image search, local search, etc. are examples of that. Irrespective of whether these have improved relevance of search results, users have no doubt welcomed the new alternatives.

 

To its credit, Google is also offering innovative products like Gmail, Orkut, Blogger, AdSense, Google Maps, etc. to tie up its users within its fold. All the while, it pin-pointedly targets its users with text ads (AdWords), which helps it to shore up significant revenue.

 

Recently, in May this year, a project called Wikimapia has come into being that uses Google Maps with a wiki system, in which users can create and edit rectangular hotspots overlaying the maps to describe a place. Though similar sounding, Wikimapia is not related to Wikipedia. As it grows popular and attains perfection, Wikimapia is expected to become another source of search information.

 

Wikipedia



Wikipedia is a voluntary effort, a free encyclopaedia that “anyone can edit”. As such, Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the non-profit organization, Wikimedia Foundation. Considering that it started only in January, 2001, the wealth of information that it already has is truly awesome. It amazes that voluntary contributions can indeed make up such a big treasure. This is what Wikipedia has to say about itself:

“Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has rapidly grown into the largest reference website on the Internet. The content of Wikipedia is free, written collaboratively by people from all around the world. This website is a wiki, which means that anyone with access to an Internet-connected computer can edit, correct, or improve information throughout the encyclopaedia, simply by clicking the edit this page link (with a few minor exceptions, such as protected articles and the main page).

 

As of 2006, it includes millions of articles and pages worldwide, and content from hundreds of thousands of contributors.”

 

Seen through an avid surfer’s eyes, while search engines can be said to provide results in the form of relevant and not-so-relevant web pages for you to continue searching and selecting, Wikipedia takes it to higher gear by offering complete relevant information for a search-term. It’s a classic example of user-to-user flow of information.

 

Since it is a voluntary effort, Wikipedia earns money purely from donations. Apart from Wilipedia, which is more widely known, Wikimedia also serves Wikitionary, Wikinews, Wikiquote and others.

 

Yahoo! Answers

 

Yahoo! Answers  is perhaps the first of its kind and is distinctly different from pure search or encyclopaedic efforts like Wikipedia. It is more a community-driven service that allows users to ask and answer questions among themselves. The flow of information is similar to that in forums, but there ends any other similarity. Forums are usually subject-specific, and so for your different questions, you need to sign up with multiple forums. Not so with Yahoo! Answers. Here, once you are a registered user, you can ask and answer virtually any question. Sample some questions: 

1. 
   
   How many ants are there on the planet?
   
   


2. 
   
   What classes do I have to take to become an astronaut?
   
   


3. 
   
   If someone gives direct eye contact for about 3 seconds or more, are they interested?
   
   


4. 
   
   If I have the company's name and their address, how can I get their website or e-mail address? 
   
   

Yahoo! is trying hard to popularize this program. It awards points for answering questions and also for voting on questions asked. The point system is designed to elicit good answers from participants. Users, who consistently give good answers, are featured on Yahoo! 360º blog . It already has more than 10 million answers that have been asked since inception.

 

What do experts say?

 

In a June 8 article [http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3612046], Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineWatch shows that Yahoo! Answers has recorded impressive growth compared to Google Answers, though as of June 3, it has just 0.044% of internet audience. In another statistics (from Hitwise), he shows that for week ending May 13, Yahoo! Answers has already climbed to number 3 position (2.94%) in terms of market-share in the category called “Education/Reference”, behind the pole position of Wikipedia (16.76%). Note that this statistics refers to US users only.

 

Will Wikipedia be overshadowed by Yahoo! Answers? It is still early days to answer that. The point is that there is a wide divergence between how information is provided by the two. In case of Yahoo! Answers, it is still more of addiction. Though addiction does create a zing value, to sustain it is a different matter altogether. How Yahoo! Answers will shape up in future is a matter of conjecture. For now, for the more serious-minded, for those who disfavor addiction, Wikipedia will be the destination. Perhaps the real answer lies in Google’s apparent disinterest in this field. We will wait and see.

[Google] The Secret To Google's Success

Opinion from a member of http://www.braintique.com

The Secret of Google's Success? Of course, there are really no "secrets." But here, in my opinion, are some of the reasons that Google has been so wildly successful.

The most important secret of Google’s success is that the people who founded and who work at Google are incredibly, incredibly smart.

Image

Google is a research-focused company. The attitude is: build something nifty, and then we’ll figure out how to market it. This stands in marked contrast with most other companies, particularly those that have a direct relationship with users (consumers). It’s much more typical to think first about marketing, and only second whether something is a cool technology. With Google, the technology comes first. With most consumer companies, technology is used in support of product marketing.

Technology and research for the sake of technology and research is emphasized so much at Google that employees are allowed to spend some of their time on whatever interests them, whether or not there is any direct usefulness. Many of Google’s new products have come from this employee freedom. Google’s atmosphere is somewhat like that of a university computer science department, except that meals are catered and dental care and dry cleaning are provided on the premises.

Of course, a huge index of Web pages, and the hardware and software to quickly run queries against the index are important. So is a lean, elegant primary user interface, completely devoid of advertisements or other clutter. Results in Google cannot be purchased, and advertising, or sponsored links, in Google results are clearly marked as such. Integrity in not selling search result ranking is an important factor in Google success.

Google AdSense Review: Strengths, Problems And Weaknesses

Google's AdSense program allows third-party sites (like mine) to run Google's famously successful text ads, which also get tailored to each of site's pages' content. Already, there have been a few examples of the money this could bring to small sites.

Source: Potential Effects of Google AdSense.

Google AdSense has recently lifted a ban prohibiting independent publishers like me to report about the use and effectiveness of their unique advertising program for independent publishers, bloggers and Web site owners.

Google AdSense is a virtual advertising agency, which automatically places ads on your Web pages and selects which ads to publish according to the specific type of content available on each.

All of this process is automatic.

"Simply put, we provide you with AdSense HTML ad code to place on the web pages on which you want to display AdWords ads. Then, we take care of the rest by leveraging award-winning and proprietary Google search and page-ranking technologies to deliver relevant AdWords ads to those content pages.

"We go beyond simple keyword matching to understand the context and content of web pages. Based on a sophisticated algorithm that includes such factors as keyword analysis, word frequency, font size, and the overall link structure of the web, we know what a page is about, and can precisely match Google ads to each page."

Source: Google AdSense FAQ

After signing up, you need only to place one short script inside your Web site page template so that it will be used on all the pages where you want your ads to appear.

After the Google ads start appearing on your pages your AdSense counter starts ticking the number of clickthroughs generated by your site visitors on those ads. Though as a Web site owner participating in AdSense, you are fully prevented from knowing which ads were clicked and how much each click brings to you, the overall result is that, without doing anything more than what many Web site owners would normally do, one can end up making a tangible amount of streaming income built upon the interaction between quality content and ethical ads.

Google uses their search engine ranking technology to decide what ads to show on your site, and on specific pages on your site. For instance on a webmaster site an article about Flash might show ads for Macromedia products and an article about web hosting might show ads from different web hosting companies. This type of targeting is very effective and results in good click-through rates in most circumstances.

This targeting isn't perfect though. One issue is that Google seems to be doing very little in the way of ad rotation. If a certain ad is highly targeted to your content it might be shown every time. This means that if you have a lot of return visitors or a high number of page views per visitor you may experience declining click-through rates.

Another issue is that Google targets ads based on your site's content, not based on your visitor's desires. The difference between the two might not be readily apparently, but it can be very significant.

Source: Google AdSense Review

Google pays Web site owners with a monthly check that is sent directly to your specified address (for now some limitations apply if you live outside of north America).

So far it sounds and looks as an ideal marriage between ethical and contextual advertising and the growing number of niche writers, reviewers and reporters adding themselves successfully to the universe of online news, educational and reference sites and more.

But let's look a bit under the surface.

Thanks to Mihai Bocsaru I finally scouted an excellent article about some of the features and characteristics of Google AdSense that any Web site owner should be aware of:

1) Pages with single theme topics are highly effective.
2) Targeting effectiveness increases over time.
3) Hosting AdSense ads has no effect on the level of spidering from the "normal" Googlebot.

Having been fiddling and playing with AdSense myself, in the effort of optimizing my Web site pages to trigger the most relevant ads I have also made a few discoveries:

4) Critical factors that determine Google ad selection are clearly related to off-page factors. These may be variables, link relevancy or other categorization mechanism that Google uses to determine the type of content displayed on any Web page.

5) Highly descriptive file names with dashes between the words work extremely well.

6) Domain names that clearly specify what you are all about about do have a tangible effect on Google AdSense selection of ads.

7) It is true that Google AdSense fills in the adstrip with public service announcements when:

a) it does not have sufficient ads to run for a they keyphrase it has identified

b) it has not yet "cached" the page on its own servers.

That means that if you take any page from the Web, and report the content on an empty page of your site, you will see public service ads appear on it, until that page is effectively "public" and becomes cached by Google.

Unless your Web page is very simple (design-wise) and your content is very focussed optimizing any Web site page for Google AdSense can appear to be quite difficult, if not altogether impossible.

But there are a lot of simple logical steps one can take to make things work for the better than the worst. And it all comes down to publishing high quality content that is focused on one or more very specific topics.

On the other hand, it is also likely that Google AdSense will gradually refine and improve its invisible keyword-matching engine, but it is also possible that we are asking Google something we could maybe doing ourselves.

Now let me express some very personal ideas:

a) What I would want from Google AdSense:

If I were to decide and design my ideal Google AdSense this is what I would do.

Make these considerations:

a) Who would be most interested in placing the very best ads on a site?

b) Why does this process have to be ONLY automatic?

c) Can Google ever be as good as the advertiser or Web site owner in establishing whether an ad best fits a page or another one?

It seems to me that as much as the talent, skill, experience and ability of advertisers and web site owners is fully leveraged, much of the extra potential of this approach remain untapped.

I know that there are tens of thousands of good reasons that you are already thinking up for why this is not so, but please, let me play my role and let's try to stretch a bit our view of how things could really be.

Picture this:

What if I had inside my Google AdSense control panel the option to access and see all of the ads available through Google AdSense searchable and sortable by category and type of products.

What if I could select which ads to run on my site and which ones to run on different types of pages. Would I be a more apt gardener than Google automatic keyword technology?

What if I could also set Google to operate in automatic mode for all those pages where I see it doing great keyword matching, while having the option to go on manual on those, maybe very important and trafficked pages where AdSense keep stumbling on itself?

Who do you think would benefit the most?

What if advertisers could themselves target and control with a finer degree of accuracy the sites and minimum requirements they would want to consider any site a viable advertising channel? Advertisers could well use criteria as category of content, Pagerank, number of inbound links, keyword relevancy, categorization and presence, inside DMOZ and much more.

b) What I don't like at all about Google AdSense

I frankly feel very uneasy to be in a business relationship where my business partner, Google acts like God and I have to maintain blind faith and full trust in whatever it does.

Fact is that I have no way to check or verify whether is Google effectively providing me with what I deserve for my marketing communication effort.

The issue is particularly thorny because Google claims the right to nullify any clickthroughs that it will identify as unethical efforts to boost the AdSense traffic. (I have already heard in person horror stories of very serious and credible independent publishers being cancelled their AdSense payment on the basis of such rules. Having talked to some of these people I have had the net impression that they had not acted unethically and that they were themselves very surprised of Google decisions.)

I, for one, have been surprised at how wide the percentage of "valid" clickthroughs may vary from one day to the next, and have been perplexed at some of the reported clickthrough data. But can I verify? Can I see if I have been penalized because someone has been clicking too much on these ads?
No. I have no way to check, verify or even test the effectiveness of my work.

Would it be so outrageous then to ask Google to play its "private" testing game on my sites for a few months, and then, having seen my reliability, relevance and content, grant me a forfeit advertising budget for the aggregated worth of my online property (reach, Pagerank, clickthrough, relevance, etc.)?

Conclusions

Overall I like Google AdSense very much because it DOES offer a tangible opportunity to support many independent Web site owners, small businesses and thousands of good writers and reporters who would have otherwise no easy to way to maintain an information-based online business.

This is certainly much better and more effective than considering the much touted micropayments solution for example.

If advertising can be made to be as non-intrusive, contextual, relevant and targeted as AdSense intends to be, the positive results can be seen not only in the wonderful opportunity to stretch the potential for effective marketing in new directions, but also in the fact that this approach opens the advertising marketplace to many small players, while, for the first time, incentivating the creative publishing work of those who are least commercially oriented.

The Richest Man in Babylon: Seven Cures for a Lean Purse Part 7

Increase thy ability to earn.

Here's what the book has to say on this last cure:

As a man perfecteth himself in his calling even so doth his ability to earn increase.

Yes, it said "perfecteth" and "doth." ;-)

The book continues a bit later on:

The more wisdom we know, the more we may earn. That man who seeks to learn more of his craft shall be richly rewarded.

The cure ends with this:

Thus the seventh and last remedy for a lean purse is to cultivate thy own powers, to study and become wiser, to become more skillful, to so act as to respect thyself.

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The Richest Man in Babylon: Seven Cures for a Lean Purse Part 6

Insure a future income.

Here's what the book has to say about saving for retirement:

Therefore do I say that it behooves a man to make preparation for a suitable income in the days to come, when he is no longer young, and to make preparations for his family should he be no longer with them to comfort and support them.

Later it gives this similar advice:

The man who, because of his understanding of the laws of wealth, acquireth a growing surplus, should give thought to those future days. He should plan certain investments or provisions that may endure safely for many years, yet will be available when the time arrives which he has so wisely anticipated.

And finally, it recognizes that everyone needs to plan for retirement:

No man can afford not to insure a treasure for his old age and the protection of his family, no matter how prosperous his business and investments may be.

So what are the practical applications today of what this cure is saying? I'd list the following:

1. Plan for retirement by setting your retirement number. Retirement is more expensive than most of us think it is, so take the time to figure out what you need to save for retirement. This will help you avoid major retirement mistakes and make sure your retirement savings outlasts you. A key part of this, of course, is figuring out your 401k -- deciding how much goes in your 401k and, at a minimum, contributing enough to at least get the full employer match. If that doesn't work, consider tricking yourself into saving. Doing this, you may even be able to retire early.

2. Don't forget about updating/writing your will. There are many benefits of having a will (including naming a guardian for your kids) and a simple, effective will is rather easy to draw up.
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The Richest Man in Babylon: Seven Cures for a Lean Purse Part 5

Make of thy dwelling a profitable investment.

Yes, before David Bach and The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner there was The Richest Man in Babylon, giving advice on how a home can make you wealthy.

The book goes on a bit about how every man needs to enjoy his own property as does his wife and family. It talks a bit about putting down a good-sized downpayment and paying off the lender quickly. Then, it ends with this:

Thus come many blessings to the man who owneth his own house. And greatly will it reduce his cost of living, making available more of his earnings for pleasures and the gratification of his desires. This, then, is the fifth cure for a lean purse: Own thy own home.

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The Richest Man in Babylon: Seven Cures for a Lean Purse Part 4

Guard thy treasures from loss.

The first part of the book's advice centers on protection of your principal:

The first sound principle of investment is security for thy principal. Is it wise to be intrigued by larger earnings when thy principal may be lost? I say not.

In other words, you want a decent return, but you don't need to push it so much that your principal is greatly at risk. Now any investment has some sort of risk, but what they're talking about is undue risk that could cost you a decent portion of your money. It's just not worth the risk.

The book ends this cure with the following:

This, then, is the fourth cure for a lean purse, and of great importance if it prevent thy purse from being emptied once it has become well filled. Guard thy treasure from loss by investing only where thy principal is safe, where it may be reclaimed if desirable, and where thou will not fail to collect a fair rental. Consult with wise men. Secure the advice of those experienced in the profitable handling of gold. Let their wisdom protect thy treasure from unsafe investments.
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The Richest Man in Babylon: Seven Cures for a Lean Purse Part 3

Make thy gold multiply.

This is the cure that focuses on investing and, in particular, making sure the money you earn on your investments starts earning money itself. Here's what the book has to say:

I tell you, my students, a man's wealth is not in the coins he carries in his purse; it is in the income he buildeth, the golden stream that continually floweth into his purse and keepeth it always bulging. That is what every man desireth. That is what thou, each one of thee desireth; an income that continueth to come whether thou work or travel.

In other words, work to make your money a renewable source -- something that itself generates a good income.

The book continues:

Behold, from my humble earnings I had begotton a hoard of golden slaves, each laboring and earning more gold. As they labored for me, so their children also labored and their children's children until great was the income from their combined efforts.

Quite simply: save and invest your money (from the portion of your salary you keep for yourself) and then let time and the power of compounding take over to make you rich.
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The Richest Man in Babylon: Seven Cures for a Lean Purse Part 2

In the third chapter of The Richest Man in Babylon the book lists and details "seven cures for a lean purse." Today, we'll cover cure #2 which is:

Control thy expenditures.

As you might imagine, I love this cure! ;-)

The book starts this cure by addressing the objection that everyone always brings up first when it's suggested that they spend less than they earn and save a part of everything they make:

How can a man keep one-tenth of all he earns in his purse when all the coins he earns are not enough for his necessary expenses?

Here's the answer the book gives -- which I agree with 100%:

Now I will tell thee an unusual truth about men and sons of men. It is this: That what each of us calls our "necessary expenses" will always grow to equal our incomes unless we protest to the contrary.

That's right. It always seems that outgoes equal (or surpass!) incomes -- no matter how much the incomes grow. I've helped people who have made $20,000 a year and others who've made $150,000 and the problem is the same: their "necessary expenses" exceed their incomes.

The book goes on:

Confuse not the necessary expenses with thy desires. Each of you, together with your good families, have more desires than your earnings can gratify. Therefore are thy earnings spent to gratify these desires insofar as they go. Still thou retainest many ungratified desires.

Let's face it, most of us will still want "more" no matter how much we earn. So at some point you need to control your spending -- why not now?

This cure ends with the following advice:

Budget then thy necessary expenses. Touch not the one-tenth that is fattening thy purse. Let this be thy great desire that is being fulfilled. Keep working with thy budget, keep adjusting it to help thee. Make it thy first assistant in defending thy fattening purse.

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The Richest Man in Babylon: Seven Cures for a Lean Purse, Part 1

In the third chapter of The Richest Man in Babylon the book lists and details "seven cures for a lean purse." I'd like to share those with you over the next week and add my comments to the already great insights this book provides.

Cure #1 of the seven cures for a lean purse is:

Start thy purse to fattening.

Here's how the book summarizes this cure:

For every ten coins thou placest within thy purse take out for use but nine. Thy purse will start to fatten at once and its increasing weight will feel good in thy hand and bring satisfaction to thy soul.

In other words, save 10% of what you make. In order to do this, you need to spend less than you earn (save a portion of all you make as The Richest Man in Babylon states it). I've found that much of America has this backwards -- they spend ten coins for ev

ery nine they make. ;-)

The book goes on to highlight an associated principle that I've found to be true in my own life:

Now I will tell a strange truth, the reason for which I know not. When I ceased to pay out more than nine-tenths of my earnings, I managed to get along just as well. I was not shorter than before.

All you really need to do is separate needs versus wants versus desires. When you desire to have a high net worth, you spend on your needs and SOME of your wants. Other wants go by the wayside and, quite honestly, aren't that important to you -- you really don't "feel" the impact of not buying them. Why? Because you desire (want more) your financial independence.

The Richest Man in Babylon hits this issue of needs versus wants versus desires in the next paragraph:

Which desirest thou the most? Is it gratification of thy desires of each day, a jewel, a bit of finery, better raiment, more food; things quickly gone and forgotten? Or is it substantial belongings, gold, lands, herds, merchandise, income-bringing investments? The coins thou takest from thy purse bring the first. The coins thou leavest within it will bring the latter.

So, which do you want more -- purchases today that will be gone tomorrow or to store your treasure to grow you net worth? If you choose the latter and can follow through with that decision, it really is easy to become rich.

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