| Search Engines Struggle with Facts |
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| Written by Administrator | |
| Tuesday, 28 June 2005 | |
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Search operators Answers.com and Ask Jeeves have made
issue of their ability to answer specific questions
whereas the bigger operations, principally Google,
Yahoo and MSN have placed less emphasis on that aspect
of searching. Recently however, the leaders have promoted the answering of specifics more vigourously. Both the smaller engines are looking to produce a correct answer at the top of the first page of results or at least a link to a Web page that gives the answer - Google, Yahoo and MSN make no offers about their responses. The methods the various searchers use to reach the answers are quite different - Jeeves relies on fully automated, fairly standard search technology whilst Answers. com uses a combination of Google's search and a database of detailed information input by human editors who've filled it from the answers to its users most raised queries. Recent comparison testing has come up with some interesting results. In general, Jeeves and Answers.com seemed to get closer to straight answers to straight questions than the others. Google fared reasonably well but Yahoo and MSN failed quite regularly to offer answers to specific questions within the first three pages of results - few searchers go far beyond the first two pages of results. However, when they were all asked for the time in Dublin Ireland, Answers.com had the answer (along with the weather) some way down the page and following several pieces about the history of Dublin while everybody had it at the top. Even then, all the answers were heavily laced with general information about the Irish Capital. The use of the search engines to get detailed information can be a double-edged sword. Sometimes different engines will give different answers to the same question - even though there's a finite answer. MSN said the population of Hawaii is 1,262,840, Google offered 1,211,537, - both at the top of the list and Yahoo agreed with Google but not until the 7th result! Reuben Dunn |
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 29 June 2005 ) |
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