The poor results for SEO got me thinking about the ways in which engineers would measure the quality and relevance of the search results for a query. I came up with a few quick ideas, but I'd love to hear feedback and ideas. Perhaps a small article/project can bubble up from this brew.
Psychology of Searcher
- Informational vs. Transactional query (looking to research or buy)
- Navigational vs. Search query (going to a specific place or browsing for the right place)
- Broad scope vs. Narrow scope (researching a category or searching for an exact item)
- Open-Ended vs. Specific-Minded (Is open to receiving multiple viewpoints or wants only ideas that fit into their biases)
Types of Results
- Delivers an exact answer
- Provides broad information on the topic
- Links out to many other specific resources on the subject
- Requires interaction to receive an answer
- Amalgamates multiple sources
- Provides opinion, fact or both
Actual Search Metrics
- Query terms matching terms on the page
- Measuring the "authority" via links
- Measuring relevance via anchor text in links
- Ascribing trust via link sources
- Discarding results that attempt to manipulate the system
The incredible gap between how a human would answer a question (or provide results) vs. how a search engine does it seems insurmountable. Looking at the above, it's impressive that search engines function as well as they do!
A good challenge might be to ask experts in a field to deliver the top 5 results for a query (given 24 hours) vs. a search engine given the same query. Comparing those results against what the major 4 engines have to offer might be truly fascinating...
A Turing test for search engines. I love it! We'll know we've arrived when you can't tell the difference.
I do think we're in for some big search engine changes in the next few years as the next wave of semantic and natural language processing research makes it's way into implementation. It still amazes me how contrived SEO'd text has to be in order to be truly optimized.
That being said, the Broad vs. Narrow user behavior confounds me. What is the right result when someone searches for "real estate"? The queries are an order of magnitude more common than "real estate market" which are an order again bigger than "real estate market research" and again for "San Jose real estate market"
Hi Randfish
I am trying to hunt down any statitics re the % of informational versus transactional seraches
Can you direct me to any sources ?
Miro
Please drop me a line offline to [email protected]
You're right Rand, it's time for all these Search engines to shake things up and find another way to rank results and remove all that spam. When you see people ranking well because they have lots of H1 tags filled with keywords, you realize that search engines are still wrong when it comes to score a page.
It's also necessary to personalize search and provide more than one uniform list of results, and to understand what people want: do they wanna buy? do they just need information?
I like Kosmix, with their idea of categorizing results, and also Yahoo! Mindset, a search engine that separates commercial results from informational ones. So what's up with Google?
YOU HAVE BEEN SERVED Wed, Mar 22, 2006 at 01:43:30 PM Perhaps search engines should rank those who register and the other junk should go bellow, meaning, like dmoz where a human been does this. Button line equality hastn be done when it comes to search engines, thanks to those idiot%$* that calls themselves SEO Marketing Agencies.. who are cheating by trying to rank their clients hight, leavening the real good websites out .. But till that happens, well here it is: www.bluetimemedia.com is my Hispanic Marketing Site, so I can rank heheheh :-) Best, Me. Edited by M.P. on Wed, Mar 22, 2006 at 01:51:35 PM I can tell from your post, M.P., that you don't have a lot of respect for SEO's (or spelling or grammar, for that matter). I can also tell because you STOLE my website copy (and were stupid enough to leave my name on the copy!) The DMCA Notifications are going out this hour. If you think your were having issues ranking before, try doing it as a known copyright infringer. Full Story Ian McAnerin, BASc, LLB CEO, McAnerin Networks Inc. PS: to try to keep this on-topic (sorry about the hijack, Rand) one thing that search enginieers have to worry about is the duplicate information out there. Obviously I have copyright infringment on the mind right now, but there are lots of documents that are essentially duplicate, like specifications of products, common industry knowledge and so forth. I've often wondered whether on not an engineer would consider information that is heavily duplicated across the net as being more authoritative and desirable than information available only from one source. I've no proof of this, but I've wondered if I would consider it as an engineer.
No worries, Ian. Glad to see you're taking content theft seriously. Hopefully it will help protect the rest of us.
Ian, thanks for giving us a look at DMCA documents tailored specifically to complain about indexed pages. What do you think will happen when you submit them to the search engines?
randfish - it really is an incredible difficult thing they set out to achieve - your post really helps me appreciate that.
Side note: Ian said in this thread and I quote: "I can also tell because you STOLE my website copy (and were stupid enough to leave my name on the copy!)"
1. M.P. didn’t work on the site content, someone else did.
1. Yes, thee source of the 4 lines content (not entire website) was placed as credit. So what is your accusation?. the kid who did it wasn’t stupid (plase you don’t know him don’t be rude), he was trying to do the right thing by leaving the source.
2. Ian, is blowing things out of proportion, making it sound we stole the entire site when it wasn't even 5 lines of copy and some yahoo and google logos.
3. Must content was a list of Search engines (this is not own by no one).
4. The issue was taken care right away. Why keep “showcasing this online”
The kid who did this (back in 2006) maybe was not a savvy lawyer like Ian, or an exellent copy editor. But I think is really horrible what “Ian” has done in this thread. He scared the heck out of all the students. Even our professor told us to ignore him.
Why don’t Ian show case his lawyer “copy right” skills in “the real big sharks” out there. Trying to harm these kids, that didn’t meant any harm, speaks really bad of his character.
Sarah, thanks for your response. Yo usaid and i quote "that you and Ian have been engaged in a bonafide dispute about copyright issues."
First of all, your statement is wrong. I have no issues with this man, i dont know him, the issues he had was many years ago, not with me. It was with some guy name George. I happened to use this site for SEO link building. But he is attacking the wrong person.
Second, this is not about a copy right dispute, what im taking about here. What i can't believe is that SEOMOZ moderator allows this person to call me, IGNORANT AND AN IDOT and use insults to address me, when i dont even know who this man is, this is to personal and that is not an OK. Just because i put the website name?? "this is just beyond anything i have seen in regards of moderating a blog or forum" SEOMOZ job is to make sure people dont engaged in nasty rants or personal attacks towards each other in the blog.
Third your writer (or moderator:," randfish" He contradicts what you said because HE DID TOOK SIDES with this person who was insulting me. which I find this to be an unacceptable thing to do from a SEOmoz moderator (or writer) or anyone at your company. He said and I quote "No worries, Ian. Glad to see you're taking content theft seriously. Hopefully it will help protect the rest of us." Sarah, do you call this neutrality? This is completely unethical and unacceptable. Does Randfish knows me or does he knows what really happened.
In conclusion: You said: "we will leave this thread on the Blog unedited and allow with both parties having had the opportunity to present their opposing views." How do you expect me to win over a nasty lawyer? Do you call that fare? I call this taking sides with the strong party, because if this was him instead of me, he would had not ask you nicely like me, he will had you sue already.
This Blog post is title: "Calculating Relevancy of a Search Result" SO HOW COME THIS BLOG IS ABOUT TRASHING AND DECREDITING MY NAME ON YOUR BLOG AND GOOGLE? In case you don’t know, another one rule of regulating a blog or forum is also to make sure people stay on TOPIC> I initially wrote my thread about SEO SEARCH RESULTS, but this guy went on insulting with bad language and using your blog for personal agenda. You going to tell me this is ok too?
I'm sorry, I'm reluctant to believe SEOmoz things this is OK "according with your policy," I have worked on clients forums in the pass and we will never EVER allow people to use the blogs or forum to engage in personal insults. So FREEDOM OF SPEAK has its limits. But you have show none, by allowing and taking sides. On the radio the other day I heard that some one killed himself after somebody left nasty rants about him on a blog.
SEOmoz has to have moral and ethics before any policy. There is not such law, companies invent this as they please, and this is why ETHICS come in place. "Ian, the SEO lawyer" manipulated this blog to discredit attacked, defamation, and destroy the name of an innocent person. By using your blog with your authorization, to then ranked me on Google.
If you dont want to remove it, then ask your Website programmer to add the string of code where you tell GOOGLE not to rank my name.
If you guys dont fix this INMEDIATELY, i'll personally come to your office and talk to your boss. SEOMOZ is better than this. I love SEOmoz and I'm reluctant to believe you will allow this injustice.
Rebuttal from BlueTimeMedia.com: Ian is a bully and a liar. He is a lawyer not an SEO person. . Back then Bluetimemedia was just a college school project. It wasn’t even a company or anything.
He did bother our hosting company back right about Christmas of 2006 (imagine). But our website was never down. We got notified of this observe complain, by hour hosting company. To explain further: the complain was about a similarity on the order of how some Yahoo and Google logos were, we didn’t though he own them. As well a list of Search Engines similar to his website (we didn’t though he own them, they clearly came from the engines as a fee or something) and a page title with a sub header identical to his. We then explained to hour hosting company the true. In result, our hosting company completely ignored this issue. In fact, out of our own will, and to ovoid any accusations, we went and changed the title of the page and the order of the logos(silly). I wasn’t the person who put this online (so is illegal of him using my name). Back in 2006, we were a team of college students building this site.
The true? This is not about copy copyright infringement, this was about, getting back at us for an email we send him. So he took the opportunity to “show case” his business service and expertise.. Yes, you guessed it “copyright infringement.” He used our site as a The Guineaand to bring attention to him. The revenge of the lawyer came after an email we sent to him (this is now three years ago), telling him straight up how bad his website was and we put in question his “SEO Certification”. We told him (back then) that “his” website (back then) was all about cheating the search engines and that his so call GOOGLE AND YAHOO LOGOS didnt have the proper link to Google or Yahoo site proving his SEO certification. So, yes! we were guilty as charge, for confronting him and telling him that we didnt like his shady tactics and call him an angry men crazy men. He then proceed to continue harassing and blasting the website on the Internet for months (we though he was little to much and psycho) so our professor advised us to just ignored him. Funny thing is all of his effort was to destroy a company that didn’t existed and scare all of the students with his attacks.
As you can tell by this thread, we show more class then him, and decided to ignore him. Bluetimemedia.com was meant to be an Hispanic SEO test drive site project. (this is why of the bad English).
Be awere, dont piss this guy off by telling him he is wrong becuase he will call your grand-ma on Xmas and send you the FBI. LOL.
I can tell you exactly what happened - in less than 12 hours the entire Blue Time Media site has been removed from GoDaddy's servers! :)
This is why you always serve the ISP a DMCA as well as the search engines. The DMCA was actually intended to prevent ISP's from being held responsible for stolen content on their servers, but it only protect's them if they use it.
Therefore, you can usually get better and faster results from a reputable ISP than you can from a search engine (which is only responsible for the stolen information in it's cache - a lower level of responsibility).
Follow-up
Ian
That is truly impressive - great case study.
BTW - If you run a few checks for sentences in SEOmoz articles, you'll find more than a few folks copying the content. I guess I'll need to do likewise...
I just found this thread. Why you guys allow this guy to do this with out any facts? Why you allow him to use my name. I dont even know him. This is arrasement and difamation of character. Ian, complains about stolen content, but then at the same time he admits the source was included in it. So where is the copy right copyright infringemen? This website: bluetimemedia.com was built by bunch of college kids in 2006 (not real business). I didnt worked on CONTENT (text). Some other college kid did. I did worked on the project though i was only doing link building. Listen, If copanies want to attack each other online that is fine. But he used my name with no facts. My name is very unique: M.P. This page now show my name on page one on google.
I trust your better judment and help me to removed my name and this entired thrad decicated to attack an inocent person. This entire thead is used to trash my name. This is horrible that SEOMOZ allows this to be post without any facs to back his story up. The website was built by bunch of kids back in 2006. I personaly didnt stole no content, neither worked on content, another kid did it, and he didnt do anything wrong, it was about 5 lines of paragraph (if i recall right) and he included the source.
I wan to ask you to removed this personal attack inmediately!. Or I'll have to take legal action. Why do you guys support this? What proves do you have it was me? You seam to be a fare and nice guy, Im from Seattle too. Plase take care of this inmediately!. Read below what o wrote explaning futher. THAT IS THE REAL TRUE. This guy manipulates people and scared all the students.
I WANT MY NAME OFF THIS BLOG! ASAP.
Edited by Sarah L. Bird to substitute initials for the full name of the User.
Side note: Ian said in this thread and I quote: "I can also tell because you STOLE my website copy (and were stupid enough to leave my name on the copy!)"
1. M.P. didn’t work on the site content, someone else did.
1. Yes, thee source of the 4 lines content (not entire website) was placed as credit. So what is your accusation?. the kid who did it wasn’t stupid (plase you don’t know him don’t be rude), he was trying to do the right thing by leaving the source.
2. Ian, is blowing things out of proportion, making it sound we stole the entire site when it wasn't even 5 lines of copy and some yahoo and google logos.
3. Must content was a list of Search engines (this is not own by no one).
4. The issue was taken care right away. Why keep “showcasing this online”
The kid who did this (back in 2006) maybe was not a savvy lawyer like Ian, or an exellent copy editor. But I think is really horrible what “Ian” has done in this thread. He scared the heck out of all the students. Even our professor told us to ignore him.
Why don’t Ian show case his lawyer “copy right” skills in “the real big sharks” out there. Trying to harm these kids, that didn’t meant any harm, speaks really bad of his character.
PLASE REMOVED THIS THREAD DEDICATED TO ATTACK MY GOOD NAME. WHY SEOMOZ ALLOWS THIS GUY TO USED ME AS "what did you wrote?" Case in point? or something. I dont even knwo this guy.
I trust your better judment. Removed this and my name or I'll have to take Legal Accion. My name is unique and its now number one on google. How horrible. I love SEomoz, but i never expect you guys back guys like this up. If he has better english writting and money doesnt mean is ok to attack college kids like this.
Ms. Pozo,
Thank you for expressing your concerns. SEOmoz takes its professional responsibilities and loyalty to its readers very seriously.
We are very sorry that you and Ian have been engaged in a bonafide dispute about copyright issues. Regardless, SEOmoz strives to be a bastion of free speech. To this end, we have a policy of allowing everyone who comments on the blog to express their opinions with minimal interference. There is no perfect or ideal way for SEOmoz to mediate, comment on, or take sides in disputes between our readers on issues that no SEOmoz staff member has personal knowledge. Thus, in the interest of free speech and neutrality, we will leave this thread on the Blog unedited and with both parties having had the opportunity to present their opposing views.
Thank you for understanding our position of neutrality.
Sarah, thanks for your response. Yo usaid and i quote "that you and Ian have been engaged in a bonafide dispute about copyright issues."First of all, your statement is wrong. I have no issues with this man, i dont know him, the issues he had was many years ago, not with me. It was with some guy name George. I happened to use this site for SEO link building. But he is attacking the wrong person.Second, this is not about a copy right dispute, what im taking about here. What i can't believe is that SEOMOZ moderator allows this person to call me, IGNORANT AND AN IDOT and use insults to address me, when i dont even know who this man is, this is to personal and that is not an OK. Just because i put the website name?? "this is just beyond anything i have seen in regards of moderating a blog or forum" SEOMOZ job is to make sure people dont engaged in nasty rants or personal attacks towards each other in the blog. Third your writer (or moderator:," randfish" He contradicts what you said because HE DID TOOK SIDES with this person who was insulting me. which I find this to be an unacceptable thing to do from a SEOmoz moderator (or writer) or anyone at your company. He said and I quote "No worries, Ian. Glad to see you're taking content theft seriously. Hopefully it will help protect the rest of us." Sarah, do you call this neutrality? This is completely unethical and unacceptable. Does Randfish knows me or does he knows what really happened. In conclusion: You said: "we will leave this thread on the Blog unedited and allow with both parties having had the opportunity to present their opposing views." How do you expect me to win over a nasty lawyer? Do you call that fare? I call this taking sides with the strong party, because if this was him instead of me, he would had not ask you nicely like me, he will had you sue already.This Blog post is title: "Calculating Relevancy of a Search Result" SO HOW COME THIS BLOG IS ABOUT TRASHING AND DECREDITING MY NAME ON YOUR BLOG AND GOOGLE? In case you don’t know, another one rule of regulating a blog or forum is also to make sure people stay on TOPIC> I initially wrote my thread about SEO SEARCH RESULTS, but this guy went on insulting with bad language and using your blog for personal agenda. You going to tell me this is ok too?I'm sorry, I'm reluctant to believe SEOmoz things this is OK "according with your policy," I have worked on clients forums in the pass and we will never EVER allow people to use the blogs or forum to engage in personal insults. So FREEDOM OF SPEAK has its limits. But you have show none, by allowing and taking sides. On the radio the other day I heard that some one killed himself after somebody left nasty rants about him on a blog. SEOmoz has to have moral and ethics before any policy. There is not such law, companies invent this as they please, and this is why ETHICS come in place. "Ian, the SEO lawyer" manipulated this blog to discredit attacked, defamation, and destroy the name of an innocent person. By using your blog with your authorization, to then ranked me on Google. If you dont want to remove it, then ask your Website programmer to add the string of code where you tell GOOGLE not to rank my name. If you guys dont fix this INMEDIATELY, i'll personally come to your office and talk to your boss. SEOMOZ is better than this. I love SEOmoz and I'm reluctant to believe you will allow this injustice.
Perhaps search engines should rank those who register and the other junk should go bellow, meaning, like dmoz where a human been does this. Button line equality hastn be done when it comes to search engines, thanks to those idiot%$* that calls themselves SEO Marketing Agencies.. who are cheating by trying to rank their clients hight, leavening the real good websites out .. But till that happens, well here it is: www.bluetimemedia.com is my Hispanic Marketing Site, so I can rank heheheh :-)
Best,
Me.