“Got a question? Cornell University reference librarians say they do slightly better getting answers than researchers for Google’s pay service.
The university compared its free e-mail reference service with Google Answers (...)
In the Cornell study, 24 questions – ranging from the population of Afghanistan (about 26 million) to where Geoffrey Chaucer died (London) #8211; were submitted to reference staff at the university and to Google Answers. The answers from both services were reviewed on a blind basis by university librarians, who were asked to grade the responses as poor, fair, good, very good or excellent.”
– Cornell librarians test themselves against Google researchers, September 19, 2003 [via Andy Beal/ SearchEngineGuide.com]
From the test result homepage:
“Google researchers are experts at locating hard-to-find information on the Web. Their answers, therefore, tend to be limited to freely available networked resources. Reference librarians, on the other hand, are experts at locating and evaluating information in print and digital forms, and have access to a vast array of credible resources they physically own or license.”
– Google Meets eBay (D-Lib Magazine Volume 9 Number 6), June 2003
Here are some of the Google Answers to the test questions:
Afghanistan in 2000: “What was the population of Afghanistan in 2000 and what is their official language?”
Answered by Tehuti-Ga for 5 Stars
(Difficulty: 1)
Anti-terrorism Bill: “What is the title of the proposed anti-terrorism bill that I believe has something to do with trust funds and where can I find a copy?”
Answered by Secret901-ga for 5 Stars
(Difficulty: 2)
Smoking & Latinos: “I am writing a term paper on smoking behavior among Latinos in the U.S. My teacher said that there is a good article by Stable in some journal but he wasn’t sure if that was the complete last name. Can you help me find this article?”
Answered by Tehuti-Ga for 5 Stars*
(Difficulty: 1)
New Planets: “What is the name of the first planet discovered outside of our solar system?
“
Answered by Wengland-ga for 5 Stars
(Diffculty: 1)
See the whole test result document [PDF] for all the questions, and the blind judgments passed on the answers of both parties.
*A judge comments: “(The Google answer) must be a reference librarian, judging from the thoroughness.”
“The new version of Microsoft’s MSN Internet service, available this winter, will include a tool for retrieving digital photos based on images in the pictures. For example, users can ask their computers to retrieve all pictures that include a specific person’s face or background. (...)
[If] MSN knows that the computer user searching for “pizza” lives in a specific ZIP code, it can deliver results of pizza places in that ZIP code. (...)
[Microsoft] has said it plans to build a unified file system that allows a quick search across everything in a computer, regardless of whether it is an e-mail or other specialized document. (...)
[Researcher Gordon Bell in Microsoft Research’s lab in San Francisco] has developed a way to store phone calls, bills, pictures and music on a computer hard drive, with a search tool that can sort through it all.”
– CNN.com, Microsoft targets Google, September 19, 2003
As of today, Google News USA has managed to cluster spamworm Swen into a top story. News spread as fast as the virus. Here’s a selection of the last 3 hours:
Email worm masquerades as protector
-- Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - 51 minutes ago
New worm targets Internet Explorer hole
-- CNN - 1 hour ago
New virus preys on old IE flaw
-- MSNBC - 1 hour ago
New mass-mailing worm is spreading
-- Internet Magazine, UK - 2 hours ago
Swen prevention and cure
-- ZDNet.co.uk, UK - 2 hours ago
New worm exploits ancient IE flaw
-- PC Pro, UK - 3 hours ago
“Everyone is aware that Inktomi is soon likely to grow in importance due
to it having been being bought recently by Yahoo! Although no firm date
has been given as to when Inktomi results will be integrated in to Yahoos
search listings, it is pretty much accepted that the time is drawing close.”
– Barry Lloyd, Optimising
for Inktomi – And how it can help on Other SEs!, 2003
According to Barry Lloyd, there’s nothing spectaculary outlandish to do when it comes to optimizing for Inktomi. Get a good title, get some meta-data, use headers, and don’t use spamming mechanisms like doorway pages. All approaches work well with Googlebot as well, except that Inktomi will pick you up a little faster, says SEO services CEO Lloyd.
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