Over at Ask, we've been doing this for many months. I first blogged about it in July. http://blogoscoped.com/forum/45512.html#id45512
A few examples.
Both: Languages of Finland http://www.ask.com/web?q=Languages+of+Finland&qsrc=1&o=333&l=dir
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Languages+of+Finland&btnG=Search
In addition, the Ask result also has direct links to other sources including Wikipedia, the BBC Profile for the country, and travel info. Finally, clicking Finland takes you to another result with more basic country info.
Ask Only Birth rate Iceland http://www.ask.com/web?q=birth+rate+iceland&qsrc=1&o=333&l=dir Birth Rate Iceland http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=birth+rate+iceland&btnG=Google+Search
Both Ask Prime Minister Australia http://www.ask.com/web?q=prime+minister+australia&qsrc=1&o=333&l=dir Google http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=prime+minister+australia&btnG=Search
GDP Ireland (2004 number) http://www.ask.com/web?q=gdp+ireland&qsrc=1&o=333&l=dir
Google uses a 2001 number http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=gdp+ireland&btnG=Search
Ask also does this for governors, U.S. States Again, Ask includes direct links to the govs web site and an image of the state flag.
United States info. example governor New Hampshire http://www.ask.com/web?q=governor+of+new+hampshire&qsrc=1&o=333&l=dir http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=governor+of+new+hampshire&btnG=Search
governor Massachusetts http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=governor+massachusetts&spell=1 http://www.ask.com/web?q=governor+massachusetts&qsrc=1&o=333&l=dir |
Actually this feature work only at the google.com domain, but not at my national subdomain for example (www.google.co.hu).
compare: http://www.google.co.hu/search?q=terrain+of+belgium and http://www.google.com/search?q=terrain+of+belgium
the Hungarian result page won't have the onebox :(
it didn't work on other national subdomain, either.. like: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=terrain+of+belgium |
They've used an outdated version of the page. Facts should be checked from more than one source and not just once. |
I bet they do Ionut... they just show one sample link but you can also click on "more sources". I'm sure there's a threshold over 1... of course, I may give Google too much credit :) |
Roberto: Is this better?
http://www.ask.com/web?q=prime+minister+italy&qsrc=0&o=312&l=dir
As you can see we use several sources: World Factbook Wikipedia BBC Profiles and applicable in this case, travel info.
Btw, a good but not perfect source for world leader info (updated every two weeks or so) can be found here: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/chiefs/index.html
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"The Chief of State of Italy is President Giorgio Napolitano, and the Head of State is President Of The Council Of Ministers Romano Prodi"
The answers should be: "Romano Prodi". There are two names in the phrase and I didn't ask who's the president.
Anyway, MSN and Yahoo are also not well-informed.
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=prime+minister+italy&sourceid=Mozilla-search http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=prime+minister+italy&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz2 |
Oh, ya – the sneaky Q&A feature again....
----------------------------------- Take a look at this:
Search Google for: % of African American in Los Angeles http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%25+of+African+American+in+Los+Angeles
At the top of the page is a Google Q&A answer – 11% – based on data retrieved from IDcide.com http://www.idcide.com/citydata/ca/los-angeles.htm.
But the site itself has been removed from the main index.
No pages in site command. http://www.google.com/search?q=site:idcide.com
No pages in allinurl command http://www.google.com/search?q=allinurl:www.idcide.com
No pages in info command http://www.google.com/search?q=info:www.idcide.com
Crawling been done pretty recently. There is an August 2006 cache. http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:www.idcide.com/citydata/ca/los-angeles.htm
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Thus a site that has been deemed good enough to serve as an Answer reference for the Google Q&A feature – yet has been banned from the main index.
Evil? Ya betcha! |