Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A new search engine

samuru.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–107 of 107 posts

Re: A new search engine

#101

Post by greglindahl »

drakaal wrote: post #20
jggonz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it isn't too much trouble, try your queries on blekko and let us know what you think. We actually have a /programming slashtag that is very useful for these kind of queries. http://blekko.com/ws/?q=how+to+zip+a+list+in+ruby+%2Fruby http://blekko.com/ws/?q=seattle+dumpling+restaurant+that+is+... Just for fun... results in tablet-friendly format: http://izik.com/?q=seattle%20dumpling%20restaurant%20that%20...

I like slash tags and Booleans, but the truth is search should work with out the need for those things. We support - to make things go away. Later we will expose some of the cooler things we do behind the scenes like "reviews" or "instructional" or "oped" searches, or "Simple English" but we want to do that in a way that doesn't require syntax. "If it requires syntax it isn't user friendly" is our internal battle cry…

Yeah, it's definitely the case that users don't want to learn or type syntax in a search engine -- Daniel Russell of Google says that a majority of searchers think they are advanced users of search engines, but a majority of them don't know about or use "" or -.

That's why blekko and izik both invoke that syntax "under the hood", automatically -- starting in November 2011.

Re: A new search engine

#102

Post by hexagonc »

drakaal wrote: post #96
hexagonc wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But more importantly Google doesn't know what kind of content something is. Or what questions the content answers. I'm not sure I agree with this. Google may not know it explicitly but it can effectively know it, perhaps in some cases even better than the average human would if given the same search keys. It is the difference between knowing what a word means by the way people actually use it versus by looking it up…

Who said we don't use word order? Who said we don't use similar search to infer intent? We can't really use the click throughs until we have users. We need feed back to improve results. But this also powers the related search in our TLDR Products ( http://www.tldrstuff.com ) and those have to work with much more abstract queries, because they aren't user queries they are generated queries.

I'm not saying that you don't use word order. I think you must to some extent if you are doing a comprehensive semantic analysis of the keywords and websites. I'm saying that your users may not use correct word order because they are lazy and because they are used to the behavior of search engines that don't require it but still give okay results.

Perhaps you have solved this problem, but I just don't see how you can offer better results than Google on average (without having a similar sized index) when users are just throwing together a bunch of words related to what they are looking for. It seems to me that if we want to take advantage of systems like yours for search and if we want to get better results than Google, we need to change users' behavior; they need to learn to give more precise queries.

Re: A new search engine

#103

Post by joedevon »

danso wrote: post #60
joedevon wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm skeptical you'll achieve what you aim for if you're way off the mark in understanding how Google is so successful." Considering his comment drew out Matt Cutts, I'd bet he understands Google pretty well.

Right, but the success of a technical product is often based on results that can be tested and verified, and less on arguments through authority, though if Cutts is willing to say something like. "Wow, the OP has created something that surpasses Google in [whatever metric]", I'd admit I'd take his word on it. But the OP's claim stands on its own and makes assertions that can easily be verified. Are you arguing that G…

Not that it's as simple and literal, just that he purposely oversimplified it for the purposes of his comment.

It's not like he was writing up this big detailed blog post.

Re: A new search engine

#104

Post by joedevon »

drakaal wrote: post #64
joedevon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well their move to semantic technologies e.g. Schema.org is a step in the direction of understanding these things better. Like if you mark up the page with http://schema.org/Review wouldn't you agree that they know it's a review? Are you using semantic web btw?

No. They know you tagged it a review. I could tag it review and have it be a sales copy page for a product. Our stuff knows that a review expresses an opinion, backs that up with facts, and makes a conclusion.

And are you using Semantics? Going to Semtechbiz in June? If so, I'll buy you a beer ;)

Re: A new search engine

#105

Post by drakaal »

hexagonc wrote: post #102
drakaal wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said we don't use word order? Who said we don't use similar search to infer intent? We can't really use the click throughs until we have users. We need feed back to improve results. But this also powers the related search in our TLDR Products ( http://www.tldrstuff.com ) and those have to work with much more abstract queries, because they aren't user queries they are generated queries.

I'm not saying that you don't use word order. I think you must to some extent if you are doing a comprehensive semantic analysis of the keywords and websites. I'm saying that your users may not use correct word order because they are lazy and because they are used to the behavior of search engines that don't require it but still give okay results. Perhaps you have solved this problem, but I just don't see how you can…

I think technology should strive for Zero Learning Curve. If I type "Chicken Chord On Blue" it should figure out that I probably need to know that I spelled it wrong, what it is, and how to make it. A user shouldn't have to know the answer they are looking for in advance.

Re: A new search engine

#106

Post by lightonseo »

drakaal wrote: post #15

I didn't submit this. I didn't know anyone was submitting it. Or I would have written a post about why it is different than other search engines. Better is still up for grabs because it is new. Samuru doesn't use link authority, it analyzes pages and matches what you queried to the types of pages and picks the best matches. Let me give you an example. You search for "How to Make cupcakes" Google says give me the page…

Hi, congratulations, I like really Samuru also if it's not perfect. I wanted ask you two questions :

1) Are you sure that giving a "bonus" to domains containing a part of a query is a good idea ? I understand the reason behind that, and know that you need time to turn off this "bonus" but waiting that moment are you really sure that is a good idea ?

When I type "How to rank well on Google" the first results is www.google.com => http://www.samuru.com/?q=How+to+rank+well+in+Google

Instead from the third positions the web pages seems to be great.

2) how works the search suggest ?

I m a french user and in our language we have a lot of accents like "é è ù à". While typing a search query many people do not use them. When i correctly type a query with the accents, Samuru suggests the same query but without accents, this is wrong and that's why I m asking me about the provenience of data used by the search engine to provide these queries suggests.

I really wish you to accomplish this project.

Re: A new search engine

#107

Post by lightonseo »

lightonseo wrote: post #106
drakaal wrote: post #15

I didn't submit this. I didn't know anyone was submitting it. Or I would have written a post about why it is different than other search engines. Better is still up for grabs because it is new. Samuru doesn't use link authority, it analyzes pages and matches what you queried to the types of pages and picks the best matches. Let me give you an example. You search for "How to Make cupcakes" Google says give me the page…

Hi, congratulations, I like really Samuru also if it's not perfect. I wanted ask you two questions : 1) Are you sure that giving a "bonus" to domains containing a part of a query is a good idea ? I understand the reason behind that, and know that you need time to turn off this "bonus" but waiting that moment are you really sure that is a good idea ? When I type "How to rank well on Google" the first results is www.go…

sorry, I forgeted to say you that we're talking of you, not only in america but also in france http://www.lightonseo.com/moteurs-de-recherche/624-0423-samu... I will be very happy if you can link to this page within the news list of Stremor website.
Post reply on HN