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Google, Bing, and Blekko Talk Spamish
Long long before in web years, before there was spam filters in email, our inbox was mostly filled with spam. Now thanks to spam filters, we are able to see the main email in the inbox.
Is this the story with web search today? Article spam, content farm, 10 articles on how to tie your shoe, how to build a brick wall, watch the above Big Think video on Spam!
Lot of talk of direct or primary spam in search results, i.e. links of sites ranking high on search engines which are of poor or spam quality pages. But I see the real issue, and bigger one to deal with, is of secondary spam, which are good sites or web pages maintaining or trying to manipulate their position to the top by submitting spam articles to many article and other related websites, just only to give their main site or web page a boost of some link juice through some aptly placed keyword links. Worst even, is these operators resort to article spinning where they try to fool and trick search engines by producing tons of other articles spun by re-arranging words and/or structure of the sentences used and combination’s there of. Search engines have to really get smarter here, and this is easier said than done.
There is a fine fine line with black-hat and white-hat Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques, with a lot of overlap, what is right, wrong or evil is left for lot debate. Read the case of penny links in the New York Times article - The Dirty Little Secrets of Search. Another high profile article on Overstock.com was posted on the Wall Street Journal - Google Penalizes Overstock for Search Tactics.
Also, what about search engines turning a blind eye to secondary spam as detailed above, because these sites or web pages are used by the search engines themselves profit for the clicks through link advertisements placed on these pages. So, we really need some separation of search and ads, if you may, to really keep the objective or intent of search engines clear.
On a philosophical side, the real issue here is something higher - human nature. Can search algorithm get smarter than human nature. Again, my friends, victory is just an illusion, as human nature is always trying to be victorious. Now that gets into programming human nature?
#GOOG #bing #ANSW - Is the new search profitable?
Answers Corp., a small-cap company traded on the Nasdaq under ticker-symbol ANSW, owns and operates two popular and highly trafficed sites - Answers.com and WikiAnswers.com. The recent comScore rankings for April 2009 ranks Answers.com Network at 25 of top 50 trafficed U.S. web properties, bringing in more than 29 million visitors. The Answers.com stock ANSW traded at around $7 and the company has a market capitalization of just over $55 million.
So why ANSW now? The search industry in particular and the internet business in general is changing fast with some key events that have taken place recently to challenge numero uno Google - the spin-off of AOL from Time Warner, the $10 billion valuation of Facebook by Russian investor, the offer to sell Yahoo for boatloads of cash, a billion dollar offer for Twitter rejected, the launch of Wolfram Alpha, Steve Ballmer trying to excite, the expected (re)launch of Microsoft’s Bing. Now the last point here is somewhat significant, the new search avatar Bing is more a decision engine and Microsoft has integrated buys such as farecast.com into Bing results to give instant click-free search results within Bing. Answers.com is in the reference space, gets a lot of its traffic from Google and GOOG could benefit buying ANSW cheaply to integrate reference results into next generation Google search, which could be coming soon forced by Bing’s introduction and how well Bing is accepted. And many more options…..read here.
ANSW is a risky play in search space, but could reward could be larger than any other here? and more than any YHOO boatload if this sale ever happens? Is there profit here in the new search landscape? David beats Goliath in returns?
Microsoft’s Bing needs Bong to Goog Google?
Microsoft is searching for an answer to a tough search problem - gain market share in the online search space totally dominated by Google. It is reported naming its newsest search incarnation as Bing (www.bing.com). The previous incarnation - Live (www.live.com) - is now dying a premature death, and the earlier incarnation - MSN Search (www.msnsearch.com) - did never really live that long to make any impact in the search world.
So what Microsoft really needs for its Bing search engine is Bong, to make its search results and search market share piping hot, so that more and more searchers ”Bing it”… :)
Read more and also at some suggestions for Mr. Softy
See the video preview, some interesting features, but Microsoft still has a big challenge to change the default Google it habit…
