Ok...so define quality...got you very difficult and that's how this story starts...and what really does influences the quality. What comparisons can be made among search engines? the author of this blog discusses factors or influence that affect quality.
- Quality of relevance ranking from the underlying search engine-
- replicating bad input basically
- what sources are searched causes difficulty for compare model
- problem may exist in publisher's search engine not federated search product
- The number of results retrieved from the underlying search engine by the federated search engine
- More sources the better when measured against relevancy
- Two ways for more search results
- ask for more results than default
- come back to the source after result
- Quality of federated search engine connectors (connectors search the database)
- Quality of connector for delivery of relevant
- Quality confirmed by doing multiple searches against the federated search engine on one source then same search at publisher's site
- Smart connector=better results
- Quality of ranking of the federated search engine
- Use of ranking of underlying sources presents two problems
- many sources rank poorly
- federated engines need to merge relevance across multiple sources
- Let's not forget algorithm used to possibly judge quality
- Results organization and presentation
- Let's be honest needs to look good and be organized=more time spent with search product
Interesting post. I remember not too long ago listening to a public speaker from a club I belong to talking about search engine optimization (SEO) and how that is the wave of the future: for businesses to learn as much as they can about the statistics and analyze the way Google ranks search results for a particular product that is tied to a company brand. Then months later, I hear that SEO is on the way out because all it is going to take is for Google to change their algorithm and that basically puts and end to that, kind of like studying engine optimization on the Edsel. Anyways, algorithm changes will always be a thing to be on the lookout for for the fact that in time, there are people (some rather unscrupulous I may add) that will find ways to beat the system, just as in the past, metadata header tags, links farms, and even SEO might have been considered as a way to beat the system. In the end, search results will have varied effects.
ReplyDeleteQuality? Well, I know it when I see it! :)
ReplyDelete--Dr. MacCall