-
Friday, March 16th, 2012
Search engine giant Google is set to tweak its algorithm to improve its semantic search results.
Google is hoping to make its results more informative and useful for mobile users, and those using voice recognition technology.
Amit Singhal, from Google, revealed that upcoming algorithm changes will focus on semantic search tweaks.
Industry experts have postulated that Google’s focus on semantic search ties to the launch of the Google Assistant – which will allow Android users to make voice-activated search queries, much like Apple’s Siri feature.
Google has already introduced some semantic results: if a user asks “How tall is the London Eye?” the top result answers the question with “Best guess for London Eye height is 135 metres” – using aggregated information from trusted sources like Wikipedia.
Type “weather”, and the first result will show the latest forecasts.
The move is particularly useful for mobile web users, as it provides instantaneous answers without the need to trawl through websites. For queries on-the-go, semantic makes the search process smoother and more refined. For voice queries, it ensures a useful result is returned.
Google has led the way for search algorithm – constantly tweaking its site to return more relevant, higher quality and specific results. Its search technology already knows to look for synonyms (motor and auto, for instance) – but semantic will take this a step further: by essentially guessing why the user has made a specific search query.
By analysing billions of daily searches, Google is building a “Knowledge Graph”: a database with some 200 million entries that will help to track how searchers use results data, so the results can be made more relevant.
Of course, it will be some time before the technology becomes smart enough to react to queries like a human might – but these changes will certainly make mobile internet navigation more simple.
By displaying direct answers internally, instead of returning external pages, Google is, however, essentially positioning itself as a one-stop Internet shop. Whereas users now will initially go to Google to find web pages to comb for further information, semantic results will, to some extent, negate the need to do this.
Internalising information to Google could have repercussions for search engine optimisation strategies. For precedent, Rupert Murdoch already signalled disdain with Google News search results returning “copyrighted” content from the Sun and the Times.
News Corp’s way of dealing with Google republishing stories in its News results was swift, and expensive: paywalls.
Some trusted information sites are unlikely to oppose to Google cutting out the middle man for organic queries. But this won’t be the case across the board. How those sites react to semantic search remains to be seen: as well as how Google manages this process.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Tags: apple, data, Google, google assistant, mobile, query, results, search, semantic, SEO, siri, voice search
Posted in Search Engine Optimisation
-
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011
Search giant Google has introduced a new voice search feature to its Chrome browser.
The change will allow users to click a button and speak directly into a microphone in their PC, rather than manually type in search terms.
The technology was previously only available to mobile phone users.
The feature is currently only available on Chrome, and users will need a microphone built-into their computer, or a headset with microphone function, to make it work.
The voice search query works much like a normal Google search – but has some interesting features, such as being able to ask mathematics questions, with Google immediately providing the correct answer.
Whilst the speak-out-loud feature is unlikely to catch on in busy offices, it does represent a step towards the periphery-free computer interface – along with touch-screen technology – which could eventually remove the need for a keyboard or mouse.
The change could also affect search engine optimisation techniques, as users could streamline their search terms in the spoken rather than written word.
Google is expected to release extensions to allow voice search on other browsers soon.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
Tags: chrome, Google, search, voice search
Posted in Search Engine News
-
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008
Is your site mobile friendly? It is going to need to be now! Google have added voice search to their app for the iPhone, and let’s face it, this is one app that is likely to be heavily used by consumers. Particularly as it uses the iPhone GPS to track down local restaurants, bars, garages, businesses etc etc etc using MyLocation.
You can download it from iTunes and judging by the comments today from those trying it out, it seems to be pretty efficient at recognising even complex questions or search terms. We’ve said it before but if your website isn’t mobile search friendly, you are really going to start missing out on custom now this has been launched. Others will no doubt follow suit, and if it really is faster than the keyboard for conducting searches, as intimated, this could well become the mobile search tool of choice for iphone users.
Tags: Google, gps, iphone, voice search
Posted in Mobile Search, Website Usability
