Search News & Articles

Earlier this year, Google (news, site) started dealing with content spam and low-quality sites in its search results by crowdsourcing quality control and by updating its algorithm. Initially rolled out in the US, the algorithm update is now gradually being rolled out to Google data centers in the rest of the world, and search analysts are reporting how the new algorithm affects sites depending on type and content.

The reinvention of the traditional search engine has kept many companies busy. And while consumer search engines such as Google and Bing may reign supreme, within the enterprise, search queries often require more substance and hearty discovery. Especially because the enterprise doesn’t always know what it knows, searching for information can be laborious, increasing the need for an enterprise search tool that can penetrate massive amounts of data.

Twitter (news, site) got plucky this week with both a partnership with Mediasift and a long awaited revamp to its search tool.

Lurking in Google (news, site) Labs is a new feature that could simplify how search and social concepts coincide.

This week the Internet giant took customization a bit further by allowing consumers to block sites from their search results. Meanwhile, new organizational features were added to Gmail and Latitude got a very Foursquare-like enhancement. 

Another week in our Google lives as come and gone, leaving behind tips for dealing with the algorithm change, a nightmarish Gmail outage, and updates to Chrome OS beta. 

A few weeks ago, Google started targeting so-called content farms, or websites with supposedly low-quality content and highly concentrated keyword density. Google first addressed the issue by releasing a Chrome browser extension that lets users block unwanted domains from search (and which returned the unwanted list to Google for further processing). Now, Google has made some algorithm adjustments that are aimed at lowering the ranking power of content farms. But this came with some collateral damage.

British-based Baycastle has announced the release of another entrant in the document management market for SMBs that aims to fill what used to be a gap for simple, cheap and effective document management software.

The great Google significantly tweaked its mysterious search algorithms this week in an attempt to lower the rankings of low-quality, SEO'd-out-the-wazoo content aggregator sites. 

Lucid Imagination (news, site), the commercial provider of services and support for Solr/Lucene, has opened its search for presenters for the second Lucene Revolution conference, scheduled for May 25-26 in San Francisco. The annual Lucene Revolution, the largest U.S. conference focused on open source enterprise search, brings together developers and industry thought leaders to discuss the use of Solr/Lucene.

Information archiving does not consist only of storing data, but rather more powerful data management, which includes search, retrieval and analysis. MessageSolution's (news, site) latest SaaS release features advanced management functionality for Lotus Domino Application-based environments, as well as for other systems.

While the press have jumped all over the tabloid aspects of Nokia's (news, site) mobile deal with Microsoft, it could have some serious implications for search.

For the longest time, Google (news, site) has expressed disdain against black-hat search engine optimization methods. These include keyword-stuffing, redirects and all sorts of underhanded tactics. Recently, though, the spotlight has been pointed toward so-called content farms, which are essentially websites with large collections of articles that are supposedly of low-quality, and designed specifically to monetize on-page advertisements.

Numbers reported this week by Experian Hitwise suggest that Google is slipping, but we can't help but wonder whether that's actually the case, or if it's time to redefine what we consider to be a successful search. 

It's no surprise that search marketing is broadening to include other media, but just because we're evolving beyond the engine doesn't mean marketers should blind themselves to basic need. In a recent Forrester Wave report, the research company evaluated 100 search marketing vendors against both fresh and traditional criteria to determine who might guide us to a successful adjustment strategy.