SharePoint 2013 Offers Improvements in Search
January 10, 2013
An overall architecture for SharePoint 2013 Search can be found on the Search Technologies’ Web site.
As new releases tend to do, SharePoint 2013 has made some tweaks that users would do well to explore, we learn in “Search Engine Changes in SharePoint 2013” from iT Pro. SharePoint consultant Veena Sarda details the search-related changes and presents them in a handy chart.
The first thing to note is that FAST Search has now been worked into the SharePoint code base. That means that FAST capabilities like metadata extraction, visual search, and advanced linguistics are now part of the package. Content and analytics processors have been added to the logical architecture, and a specialized Search Administrator now manages these and other search-related components. Also new is a dedicated analysis engine, which performs both search and usage analytics.
Crawling has been improved; it is now possible to crawl http sites anonymously, and the time for the index to merge and present those results has been dramatically shortened. Results rendering has been moved from the server to the client side. Document parsing is now much more refined, relying on a set of new parsing features, rather than on file extensions to do the job.
Other welcome improvements affect the user experience. The UI has been revamped to accommodate the new features, with a re-design based on nested layout templates defined in JavaScript and HTML. This change allows for easier extensibility. Furthermore, end users now have an easier time of it; the write-up notes that the platform now provides:
“Direct access to the most granular information inside of sites and documents, and then enables users to act on the results without having to leave the results page. Every search box in every team site offers full access to enterprise-wide search, people search, and other specialized search experiences in addition to the traditional scoped site search.”
Part of this simplified workflow is the new Hover feature, which presents a visual preview of sites, documents, and conversations at the pause of a mouse.
A few more search-related improvements: Authors are identified as experts based on document content, where before they were identified by My Site profiles. People Search (which used to be independent of document search) has been integrated with the core results and can be targeted by name, location, phone number, and other properties.
Perhaps one of the most noteworthy shifts is the new Query Rules feature. SharePoint 2010 only allows for simple queries—one query, one set of results. Sarda writes:
“Query Rules are a new feature in SharePoint 13 that help act upon the ‘intent’ of a query – Query Rules are composed of three top level elements: Query Conditions (i.e. matching rules), Query Actions (i.e. what do you do when you find a match), Publishing Options (i.e. when should this rule be active). Query Rules allows to have search requests from a user trigger multiple queries and multiple result sets.”
A welcome addition. For more information on SharePoint 2013, see the “brief functional walk-through” posted at Search Technologies. It contains, among other things, an easy-to-understand flow chart. The SharePoint experts there also promise to post future updates at that link.
Search Technologies leverages search engines to provide business advantages to their clients. With over twenty years of experience in the field, the company asserts that it is the largest IT services company dedicated to search engine implementation, consulting, and managed services. For information on the firm’s SharePoint 2013 Search Services, visit www.searchtechnologies.com. Search Technologies is headquartered in Herndon, Virginia.
Cynthia Murrell, January 10, 2013
The Complete Total Bing Bar Makeover
January 8, 2013
Bing has prided itself on providing more eye candy for its users than the minimalist Google screen and logo. Bing has lately been updating its looks. First it was Snapshots, now the social bar has become more socially appealing. Search Engine Watch highlights the changes Bing made in “Bing Social Sidebar Gets a Makeover.” The hover cards and dark grey coloring have disappeared, giving way to the color white and a more uniformed look. There are two new headers that separate social media content from friends and general content on these Web sites.
Bing’s social search is also noted as digging way in the recesses of old posts. Users can see what their friends were saying in the past on Facebook or they could always turn to the Facebook year in review app. The search is also a good feature to use to find trending content on all social networks on specific topics.
Despite the updates, the author does not see the design lasting long:
“However, being perfectly honest, I can’t see this design staying for very long. It’s almost too many blue links now and with the more visual social sidebar winning the competition for attention, the ads are now too easy to miss – you can just skip over that middle block.”
What works now will change tomorrow. So is the fate of the Internet. The lack of ad prevalence on the page will really hurt Bing. As long as they do not redo the page to have a fifteen second ad before you can view your content, though, most people will be all right with the changes.
Whitney Grace, January 08, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Paid Links May Be the New Content Manipulation Game
January 8, 2013
With the New Year upon us, we can count on new tricks for content manipulation. Search Engine Land brings to our attention of the of the possible new tricks in “Will 2013 Bring a Paid Link Resurgence?” Not many people give credit to link builders, but the conjecture is that bad links for Web sites could potentially be as bad as negative SEO. Google has once more updated its Webmaster Guidelines and paid linkage is a way to manipulate Google’s search results. Google is punishing web sites for unnatural links. Webmasters will have to finally admit that content is the only way to get to the top of Google’s search results or control their marketing process. The later usually involves greenbacks that most do not want to spend. If business starts to suffer, however, guess where investments will need to be made?
Google is working overtime to control its search results:
“Google’s constant attempts to crack down serve only to spawn new and harder-to-catch ways to win. It sounds harsh but I know that no matter what methods they develop of controlling manipulation in one form, people will find ways to manipulate something else, until that gets smacked too, and they start over again.”
Paid links are part of everyday Web search and their impact is felt, we just do not realize it. However, one method of search results manipulation does not prove better than the other. It all depends on what is popular at the time and what can get past Google’s aggregators.
Whitney Grace, January 08, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Big Data and Search
January 1, 2013
A new year has arrived. Flipping a digit on the calendar prompts many gurus, wizards, failed Web masters, former real journalists, and unemployed English majors to identify trends. How can I resist a chrome plated, Gangnam style bandwagon? Big Data is no trend. It is, according to the smart set:
that Big Data would be “the next big chapter of our business history.
My approach is more modest. And I want to avoid silver-numbered politics and the monitoring business. I want to think about a subject of interest to a small group of techno-watchers: Big Data and search.
My view is that there has been Big Data for a long time. Marketers and venture hawks circle an issue. If enough birds block the sun, others notice. Big Data is now one of the official Big Trends for 2013. Search, as readers of this blog may know, experiences the best of times and the worst of times regardless of the year or the hot trends.
As the volume of unstructured information increases, search plays a part. What’s different for 2013 is that those trying to make better decisions need a helping hand, crutches, training wheels, and tools. Vendors of analytics systems like SAS and IBM SPSS should be in the driver’s seat. But these firms are not. An outfit like Palantir claims to be the leader of the parade. The company has snazzy graphics and $150 million in venture funding. Good enough for me I suppose. The Palantirs suggest that the old dudes at SAS and SPSS still require individuals who understand math and can program for the “end user”. Not surprisingly, there are more end users than there are SAS and SPSS wizards. One way around the shortage is to make Big Data a point-and-click affair. Satisfying? The marketers say, “For sure.”
A new opportunity arises for those who want the benefits of fancy math without the cost, hassle, and delay of dealing with intermediaries who may not have an MBA or aspire to be independently wealth before the age of 30. Toss in the health care data the US Federal government mandates, the avalanche of fuzzy thinking baloney from blogs like this one, and the tireless efforts of PR wizards to promote everything thing from antique abacuses to zebra striped fabrics. One must not overlook e-mail, PowerPoint presentations, and the rivers of video which have to be processed and “understood.” In these streams of real time and semi-fresh data, there must be gems which can generate diamond bright insights. Even sociology major may have a shot at a permanent job.
The biggest of the Big Berthas are firing away at Big Data. Navigate to “Sure, Big Data Is Great. But So Is Intuition.” Harvard, MIT, and juicy details explain that the trend is now anchored into the halls of academe. There is even a cautionary quote from an academic who was able to identify just one example of Big Data going somewhat astray. Here’s the quote:
At the M.I.T. conference, a panel was asked to cite examples of big failures in Big Data. No one could really think of any. Soon after, though, Roberto Rigobon could barely contain himself as he took to the stage. Mr. Rigobon, a professor at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management, said that the financial crisis certainly humbled the data hounds. “Hedge funds failed all over the world,” he said. THE problem is that a math model, like a metaphor, is a simplification. This type of modeling came out of the sciences, where the behavior of particles in a fluid, for example, is predictable according to the laws of physics.
Sure Big Data has downsides. MBAs love to lift downsides via their trusty, almost infallible intellectual hydraulics.
My focus is search. The trends I wish to share with my two or three readers require some preliminary observations:
- Search vendors will just say they can handle Big Data. Proof not required. It is cheaper to assert a technology than actually develop a capability.
- Search vendors will point out that sooner or later a user will know enough to enter a query. Fancy math notwithstanding, nothing works quite like a well crafted query. Search may be a commodity, but it will not go away.
- Big Data systems are great at generating hot graphics. In order to answer a question, a Big Data system must be able to display the source document. Even the slickest analytics person has to find a source. Well, maybe not all of the time, but sometimes it is useful prior to a deposition.
- Big Data systems cannot process certain types of data. Search systems cannot process certain types of data. It makes sense to process whatever fits into each system’s intake system and use both systems. The charm of two systems which do not quite align is sweet music to a marketer’s ears. If a company has a search system, that outfit will buy a Big Data system. If a company has a Big Data system, the outfit will be shopping for a search system. Nice symmetry!
- Search systems and Big Data systems can scale. Now this particular assertion is true when one criterion is met; an unending supply of money. The Big Data thing has a huge appetite for resources. Chomp. Chomp. That’s the sound of a budget being consumed in a sprightly way.
Now the trends:
Trend 1. Before the end of 2013, Big Data will find itself explaining why the actual data processed were Small Data. The assertion that existing systems can handle whatever the client wants to process will be exposed as selective content processing systems. Big Data are big and systems have finite capacity. Some clients may not be thrilled to learn that their ore did not include the tonnage that contained the gems. In short, say hello to aggressive sampling and indexes which are not refreshed in anything close to real time.
Trend 2. Big Data and search vendors will be tripping over themselves in an effort to explain which system does what under what circumstances. The assertion that a system can do both structured and unstructured while uncovering the meaning of the data is one I want to believe. Too bad the assertion is mushy in the accuracy department’s basement.
Trend 3.The talent pool for Big Data and search is less plentiful than the pool of art history majors. More bad news. The pool is not filling rapidly. As a result, quite a few data swimmers drown. Example: the financial crisis perhaps? The talent shortage suggests some interesting cost overruns and project failures.
Trend 4. A new Big Thing will nose into the Big Data and search content processing space. Will the new Big Thing work? Nah. The reason is that extracting high value knowledge from raw data is a tough problem. Writing new marketing copy is a great deal easier. I am not sure what the buzzword will be. I am pretty sure vendors will need a new one before the end of 2013. Even PSY called it quits with Gangnam style. No such luck in Big Data and search at this time.
Trend 5. The same glassy eyed confusion which analytics and search presentations engender will lead to greater buyer confusion and slow down procurements. Not even the magic of the “cloud” will be able to close certain deals. In a quest for revenue, the vendors will wrap basic ideas in a cloud of unknowing.
I suppose that is a good thing. Thank goodness I am unemployed, clueless, and living in a rural Kentucky goose pond.
Stephen E Arnold, January 1, 2012
Another Beyond Search analysis for free
Gannett Wants Better Content Management
December 31, 2012
Gannett is a media and marketing company that represents USA Today, Shop Local, and Deal Chicken. One can imagine that such a prolific company has a lot of data that needs to be organized and made workable. Marketing and media companies are on the forefront of the public eye and if they do not get their client’s name out in the open, then it means less dollars in the bank for them. One way this could happen is if they do not centralize a plan for information governance. The good news is “Gannett Chooses ITM for Centralized Management of Reference Vocabularies,”as reported via the Mondeca news Web site. Mondeca is a company that specializes in knowledge management with a variety of products that structure knowledge in many possible ways. Its ITM system was built to handle knowledge structures from conception to usage and the maintenance process afterward. ITM helps organize knowledge, accessing data across multiple platforms, improved search and navigation, and aligning/merging taxonomies and ontologies.
Gannet selected Mondeca for these very purposes:
“Gannett needed software to centrally manage, synchronize, and distribute its reference vocabularies across a variety of systems, such as text analytics, search engines, and CMS. They also wanted to create vocabularies and enrich them using external sources, with the help of MEI. Gannett selected ITM as the best match for the job. At the end of the project, Gannett intends to achieve stronger semantic integration across its content delivery workflow.”
Gannett is sure to discover that Mondeca’s ITM software will provide them with better control over its data, not to mention new insights into its knowledge base. Data organization and proper search techniques are the master key to any organization’s success.
Whitney Grace, December 31, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Effective Search Technology Is Business Critical in 2013
December 28, 2012
This has been the year of “big data” and search acquisitions, and we have tracked the changes closely. CMSWire has also noticed the trend, making note in the recent article “Search in 2013 Will Become a Business Critical Application.” The article comments on the emerging trend of search implementation and argues that information and actionable insights from big data are critical to business. The need has never been greater for effective search technology and support.
The article continues:
“The Findwise survey […] indicates that less than 20 percent of organizations have a strategy for search even though many of them will be supporting multiple search applications. I expect this figure to improve markedly by the time the 2013 Findwise survey is presented [in May].
The 2011/2012 search vendor acquisition frenzy took out most of the mid-range vendors. In 2013 we will find out whether smaller commercial vendors can attract the investment they need to bring their technologies to a wider market or whether the space will be taken by open-source applications.”
We believe search will be critical to successful business operations in 2013. Secure search and the use of metatagging will lead to improved business processes and enterprise decisions driven by content. The article mentions Intrafind as a potential option for a blend of open-source and proprietary modules and we believe this software has the necessary offerings to help integrate business-critical search.
Andrea Hayden, December 28, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Yahoo Reveals Our Curiosities
December 28, 2012
It is time once again for Yahoo’s annual Year in Review report, in which the company shares the most popular searches performed with its engine during the preceding year. Search Engine Land gives us the lowdown in “2012 Yahoo Year in Review: Over 500 Top Searches in 50+ Categories.”
Writer Elisabeth Osmeloski emphasizes the role of Vera Chan, Yahoo’s senior editor and Web trend analyst, who has been compiling these lists since 2005:
“[Ms. Chan] clearly enjoys looking for the ‘why’ behind some of these popular search trends. Every year, Ms. Chan hosts a press conference call to share insights and give some context around these searcher behaviors, as she explains that we now live in a ‘Freakonomics’ world — and people like Nate Silver are bringing new meaning to number crunching — she’s clearly one of the people making sense of ‘big data’ at Yahoo.”
So, how do they do it? The company describes its methodology:
“To develop the Yahoo! Year in Review, Yahoo’s editors analyze Yahoo! Search queries based on a number of factors, including absolute volume and the growth from previous periods, to see which themes and trends bubble to the surface. Individuals and their Search queries always remain anonymous. Top searched refers to searches with the highest volume. Spiking refers to searches with the greatest change from one year to the next.”
It looks like users spent 2012 focused on some pretty highbrow topics. Ha, just kidding! While we did look up important stuff like elections and the Colorado wildfires, there are also top-rankers like “honey boo boo,” “gangnam style,” and “Jackson family fight.” It really is an interesting compilation, and you could spend a lot of time perusing the results.
Yahoo breaks popular searches into categories, and this year there are more classifications than ever. There is, of course, Top Searches Overall (not surprisingly, “election” won first place). Some other interesting categories include Top Obsessions (“iphone5”), Top Searched Memes (“kony 2012”), and Top Job Searches (“work from home jobs”). Check out the article for more curious groupings. Or groupings of the curious, if you will.
Cynthia Murrell, December 28, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google Search Tools to Boost Efficiency
December 27, 2012
MakeUseOf has supplied a handy roundup of Google search mechanisms with “More Free Google Search Tools You Might Not Be Using So Much.” The accounting follows Google’s recent, less cluttered redesign. Filters that used to be on the left are now at the top, and the “More” menu supplies other search services (news, books, etc.) The Search Tools on the right can be used to fine-tune results.
Writer Saikat Basu explains his motivation for the article:
“Google Search alone is a maze and it takes quite something to use it in different ways to call oneself as a ‘power user’. Google Search operators and Advanced Search are just barrels of a multi-barreled canon.
Too confusing? No…look at it this way – each filter and operator on Google Search is designed to be a crosshair on a scope mounted on that ‘canon’. You need to use them appropriately for the relevant search result. So, I am advancing this article with the assumption that you don’t use most of the search tools as much as you should every day. Let’s explore a few neat search tools which we miss in the flurry of typing in the queries.”
Basu tells us how to use Google Search to find free stuff; who doesn’t love free stuff? More to the point, he describes in detail how to use filters to get (and only get) the results we need while saving time. For example, the Sites with Images filter gives information about each site that is not available with the regular Image Search. One feature I am sure to start using immediately is the “Verbatim” filter, which searches for exactly what you type, without consulting your browsing history, similar terms, or even spellcheck. This almost compensates for so brazenly taking away the “+” that I’ve missed since they launched Google+. Almost.
There’s a lot here that most searchers never take advantage of. Like anything else, a few minutes spent learning could repeatedly save time later. Check it out.
Cynthia Murrell, December 27, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
ArnoldIT Post Resurfaces—Three Years Later
December 26, 2012
Talk about putting old wine in new bottles. A fascinating post by our beloved leader, Stephen E. Arnold, has resurfaced—at LowPriceWebHost.com, of all places. The title is “Exorbyte Search Product Highly Scalable and Configurable,” and the original interview ran in November 2009. Hey, it was only three years ago; that’s not so long in the tech world, right?
Well. . . as much as I admire Steve and his insights, even his information becomes outdated eventually. For example, in this article he wrote:
“[Exorbyte’s] Matchmaker software can search millions of records and return results in under 10 milliseconds. Besides its speed, Matchmaker is noted for its unlimited error tolerance, meaning it corrects all spelling and other data errors on the fly or by ‘Did You Mean’ suggestions.”
Is that all still true, or is the rate of return even faster now? Who knows?
Why do outfits recycle content like this? For the hits, of course, but apparently with little concern for the timeliness of the information. Fortunately, there is one part of the article we are sure is still true:
“[ArnoldIT’s] Search Wizards Speak is the single most comprehensive collection of interviews with the movers and shakers in search and content processing.”
Yep. Keep up the good work, Steve.
Cynthia Murrell, December 26, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Relevance Plagues SEO Pros
December 25, 2012
The future of search through SEO sunglasses has been revealed, we learn in “Online Business Expert Predicts Next Search Engine Change Will Be Equivalency Score” at PRWeb. The press release recounts a recent interview with Steve Fitzpatrick from DigitalDomination.com in which the online business consultant explains what he believes will be the next big challenge for players in the search engine optimization game. The press release states:
“Mr. Fitzpatrick revealed [that] since 2010, Google Trends shows that search engine optimisation interest has flat-lined, reaching saturation point.”
That’s great news, at least for those of us concerned with relevancy. Finally! However, for those who make a living or build their businesses by gaming search engine results, this turn of events could spell trouble. The write-up quotes Fitzpatrick:
“Now most commercial business interests are heavily contested in the organic search results, with very little separating the top competitors for the number one spot. . . . This means that if the top four commercial search results are equivalent in nature, Google will show them in a different random order each time the results appear. So no one business will have a monopoly at position number one. A change like this will provide challenges to business and SEO professionals who are ill equipped to deal with them.”
Fitzpatrick’s advice, naturally, is to turn to his company for help navigating these choppy waters. To which I submit this caveat—businesses who have focused on supplying honestly helpful information, rather than on gaming the search engine, never entered those waters in the first place. Google is constantly revising their algorithm to better serve good information to its users. Isn’t it time to realize that the entire SEO field is destined for obsolescence?
Cynthia Murrell, December 25, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
