Chad Egeland

Tonight I was performing a simple Google search, after typing in my query and clicking enter I noticed something a little odd beside my search results. An up arrow, a down arrow and a comment bubble. My first though was what the hell, and my second thought was what Firefox extension did I install today that would do this to my search results? The answer was none and instead I was seeing this because I was logged into my Google account and Google has rolled out their SearchWiki. Over at the the Official Google Blog they explain the SearchWiki feature as such:

With just a single click you can move the results you like to the top or add a new site. You can also write notes attached to a particular site and remove results that you don’t feel belong. These modifications will be shown to you every time you do the same search in the future.

They also go on to state in bold that the changes you make only affect your own searches. I wonder how long it will be until the entire Google search uses a voting system like this?

Google has an incredibly sophisticated algorithm for ranking pages and those ages that is feels are most relevant to the search query are placed at the top or the rankings. The problem with this model is that because it is a computer algorithm it can and is manipulated on a daily basis leaving the user with sub-par results and frustration many times.

Having Google now implement a social collective human search algorithm means that in the future spam sites that have reached the top of the results through manipulation will no longer be tolerated and will be voted down by the searchers improving search results for the community as a whole.

As it stands today Google has effectively changed the world of search engine optimization as we know it. If and more importantly when Googles WikiSearch gets rolled into the entire search results, simply gathering the most keyword rich links will no longer guarantee users of ranking their websites in the top results.

Your bounce rate is an important measure of how successful or unsuccessful the landing pages within in your site are. In this video Avinash Kaushik explains why you should always use the bounce rate when measuring the performance of your site.

As a Canadian I have been watching the last 5 weeks of campaigning with interest not only because I need to in order to make an informed decision as to which party I should vote for but also because this is the first election I remember that took the campaig trail online.

From NDP ads on various sites to the Conservative and Liberal parties using Facebook, Twitter, Digg and FriendFeed it appeared that these political parties were using every online trick in the book to get your vote. But did these politicians use these social networking tools properly and was it enough to get your vote? No and doubtful.

The Liberals joined twitter shortly after the election was called and made their first tweet on September 12th, 2008, the conservatives joined September 2nd, 2008 and the NDP joined on September 6th, 2008. The NDPs were the most active with 145 tweets and the Conservatives the least active with only 71 tweets.  But by October 13th, 2008 not one of the above mentioned parties were active on Twitter any more. This is not how you build a loyal community or brand awareness. Why were the Conservatives not twittering about their  minority win? Why were the Liberals and NDPs not thanking people for their help and letting them know what went right for them on the campaign trail?

It also appears that all online advertising has dried up as well. A quick Google search using a couple of keywords revealed no adwords. Why stop advertising on a medium that costs but pennies a click? Facebook accounts seem to be inactive as well. 

This is the inherant problem with associations and companies that jump in to social networking in hopes to promote their cause. After their goal is achieved they stop and when they need something else from the community they start again.  This is not how social networking sites work, instead it takes time invested into the community before you can begin to reap the rewards of these sites.

If i was running the online campaigns for any of the parties in Canada I would right now be stressing the importance of keeping my parties online campaign going and in full swing knowing that if I build a strong community around my brand right knowing that come next election the party I support would be one step ahead. 

I would keep using twitter to keep all of my current followers aware of the ongoing parliamentary issues and in-turn they could provide me with relevant information regarding issues they would like to see solved. I would run Google ads and if I was in one of the parties that lost this would be especially important as I would buy my keywords bases on news events the day they happen and then discontinue them after the news subsides.
For example if a scandal concerning the Conservatives surfaces I would then buy keywords based on that scandal targeted at Canadians knowing full well there will be searches on that story, my ads would then direct users to find out why my party is better than a scandal filled party. These types of ads are cheap, targeted, effective and current.
I would also look at using video and audio podcasts to distribute information regarding issues and policy to those looking for just that type of information. Delivering content through the web costs infinitely less than delivering it through old media channels such as television and radio. 

Delivering a political message, a sales message, a personal message, any message is extraordinarily inexpensive and effective when using social networking sites such as the above mentioned. The problem is what you invest into them is what you will get out of them and this is a message that has been obviously lost on the politicians.

Need even more evidence that lawyers are ignorant, greedy and the bottom feeders of society? (A rehtorical question) This article on arstechnica will provide you with that information and more.

Federal Lawsuits Take On The Humble Hyperlink

The entire economy of the Internet is based on linking to external websites. Without hyperlinks Google would not exist as part of their search algorithm is based on links coming in to your site and after performing a search on their site they provide links to other sites for you to follow. Social sites like Digg, Yahoo Buzz and even Propeller would also not exist as user submitted stories would have no where to link to.

As is usually the case those with little to no understanding of how something works weather it be technology or something else try and threaten and bully their way into getting what they want. If this is allowed to proceed would the next step be suing the person who gave a stranger directions to a restaurant?

The new Google search killer Cuil launched today to much hype, PR and over loaded servers that you couldn’t access for part of the day. Cuil was started by  former Google employees, is pronounced cool and their current claim to fame is that they have indexed 121,617,892,992 web pages. They also do not store any of your search data unlike Google who retains all of your search data which may then be used to not only allow the government to track you down easier but to also improve their own search results.

Cuils search philosophy begins with bigger is better meaning that they believe having the greatest amount of indexed pages is best and that the popularity of a page isn’t the most important when ranking a page for relevancy and that the content on the keywords on a page go a long way in determining how relevant a page is to a search result.

Cuil presents its search results in a much different fashion than Google, Yahoo or MSN. Instead of showing results in a linear fashion with the top result being the most relevant to your search they instead show your results in either a 2 of 3 column depending on what you choose and include an image and text from the site. On the right hand side there is also an ajaxified Explore By Category search refiner that allows you to drill down deeper into your search results. Tabs along the top are used for offering other choices and suggestions to help further define your search terms. They also offer a search term suggestion so as you type in the search fields an auto-complete tries to guess what exactly it is your are going to type.  Sadly it appears dirty words do not auto-complete.

Although the search results do look nice with their images and non-standard looking search results I’m not a fan. For starters what is the most relevant search result as compared to my search? I assume it’s the result in the top left position, now what about the second most relevant result according to Cuil? Is it immediately under the top left result or to the right of it? Or are all of the results on the first page equally relevant to my search terms? With Google, Yahoo and MSN you know upon first glance exactly what is deemed to be the most relevant, where as with Cuil I am left guessing.

The layout and look of Cuil is very web 2.0ish and pretty but in the world of search all that matters is result relevancy and currently Cuil appears to be far behind Google in this regard. When searching for the term “oilers” on google.ca, google.com and on cuil.com Both google.ca and google.com brought up the Edmonton Oilers website but cuil.com brought up a freeservers.com site entitled Cosmic Oilers that contains 2 instances of the word oilers (title and text) on the entire page. The Edmonton Oilers website comes up either as the 9th or 7th search result depending on how you count while the Oilers forums are either 4th or 9th. Currently cuil.com isn’t even indexing itself while a quick search on Google returns not only news related to Cuil but the cuil.com website as well.

Granted I only checked the search term oilers and other search terms may yield better results and with time I’m sure that the Cuil algorithm will change to return more relevant results but as it is now Google is still the superior search engine.

Currently in its present state Cuil is much like the knockout blonde with the big set of tits that walks into the room, very pretty to look at but you just have a feeling she is going to be dumber than shit to talk to.