Posts Tagged ‘improved search’
Web Search, Child’s Play?
May 4th, 2010 | Author: Doron Gez Marketing Business Development
We all know that the younger generation is much more tech savvy than our generation, and we can asumme that most children use the popular engines (Google,Yahoo!). Most of us don’t know more than that on children and search engine. There are more ways children search the web. In this post we will try to explore it.
Improved Search with Ipad and Iphone
February 14th, 2010 | Author: Doron Gez Marketing Business Development
The Ipad is something different. This device defers from other tablets especially because of its interface and usability behavior. It’s also different from the Iphone or other smart phones and mobile devices because of its size. One of Apple’s goals, I think, is to replace our portable devices such as laptops and notebooks, and not the iPhone or other smart phones.
Ipad
SortFix 2010 – Just got Upgraded
January 21st, 2010 | Author: Doron Gez Marketing Business Development
In our previous posts, we mentioned (by the way of course) that soon enough our new design will be launched. Well, soon enough just became… Now!!! This post is all about it.
Sortfix New Logo
SortFix Search Engine News December 2009
December 15th, 2009 | Author: Doron Gez Marketing Business Development
Less than two weeks from Christmas, here are a few search updates you should know about.
Google Goggles - Google just launched this new search application for Android phones. This application enables you to search by taking a photo instead of a text- or voice-based search. Users can take pictures of business cards, locations (with GPS), or text-related items as books, from Android phones and then retrieve search results by them. It is a cool app. With time we’ll see how useful it will be. Watch this short video demonstration.
Words per Search – Size Matters
December 3rd, 2009 | Author: Doron Gez Marketing Business Development
One of the things we mentioned in our last post was the length of an average search query. We can assume that often the length of the search query will determine the relevance of the search results. In this post we will explore the impact of search queries on our Web experience.
As mentioned in our last post, the average number of words used for each search query is relatively low (3.3). In many cases it is almost impossible to arrive at an effective search string in 2 to 3 words. The search query isn’t sufficiently specific for the search engine to retrieve relevant results. Let’s look at a search example to better understand the challenge.
Say that we’re going to tour Europe on vacation and we want to rent a car. A typical search query would probably be something like “rent a car europe.” The results on Google would look like this:
(Try to think about what’s missing in the results. The answer is in the next paragraph.)
Search Engine Algorithm and SEO
November 30th, 2009 | Author: Doron Gez Marketing Business Development
SEO is a very up-to-date industry. The search algorithms evolve constantly; competition is great and very dynamic. One of the key factors that has an impact on SEO is search engine algorithms, and more specifically, Google’s page rank. In this post, we will review some of the current views and recommendations, and take a look at a few past views that are still very relevant in 2009.
I had the idea for this post when I found a blog post from March 2005 at Search EngineLand by Christine Churchill on search engine algorithms. This four year old post is still relevant. Although the examples there are for Ask Jeeves, they mostly apply for Google also. According to this post, the two main factors that impact searches are content and linkage. These still very much apply. Content is of course a key factor, due to the fact that search engines rely on text analysis and the relevance of the content to its segment/industry. Linkage, the second factor, influence the level of relevance (and relationships) that is determined by the search engine. Read the rest of this entry »
Sortfix – The New Video Page
November 12th, 2009 | Author: Doron Gez Marketing Business Development
We just uploaded a new video via youtube, How to personalize your music search, following our recent post on the subject.
This video was made using the very fun to use animoto website.
Just to make it simple and easy, we added a new Video Page with our search clips, examples, features and funny animations.
Personalized Search: Bobby Mcferrin’s Blog
November 5th, 2009 | Author: Doron Gez Marketing Business Development
When you don’t really know what you are searching for, you can still retrieve relevant results. In this post we will look at how you can improve your search when you don’t really know exactly what you are looking for.
I’ll use an example of a search I did myself a few days ago. Someone mentioned the name Bobby McFerrin to me. I know he is a musician, and he wrote the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” I also know he plays classical music. I tried to think about what I know about his current work. I wanted to learn more, but wasn’t really sure what.
Winning Mafia Wars and Farmville with SortFix
October 12th, 2009 | Author: Doron Gez Marketing Business Development
Facebook, aside from being a leading social website, is a popular platform for Web-based social games. Two very trendy games are Mafia Wars and FarmVille by Zynga. Millions of gamers play these games. We used SortFix to help get an edge up in the game.
MafiaWars and FarmVille by Zynga
SortFix ToolBar™ – First Glimpse
September 30th, 2009 | Author: Doron Gez Marketing Business Development
About two months ago, we wrote about our current toolbar and announced that we are working on a new SortFix ToolBar™ extension to further improve and enhance the users’ search experience.
Now our new ToolBar is almost ready. Here is a first look at the new ToolBar.
Sortfix New Toolbar on Google
Personalized Search Tools
September 10th, 2009 | Author: Doron Gez Marketing Business Development
As we have explored in previous posts, the whole concept of “search” is evolving. One of the ways search is shifting to, is semantic search, which we looked at previously; another is personalized search, which is the subject in this post.
In general, personalized search means that the users’ search activity and history influences their search results. In most cases personalized search tools, such as Google suggest, monetize the users’ search activity, record which search results the users prefer, and makes use of that data to personalize search results. When users are signed in to Google, they can use personalized Google search.
The Google Suggest tool
Power Words™: Producing a Powerful Search Query
August 26th, 2009 | Author: Yohay Barsky CTO
Many people have asked me about SortFix’s Power Words feature. I realized that although most people understand very well that the Power Words are those words related to the search, and should be added to the search query. Only a few grasped the idea that Power Words can be used as a negative filter.
Therefore, in this post, I’ve decided to elaborate about the power of our Power Words.
SortFix Power Words
Google Caffeine – A First Glance
August 12th, 2009 | Author: Doron Gez Marketing Business Development
Google’s main business is search. Despite dominating the search market, the search giant isn’t neglecting the engine. With the expansion of Bing, the release of Wolfram Alpha, and Facebook’s new realtime search engine, Google is quick to draw their own card – Caffeine – a new search engine. Here’s a first glance.
Guest post by Yohay Elam of Forex Crunch – Forex Trading Blog.
You can check out the new engine here. The new search engine looks exactly like Google’s current search. The difference is behind the scenes. It’s all about speed.
Following Twitter and also Facebook, Google also aims for real time results. While they’re still not there, the new engine is more up to date. That’s one element of speed. They emphasize the importance of speed in the official blog.
The second element of speed is in the response time – the new engine feels faster. This speed could be due to the small scale of use, but it looks very promising. Quick response time helped Google top the search engine market, and they’re still improving the performance.
You may say: Google is fast enough, and I usually don’t need real time results. Is there a real improvement in searches? We still can’t tell. Let’s test a few examples,
One of our favorites is ice cream. On the current search, the first results are images of ice cream, while they don’t appear on the new search. Click on the images to enlarge:
Getting more from Excel with Sortfix
August 12th, 2009 | Author: Doron Gez Marketing Business Development
You can probably find Microsoft’s Excel software on most computers. I don’t think I can even recall a workday in the last few years when I haven’t opened an Excel spreadsheet.
People use Excel for many purposes, but the one I’m going to describe (and show) you here really surprised me.
A few days ago I got call from Alon Bahari from Veolia Transportation. Alon asked if I could search for a way to calculate distances between two different coordinates. My first thought: Why not stretch a line on Google maps and see the distance? Alon said that would be nice if he didn’t have to calculate 1,200 different distances.
Due to the fact I’m not really an expert on the subject, and I knew that delivering the right solution on a spreadsheet would be acceptable to Alon (and possibly other users), I wrote the following query in the SortFix search box:
|