Google, Microsoft, Yahoo Look to Buff Up Search

Nicole Ferraro
Google, Microsoft, Yahoo Look to Buff Up Search
Written by Nicole Ferraro

While much of the chatter this week has been around Wolfram Alpha, the un-search engine, household search names are also making strides in buffing up their search technologies.

Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) still soars ahead of Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) in terms of search market share. The latest numbers from comScore had Google with 64.2 percent market share in April (up 0.5 percent from a month earlier); Yahoo with 20.4 percent (down 0.1 percent); and Microsoft with 8.2 percent (also down 0.1 percent).

So apart from a possible impending antitrust kerfuffle with the Obama administration (pure speculation...), Google is in no great danger of losing its footing in search. But competitors are still vying to take it down somehow.

Perhaps recognizing its weaknesses, last week Google introduced new features to help users scan the Deeper Web. With a new button called "Show Options," Google is putting advanced search criteria on the front page where people can see them, allowing users to narrow their searches down into videos, forums, and reviews, as well as narrow down the timeframe.

Further, searchers can now choose how they want to view their results. Using Google's new "Wonder Wheel" view, for example, a person searching for "Rod Stewart" will be able to either select from a broad "Rod Stewart" set of links, or drill down into extended Rod searches provided on the wheel's arm de la Stewart:

The tool is fun, but as far as advancing us toward some sort of semantic Web, well, Google's reinvention of the wheel doesn't do the trick. Users mostly find themselves poking through information they weren't looking for, which is just what we would have done on a standard Google search page, anyway.

Google isn't alone in polishing the way it presents search results, however. This week Yahoo discussed its unoriginal plans for search, and Microsoft is rumored to be unleashing its new search engine -- Kumo -- on the world next week.

On the Yahoo front, the company claims to be moving toward a "Web of Objects" -- rather than a tired old Web of Pages. Yahoo is calling this "WOO" (WOO!) and pretending it's something new (NEW!). Rather than a results page of "10 blue links," Yahoo hopes to match user intent with search results, producing a capsule of specific information about, sayyy, Rod Stewart, instead of a series of links to Web pages. Rather than working to index the most pages, says Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo Labs and Yahoo Search Strategy, Yahoo is working on making searches more reliable and based on real-world information (i.e., "objects").

Then there's Microsoft, which according to The Wall Street Journal, is set to unveil Kumo -- a Live Search re-do -- at the D: All Things Digital conference next week. Like WOO, Kumo is supposed to better organize search results so people waste less time clicking around. Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer gave a hint of what to expect at the Digital Hollywood Media Summit in March:

"How do you differentiate user experience, task orientation, help people find what they're looking for more quickly?" he rhetorically asked. "How do you really ascertain user intent? Those kinds of things we're keying on as design philosophy."

Well, Yawn. Show me the money already, as some Scientologists say. This promise of a quick ride to the Deep Web is starting to sound tired and less likely. As the top three search players cram themselves into the public eye, my prediction is Yahoo and Microsoft will fail to enthuse and end up in a search partnership, while the rest of us sit around aimlessly spinning the Wonder Wheel.

? Nicole Ferraro, Site Editor, Internet Evolution