Search engines in the footprint of social networks

2011/05/01 Leturia Azkarate, Igor - Informatikaria eta ikertzaileaElhuyar Hizkuntza eta Teknologia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Internet

(Photo: © iStockphoto.com/Bet Noire)

In 1998, in the world of search engines dominated by Altavista, Lycos, Yahoo and others, Google entered the world, and how to get in! He ate all the others. Among its causes were the large number of indexed web pages and their speed, but one of the main reasons was, without a doubt, their revolutionary PageRank results management algorithm, which yielded significantly better results than the rest, and which all have used since.

Until then the ordering algorithms did not work properly. Depending on the content of the pages, the order of the results was determined (number of times the word searched on the page appears, if it appears in the title, etc.) or depending on the web pages that the owner of the search engine considered appropriate. Google's PageRank algorithm was, in some way, the first social or democratic algorithm. The more you link a page with other websites, the better it is considered for results. It is true that it is not social as we can know today, that is, it is not the end users who decide the importance of a page, but the authors of other websites. But at that time on the Internet there was hardly any interaction, users were mere consumers. Somehow, the authors of the websites can be recognized by the active users of then and PageRank took into account what they said.

Considering users

Despite the success, Google did not fall asleep and, aware of the importance of the order of results, has continued to introduce improvements in the ordering algorithms and being a pioneer. In the ordering algorithm, other factors with different weight have been integrated into each of them. And some of these factors take advantage of the collective knowledge of users. For example, when ordering, Google takes into account the number of times users have clicked on each of the results they have returned.

A couple of years ago, Google added the possibility of reordering the results to their liking, enabling the change of location of each result through the up and down arrow buttons (only for registered users and if they activated this option). This information, besides using it in future searches of this user, served, logically, to order any result.

Tell me who you are with...

However, the fact that most people like one thing does not mean that we also like it. For example, looking for scorpions, results related to heavy metal and animal groups will appear; if you take into account where you click or what results people send to improve the results, it is very possible that those of the music group appear above. If we are biologists, those who want to be left down lost... That is, in some cases, indiscriminate collective knowledge can also be counterproductive.

But as the saying goes, "tell me who you are and I will tell you who you are." Our environment defines us. And if our hobby is biology, surely it will also be of many people who are part of our social network. That is the last social approach that Google has launched. According to the Social Media Convention, along with each result a "+1" button has been included (for registered users who activate the option) to indicate that we like this result. And this information will be used in the results of the people of our social network (GMail, GT and Google Buzz contacts). That is, if after searching for scorpions a contact has made a "+1" on a page around the scorpion (animal), when we look for it (or something that gives the same or similar results), that page will appear highlighted.

It will still have to see if this new option is really useful and if it is a mere experiment that changes our search habits or, as has happened on many other occasions, ends in a drawer. Internet users will have a lot to see in that, because if we really start using this button, it will become useful. See the attitude of the people. Some will not want to help in any way one of the richest companies in the world, others will not use it for indifference... But the tendency to share information with friends on social networks is growing, and if they manage to make users see that it is a way to share things with friends and thus help their friends, they can have a future.