Recent posts in my Search Category
November 26, 2009
Google's recursive lunar image swirls
Google Image Search has been in the news this week for all the wrong reasons, but I've been concentrating on playing with a Labs version of Image Search - Google Image Swirl. It is an interesting variation on the usual grid view that has become the industry standard. I'm not sure that I'd use it exclusively, for a start the data indexed is limited, but it does give you a different way of researching images. And you can generate some...
November 6, 2009
Notes and quotes from Ecommerce Expo: Part 5 - Product information management and site search optimisation
Over the last week or so I've been posting a whole series of notes and quotes from the recent Ecommerce Expo, looking at multi-variant testing, optimising shopping carts, social commerce, semantic ecommerce and ticket-touting brand building and online marketing. In this last part I want to look at two presentations, one about information management, and one about internal site search. "Product information management: The next Ecommerce opportunity" - Steve Lovatt, Pinder You simply can't argue with a presentation that has...
October 27, 2009
Paid search and politics - still some learning for the parties to do
A couple of days ago Peter Moore wrote an interesting post about politics and paid search, pointing out how Channel 4 had used Google AdWords to catch some of the search traffic generated by the BNP appearance on BBC's Question Time. He pointed out that: "Paid search has the potential to make an enormous difference [in an election]...It’s possible to carefully study and collect keywords, to manage and monitor huge campaigns that include short and long tail terms as well...
October 19, 2009
Guess which Jan Moir article is missing from the Daily Mail's search results?
Funny old world, the Internet, eh? If you search the Daily Mail website today for the most recent articles by or about Jan Moir, there seems to be one missing. I wonder if you can guess which one it is? I think it must just be one of those weird coincidences that looks more suspicious than it is when your site is under intense scrutiny on the web. If you click the 'All by this author' link the notorious Stephen...
September 9, 2009
"Where can I find the UKs cheapest cars" - hey, we are number #1 for this really long search phrase!
I've written before about the trend towards asking users to search for a specific phrase in marketing material as an easier way to help users navigate on the web rather than remembering URLs. I just saw an example of it taken to an absolute extreme. In Metro this morning, the strapline for a cargiant.co.uk advert was to 'Just Google it', with the proud boast at the foot of the page: "For the search term 'where can I find the UKs...
July 26, 2009
Phillip Bradshaw, inept senior search consultant and "SEO expert", take a bow!
By writing about the inept SEO approaches I often get, I'm dignifying them with more time than they deserve, but I did enjoy this recent one from Phillip Bradshaw, senior search consultant at bFirst, who seems to have form in this area. "I am writing to inform you that I recently visited your website, www.currybet.net, during a routine survey of web sites which may be capable of higher search engine performance resulting in an increase in online sales. I hope...
July 9, 2009
Michael Jackson and search at The Guardian
With the memorial service over, it looks like we'll now gradually see diminishing amounts of column inches devoted to Michael Jackson. I wanted thought to put down some of my thoughts about what the reaction to his death tells us about search on the Internet, and on news sites. There were a lot of articles looking at the reaction of search engines to the news. This is always one of the cases that fascinates me about the whole problem of...
June 16, 2009
I've got a hunch about 'Hunch' people
You can tell we are going through a mini-revolution in search, because people aren't just launching search engines that aren't Google, they are launching things like 'computational engines' and 'decision engines'. The latter, Hunch, only appeared in the last couple of days. What I really found engaging about it is that as soon as you visit it entices you into playing a game. It is a brilliant way of building up a user profile, and much, much, much more fun...
June 2, 2009
A Google-eye view of the European Elections
A lot of people do their primary research these days using Google as their only gateway to the Internet, and I wondered what they would be finding if they were looking for information on the parties standing for Thursday's European Elections in London. The mainstream parties All of the mainstream party listings in Google are pretty similar. The initial homepage metadata in all cases stresses the name of the party leader. Who says personality politics is dead? The second...
May 7, 2009
The Guardian Open Platform at Endeca's e-Business Forum
I've been posting this week about my visit to Endeca's office in Richmond for the "Endeca e-Business Forum". I went because Endeca were one of the launch partners of The Guardian's Open Platform API, and they power our internal site search engine. The Head of The Guardian's Developer Network, Matt McAlister, was giving the final presentation of the day - a case study about the Open Platform. The Open Platform API The Open Platform API Explorer uses the Endeca engine...
May 6, 2009
Carzone.ie and Euroffice at the Endeca e-Business Forum
Yesterday I posted some of my notes from a trip to Endeca's Richmond office to attend the "Endeca e-Business Forum". They covered Ashley Freidlein's keynote talk about "Beautiful Basics". Today I wanted to look at some of my other notes from the event. Most of the presentations had a dual format, with a presenter from Endeca demonstrating some of the features of the platform, followed by a customer case study of how they had implemented them. It is always intriguing...
April 13, 2009
Web search at the BBC: Extras
Part of the reason for publishing my recent history of the BBC's web search service was because I had unzipped a load of old files on my PC, and discovered the original usability reports. As well as the articles on currybetdotnet, I've also made some material available elsewhere on the net. Presentation On SlideShare you can find a couple of examples of the typical sort of search related presentation I used to give within the BBC in 2003. "BBCi...
April 7, 2009
Web search at the BBC: Part 9 - The end is the beginning is the end
I've been writing a series of posts looking at my memories of the development of the BBC's now discontinued web search service. By 2004, I'd moved on to other things within the BBC. The BBC homepage was re-designed again, this time to reflect another re-brand, from BBCi to BBC.co.uk. At the same time the search box was changed from defaulting to web search to defaulting to site search, with the marketing-driven label: "Explore more than 2 million amazing BBC...
April 6, 2009
Web search at the BBC: Part 8 - Editions of you
I've put together a series of posts looking at how the BBC developed their web search service. During 2002 and 2003 it was a strategic priority for the BBC New Media department, but earlier this year it was shut down. Usability testing at Serco Post-launch, in August 2002, Vincent Helyar & Kate Taylor at Serco produced another user testing report for the BBC about search. Some of their key findings were: The uncluttered layout of results pages was popular...
April 3, 2009
Web search at the BBC: Part 7 - Shake and crawl
I have been writing a series of posts looking at what I remember of the development of the BBC's web search service, which was recently closed. The service was not always well received internally, and it was certainly unpopular in some quarters outside of the BBC. During the time that the BBC offered web search it used four different technology partners. The initial contract was with Google, and they were replaced as search provider by Inktomi. Inktomi were subsequently...
April 2, 2009
Web search at the BBC: Part 6 - TV on the radio
Over the last week or so I've been writing up my recollections of the BBC's web search, which was launched in the early part of this decade. In January, having survived both a 2004 DCMS and a 2008 BBC Trust review, Seetha Kumar announced that it was finally being removed from BBC Online. Today I want to look at how the BBC marketed the ability to search the web from bbc.co.uk. Television marketing The web search service initially had...
March 31, 2009
Web search at the BBC: Part 5 - The path of least resistance
I've been writing up my recollections of the development, rise and fall of the web search provided by the BBC site. I worked on it in the earlier part of this decade, but in January this year the BBC finally shut the service down. It had never been popular internally. Between 2002 and 2004 the BBCi homepage had web search as one of the main features above the fold. Having the external search service up-front-and-centre in that way was...
March 30, 2009
Web search at the BBC: Part 4 - Glass onion
In recent years the BBC website was also a place where you could, perhaps rather unexpectedly, search the web using the BBC's search service. In January this year it was discontinued, and so I thought it might be a good time to review the development, rise and fall of the service. Today I'm looking at a period when searching the web became one of the dominant features on the BBC's homepage. In splendid isolation in basements in Bush House...
March 27, 2009
Web search at the BBC: Part 3 - Centerfield
The BBC recently shut down the web search option it used to have on bbc.co.uk, and so I thought it might be an appropriate time to look at the rise and fall of searching the web using the BBC. Over the last couple of days I've been looking at some of the user-testing carried out by the Corporation in 2001 prior to launching the service. Photo courtesy of Beatnic At this stage the BBC's New Media department was housed...
March 26, 2009
Web search at the BBC: Part 2 - Over the horizon radar
This year the BBC has withdrawn the Corporation's web search service that I worked on for several years at the turn of the century. Yesterday I started a series of posts looking at the history of how it was developed, including some screenshots of design that were user-tested with Flow Interactive in August 2001. A second iteration of testing was carried out a month later, and by now the design of the search results had begun to take a...
