tedster - 7:31 am on Aug 21, 2000 (gmt 0)

That's intersting, Brett. You mean some of the same people are working with both companies?

DH and Teragram do seem to be interested in the same questions: "What did that search query really mean? What answers do the searchers seem to like?" DH goes about it by tracking actual search records and Teragram works to solve it upfront by pulling language apart. The two approaches would be a good fit.

Teragram site says they do context-sensitive spelling programs, stemming software, and HTML parsing for text extraction at a rate of 50,000 words per second (whew!). I can see where Alta might have some use for this stuff.

If searches are moved into the realm of meaning, rather than just matching character strings, the search engine becomes a very different critter. SEO becomes much more like writing clear and direct copy and much less like playing "Guess the Algorithm".

I think there's a very good chance that this is evolution is well underway, and that this is what makes search results seem so inscrutible at times.