Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
this will return the answer at the top of the page.
also
"who is the pope"
Soon enough google wont need publishers, they will just answer everything themself.
Google today began delivering factual answers for some queries at the top of its results page to save users from having to navigate over to other sites and look for the information.
[pcworld.com...]
Google feeds this service with information from Web sites it considers reliable, but it hasn't established formal relationships with any content provider whose information is being used for this feature, Norvig says. Google doesn't expect that the owners of the Web sites will complain over the possibility that this new service will steal traffic away from them, Norvig says. On the contrary, being featured at the top of Google's results list will give these Web sites great exposure, and will likely result in increased traffic, he says.
also: [google.com...]
Type population of countryname and you'll see a reference to the CIA factbook. (again a poor choice of sources)
you'll see a reference to the CIA factbook. (again a poor choice of sources)
Why is it a poor choice?
Curveball.
the CIA factbook. (again a poor choice of sources)
lmao
Also type in
Quest: who is tony blair
Answer: studied law at Oxford and practiced law until 1983, when he was elected as member of Parliament from
and
Quest: where is iraq
Answer Middle East, bordering the Persian Gulf, between Iran and Kuwait
How much of Iraqis between Iran and Kuwait.
Oh well a lot of homework marked wrong over the next few days :)
Is this in response to MSN using Encarta?
OK - I am sure that people can pick relevant results to answer too :)
[edited by: Dayo_UK at 8:41 pm (utc) on April 8, 2005]
Not the best debut - but lets see how it develops.
Have you thought about my suggestion or given up hope?
Web definitions for Windows: A window is a graphic, usually rectangular in shape, containing either some kind of graphical interface, or a textual representation, of the output of and allowing input for one of a number of simultaneously running computer processes.
Google swallowed the red pill.
Answers seem to be a bit different.
yeah, how do they get away with that? I see a copyright photo that I took on Google Images. They just lifted it from my site! lol
Google needs to complete one task, fix bugs, before creating another mess.
C
Now if google wanted to pony up 10+ cents everytime they get the privilage to use my data I might agree to that, but their just going to take it?
<snip>
[edited by: lawman at 11:53 am (utc) on April 9, 2005]
[edit reason] TOS 26 [/edit]
type in "who is the prime minister of britain" and the answer at the top is Margaret Thatcher!
I love this - *I* type it in and it's John Major...
It doesn't tell you the answer, it tells you your innermost fears...
This is altogether much more eerie!
DerekH
That said, I don't have results prior to the introduction of the feature to compare, but I'm guessing that the feature is more likely to generate traffic than to reduce it to the sites referenced.
As for some sites that may be losing traffic because the facts from other sites are at the top, that's no different than many other algo and display changes.
My site is regional and I spend a lot of time and money keeping accurate records of all sorts of local data.
twist - I'm sympathetic to this point of view, if the new Facts feature is displacing you for queries on which you would otherwise rank. I'm curious about whether this actually happens. On the searches I ran, I didn't see anything like this. The Facts sites returned weren't in the top 10 or whatever for the queries that brought them up. Probably, there will be some overlap, but I didn't see it, even on searches with "facts" in the query.
For instance, what if in the future when someone types "town name" into the search, it pulls all the data from my site like; address, directions, local websites, parks, shopping, schools, areas of interest, brief history, zipcode and whatever else. What reason is left for people to come to my site?
I understand that this is all speculation and can be dismissed as nothing more than that, but if you think about it, what is stopping them from pulling more and more information from peoples website without their permission?
Just because they can do it legally doesn't make it right.
What's interesting is that the information from Wikipedia is probably reprintable and the information from the CIA is, I think, reprintable (because it's from a government entity, anyone can reprint it). Anybody find information that's come from a copyrighted source?
For instance, what if in the future when someone types "town name" into the search, it pulls all the data from my site like; address, directions, local websites, parks, shopping, schools, areas of interest, brief history, zipcode and whatever else. What reason is left for people to come to my site?
Just like the example I've given of how you can get information out of Google snippets without ever visiting the web page of the site the snippet is from (for example, if you want a local restaurant's phone number, just type in the name and the area code and the number is almost guaranteed to be in the snippets -- no reason to visit the site it's on).
Well, the governor of state of Virginia and the senior U.S. Senator of the state of Virginia have the same name.
Google picked the Senator. Confusing, eh? But, heck, we're confused about it here all of the time, too.
I'm a Google fan, but this feature stinks.
There is also a great difference between providing snippets that contain the search terms, and parsing out related content to re-publish. Dangerous grounds on many levels IMO for all Search Engines that do this, not only Google.
Search Engines should point the way, not attempt to provide definitive answers.
Onya
Woz
Now if google wanted to pony up 10+ cents everytime they get the privilage to use my data I might agree to that, but [they're] just going to take it?
Only if you let them index your site. Bounce away googlebot and you never have to worry about your information showing up on ANY Google search.
cEM
