How a Search Engine Might Assume a Query Implies a Site Search

Google has a number of special search operators that you can use in a search to specialize your searches.
One of those special search operators is the “site” operator, which allows you to restrict your searches to a specific domain or website if you use a special “site” command (or operator).
A newly granted patent from Google may assume that a searcher would like to see results from search of a specific site as well as search results from other pages on the Web. The patent attempts to make up for typical searchers who may fail to use the “site” operator in their searches. As the patent tells us:
Some search engines permit a user to restrict a search to a set of related documents, such as documents associated with the same web site, by including special characters or terms in the search query. Oftentimes, however, users forget to include these special characters/terms or do not know about them.
The process behind this patent looks for what the inventors call “entities” as part of the search query. An entity can be “anything that can be tagged as being associated with certain documents.” For example, entitles can include:
• News sources,
• Online stores,
• Product categories,
• Brands or manufacturers,
• Specific product models,
• Condition (such as new, used, refurbished, etc.),
• Authors,
• Artists,
• People,
• Places, and;
• Organizations.
Some entity names are unambiguous and unique, while many others are somewhat ambiguous or generic. If an entity name can be identified, a searcher’s query might be rewritten based upon that entity name. That rewritten query may become part of the search results shown to a searcher, or a link to “site” search results may be provided.
The entity names may be found on the Web in directories, in lists, and in other places, and may be associated with a particular set of pages.

On May 30, 1:31*pm, Sanjidgc33
wrote:
Google has a number of special search operators that you can use in a
search to specialize your searches.
One of those special search operators is the “site” operator, which
allows you to restrict your searches to a specific domain or website if
you use a special “site” command (or operator).
A newly granted patent from Google may assume that a searcher would
like to see results from search of a specific site as well as search
results from other pages on the Web. The patent attempts to make up for
typical searchers who may fail to use the “site” operator in their
searches. As the patent tells us:
Some search engines permit a user to restrict a search to a set of
related documents, such as documents associated with the same web site,
by including special characters or terms in the search query.
Oftentimes, however, users forget to include these special
characters/terms or do not know about them.
The process behind this patent looks for what the inventors call
“entities” as part of the search query. An entity can be “anything that
can be tagged as being associated with certain documents.” For example,
entitles can include:
• * * News sources,
• * * Online stores,
• * * Product categories,
• * * Brands or manufacturers,
• * * Specific product models,
• * * Condition (such as new, used, refurbished, etc.),
• * * Authors,
• * * Artists,
• * * People,
• * * Places, and;
• * * Organizations.
Some entity names are unambiguous and unique, while many others are
somewhat ambiguous or generic. If an entity name can be identified, a
searcher’s query might be rewritten based upon that entity name. That
rewritten query may become part of the search results shown to a
searcher, or a link to “site” search results may be provided.
The entity names may be found on the Web in directories, in lists, and
in other places, and may be associated with a particular set of pages.

This is fascinating stuff, but I wonder why it is posted to csiphc and
only to csiphc.

I'm fairly liberal about wandering off-topic, whether it's me doing
the wandering or someone else, but I'm wondering about the underlying
assumptions about who reads this (now nearly dead) newsgroup.

I tend to stay away from software groups because the conversation
tends more quickly to become ideological and nasty; e.g.

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/0...ent?art_pos=18

I recently stumbled into an unwanted flame war, with the flamers being
(as is invariably the case) software developers who don't appear to be
interested in hardware at all, except as it affects their interactions
on developer lists and such.

I was using the word "flame" in a much more exact sense before there
was an Internet to use it on and before most of these flamers were
born, so I don't exactly appreciate the condescension.

Most people like me who have been around for a while have gravitated
to groups that self-police or that focus on some topic (e.g. Fortran)
that the young hip-shooters consider to be passé. Hardware groups
where people who are smart and who actually *do* big picture hardware
for a living hang out are one refuge. Some from here wandered onto
that turf and discovered that, in some places, there really are rules.

It would be nice if there were still a place for people to ramble
about hardware without having to worry about being (however subtly)
cut to pieces by people who actually do big picture hardware it for a
living and who know far more than their teensy little bit of self-
important turf. Even professors who teach the stuff step carefully
around people like that. No such constraint here, leaving the field
to flamers.

On a more positive note, this interesting off-topic post was made to
this group probably because of some (positive) assumptions about who
hangs out here. What are they, I wonder?

Robert.

Robert Myers wrote:
On May 30, 1:31 pm, Sanjidgc33
wrote:

Google has a number of special search operators that you can use in a
search to specialize your searches.
One of those special search operators is the “site” operator, which
allows you to restrict your searches to a specific domain or website if
you use a special “site” command (or operator).
A newly granted patent from Google may assume that a searcher would
like to see results from search of a specific site as well as search
results from other pages on the Web. The patent attempts to make up for
typical searchers who may fail to use the “site” operator in their
searches. As the patent tells us:
Some search engines permit a user to restrict a search to a set of
related documents, such as documents associated with the same web site,
by including special characters or terms in the search query.
Oftentimes, however, users forget to include these special
characters/terms or do not know about them.
The process behind this patent looks for what the inventors call
“entities” as part of the search query. An entity can be “anything that
can be tagged as being associated with certain documents.” For example,
entitles can include:
• News sources,
• Online stores,
• Product categories,
• Brands or manufacturers,
• Specific product models,
• Condition (such as new, used, refurbished, etc.),
• Authors,
• Artists,
• People,
• Places, and;
• Organizations.
Some entity names are unambiguous and unique, while many others are
somewhat ambiguous or generic. If an entity name can be identified, a
searcher’s query might be rewritten based upon that entity name. That
rewritten query may become part of the search results shown to a
searcher, or a link to “site” search results may be provided.
The entity names may be found on the Web in directories, in lists, and
in other places, and may be associated with a particular set of pages.


This is fascinating stuff, but I wonder why it is posted to csiphc and
only to csiphc.

I'm fairly liberal about wandering off-topic, whether it's me doing
the wandering or someone else, but I'm wondering about the underlying
assumptions about who reads this (now nearly dead) newsgroup.

I tend to stay away from software groups because the conversation
tends more quickly to become ideological and nasty; e.g.

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/0...ent?art_pos=18

I recently stumbled into an unwanted flame war, with the flamers being
(as is invariably the case) software developers who don't appear to be
interested in hardware at all, except as it affects their interactions
on developer lists and such.

I was using the word "flame" in a much more exact sense before there
was an Internet to use it on and before most of these flamers were
born, so I don't exactly appreciate the condescension.

Most people like me who have been around for a while have gravitated
to groups that self-police or that focus on some topic (e.g. Fortran)
that the young hip-shooters consider to be passé. Hardware groups
where people who are smart and who actually *do* big picture hardware
for a living hang out are one refuge. Some from here wandered onto
that turf and discovered that, in some places, there really are rules.

It would be nice if there were still a place for people to ramble
about hardware without having to worry about being (however subtly)
cut to pieces by people who actually do big picture hardware it for a
living and who know far more than their teensy little bit of self-
important turf. Even professors who teach the stuff step carefully
around people like that. No such constraint here, leaving the field
to flamers.

On a more positive note, this interesting off-topic post was made to
this group probably because of some (positive) assumptions about who
hangs out here. What are they, I wonder?

Robert.

Silly me. I assumed this was normal spam from some guy who wrote a
script to post it to one group at a time to evade the "crosspost
filters" that some folks use.

Although I confess I don't see the point of the post either as data or
spam.

del

On Jun 1, 9:56*pm, Del Cecchi` wrote:

Silly me. *I assumed this was normal spam from some guy who wrote a
script to post it to one group at a time to evade the "crosspost
filters" that some folks use.

Although I confess I don't see the point of the post either as data or
spam.


Maybe I've been spending too much time with slashdot firehose. The
purported patent is a business method patent as well as a software
patent, both of which have been fairly hot topics. On the bare face
of it, it also looks like google doing what it said it would not do;
which is to say, being evil.

Robert.