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[ogormask]

Google announced yesterday that they are rolling out semantic searches as well as providing a longer snippet in results. You can see some examples in the link. I dont think it has rolled out everywhere yet because their example does not work for me but it still is some pretty big news.

http://googleblog.bl...le-results.html

[rolf]

Sounds very interesting.

I've heard the odd thing about Tim Berners-Lee's 'Semantic web', which sounds like a great idea, but this is the first time I've seen anyone imply that they may have cracked it - good on them if they have. I wonder if the technology would port to TBL's idea across the whole web and how that would work?

I also wonder how they're going to deal with users who require a non-semantic search, such as someone who is searching for 'blue size 12 lederhosen' and doesn't want to see green size 14 trousers. I'm sure there will be a simple option for switching it on/off, but G may have to choose between a) on by default but something thing that the average user doesn't understand so they find that sometimes their searches bring back lots of things they don't want to see or b )off by default and the average user doesn't understand it so they never use it - neither of which is ideal.

I suppose there is a third option of G trying to work out when it is appropriate to use it - but that could be a whole other can of worms in itself.

I will watch the progress with great interest.