|
Google eyes better news searches
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Google is planning to improve online news searches.
A patent filed in the US will allow stories to be ranked
according to their quality, rather than just by relevance.
The patent would create a system to compare the track record and
credibility of different news sources, New Scientist magazine has
reported.
The database would weigh up a series of variables, including story
length, number of staff employed and amount of traffic to its website.
Issue of subjectivity
Currently Google News will provide thousands of results, based
on relevance to the keyword entered.
More recent stories will rank highest.
The system means a news story written by trusted sources such as
the BBC or CNN could be outranked by a more obscure publication
if the latter is a more current story.
Online searching has become a hotly-contested area on the internet
with Google, Ask Jeeves, MSN and Yahoo all competing for hearts
and minds.
"Google is constantly thriving for better relevance in its
searching and anything that improves the user experience is a good
thing," said Julian Smith, an analyst with Jupiter Research.
There could, however, be issues about how the quality of different
news sources is decided, as quality is a far more subjective notion
than the current parameters of date and relevance, he said.
|
