Thread: Google's new caffeine

As you may know Google is making changes to the search engine. Apparently they see the emergence of other search engines like Microsoft's Bing (which is in fact quite interesting) or real-time search tools in Twitter as possible candidates for google's current search engine dismissal.

Personally that's not what troubles me. I don't use twitter and Bing just doesn't offer enough yet to justify a switch. But instead, what annoys me about google is the lack of an ability to categorize the search results list or some annoying side-effects of the PageRank, like a almost complete total inability to access the homepage of a simple shareware product that is being offered all around through download websites.

Anyways, the preview can be accessed here: Google (looks identical and it is identical. It's the engine that has changed).
An independent test can be seen here: Google Caffeine: A Detailed Test of the New Google

The test doesn't really bring much out. In fact I'm not even sure of some of the parameters (how useful it really is to go from 50 million to 300 million search results?). The speed increase is from a user standpoint rather useless also and only of importance to google.

I put it to my own testing. Basically I just wanted to see if my annoyances are addressed.

1. Categorized search results. Non existing. We still have -- and probably will have for a long time until someone tries another Cuil. But does it right this time -- a shopping list search results that is becoming increasingly passé and hard to handle.

2. Contextual relevance. Promising! I couldn't think for the life of me of a good example like so many I have encountered in the past. So I went into SnapFiles and started hunting down for a shareware/freeware product that once searched on Google would list a bunch of download sites before showing the product homepage. Sometimes even only on the second or third page. As I don't have much patience for these type of things (I'm no reviewer for pete's sake!) I was happy to find the first thing that showed a difference. "Cartoonist" is some image editing software. I typed "Cartoonist software" in the search box of both engines and on the new google, the homepage for the product came up first, whereas on the old google it came second! As I keep surfing the web I'll keep a lookout for these situations and make sure when I find something more relevant, I'll give it a shot on the new search engine. But this indeed looks promising!

The speed increase is from a user standpoint rather useless also and only of importance to google.

Agreed. I figure the speed of my computer being able to render the search results and the speed of my network connection is much more of a bottleneck than Google's ability to complete a search. So I don't see much point in hype about "search engines getting even faster".

Categorized search results. Non existing.

Categorized in what way? I've never seen a search engine that categorizes search results.

I typed "Cartoonist software" in the search box of both engines and on the new google, the homepage for the product came up first, whereas on the old google it came second!

The homepage for the product (assuming it is Cartoonist - Overview) came up second for me on both the new google and the old google.

Microsoft's Bing (which is in fact quite interesting)

What do you find interesting about Bing? It looks like just another search engine to me...I don't see anything it has to offer that I don't already have on Google, but maybe you know more than I do on the subject.

Originally Posted by DavidP

What do you find interesting about Bing? It looks like just another search engine to me...I don't see anything it has to offer that I don't already have on Google, but maybe you know more than I do on the subject.

I think he means the image search.

Originally Posted by DavidP

Categorized in what way? I've never seen a search engine that categorizes search results.

Precisely.
But there are. Check Cuil or even Bing. You can further refine your search or search for related topics by using intelligently generated category listings based on your search term on the side bars. Search for instance for John Travolta.

Cuil does a much better job at generating categories out of search terms. But is not so good at producing results from said categories.

What do you find interesting about Bing? It looks like just another search engine to me...I don't see anything it has to offer that I don't already have on Google

Well, that's what I said.
I find it interesting because while Microsoft always got it wrong, it finally got it right with Bing. It rivals google in performance and results relevancy. At least from where I stand. However, there's really not much that makes it interesting. Sure, there is the quick preview feature which allows you to peek at the website contents before clicking, or a category listing sidebar for many search terms, or even the xRank features. But it's just not enough. To be fair it is all still in beta. So I wouldn't be surprised if Bing may displace Google in the near future. Just not yet.

Originally Posted by abachler

One should learn to use a tool properly before judging its usefulness.

Really? How nice of you to say so...

Originally Posted by maxorator

I think he means the image search.

Anyone tried TinEye for image searching? It doesn't search by name but by content; so if you have a small or low quality version of an image, you can search the web for variations of that image. Looks like it even finds subsections of larger images or photoshopped versions.
I wonder how long it takes until google comes up with something similar

Originally Posted by Nyda

Anyone tried TinEye for image searching? It doesn't search by name but by content; so if you have a small or low quality version of an image, you can search the web for variations of that image.

Oh sure but I notice it does not support animated gifs!

Pretty clever tho. I just found all the forums with people that use the "Steal Your Face" logo as their avatar. Very fast, nice and simple -- but alas, the Adult Forest Fairy produced no results :P

Originally Posted by Nyda

I wonder how long it takes until google comes up with something similar

They do already for sometime. The advanced search is possible because of such things as the Google Image Labeler.

Originally Posted by Mario F.

They do already for sometime. The advanced search is possible because of such things as the Google Image Labeler.

This is not the same at all. The TinEye allows you to upload an image, eg, this is a 55x55 "Steal Your Face" logo; you upload it, as you would an attachment, and the search results returned are all the matches -- it is not word or label based at all. I suspect the images have to be nearly identical, but it includes much bigger, higher resolution ones. So, for example, if I wanted a 800x800 version of the same image, I might be able to find it there. Also, I think paletted formats like gif will match to RGB formats like jpeg, so you could find higher quality versions with more color, etc.

Could come in pretty useful at some point, but it is not for finding something based on a description; you have to have the image already to submit. It is very easy to use and as I said the engine is wickedly fast considering they claim to have more than a billion images charted. Take 30 seconds and try it.

Oh, I see. Nice indeed!

Originally Posted by MK27

I suspect the images have to be nearly identical, but it includes much bigger, higher resolution ones.

I haven't seen any false positives yet, but it can find even photoshopped images, or images with text on it, i.e. when used as a book/magazine-cover.

Look what it came up with for your signature: 27 results - TinEye (TinEye says this link will only work for 72 hours)

An interesting match from their blog: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2458/...08d50879d7.jpg

Originally Posted by Nyda

Look what it came up with for your signature: 27 results - TinEye

Yeah, it's pretty well done. (That's Tony Hawk in a loop, and Haley Joel Osment in "AI", respectfully). I went thru those links tho, and a lot of them either no longer exist, or the image is no longer on the page. Dunno how often they update the database; I have it my head from somewhere that it takes google 3 weeks to work it's way thru the web and catalogue a page twice, and they probably don't have those resources. However, since it does deliver the alternate images, I guess the purpose is served, whether or not the source has changed.

The images must be sorted in some kind of branching order, like a binary tree, since it obviously is not comparing all 1 billion of them. Again: very fast.

TinEye is indeed very good. But it failed on my search. Looks like its still growing.Tried lookin for the following image. Knew its pretty rare to find. But couldn't find and gave up. I guess this is something really very uniqe i've come across so far.

Originally Posted by ssharish2005

Knew its pretty rare to find. But couldn't find and gave up. I guess this is something really very uniqe i've come across so far.

I feel I am being teased.