Wikipedia in Search Results

I’m going to be a smartass and point out the flatness of Google-type searching in the first place. I can see how Wikipedia could be an authority on Discworld in the sense that it probably has links and (often) unbiased information. But, I can also see the silliness of having Pratchett’s site rank lower.

There can be justifiable cases for each of these options, but ultimately it depends entirely on what the user (is there such a thing as ’searchee’?) is looking for. Therein lies the problem. I say down with the flat list that creates issues such as this one!

Sorry, I know that’s not what you were asking. To give you a straight answer I’d have to say that Pratchett should rank higher .. if his page is informative.

Just to add a little more mostly-irrelevant-fuel to the fire: I’m sure you’re already aware, but most “average” users click the first search result that comes up — in this case, they’d have ended up at Wikipedia — and only go further down the results if the first link doesn’t give what they want. (Don’t have a source for this, but it’s widely quoted. I bet it’s on Nielsen’s site somewhere.)

I’m not sure what impact that might have on the question of Wikipedia appearing as the first result (I see it a lot too, particularly for linguistics terms) but it’s worth noting.

I am Searchor, the Beast from Google-Fu!

Okay, that wasn’t funny. I read somewhere this was one of the reasons Google came up with its own user-generated knowledge base KNOL. And perhaps that why Jimmy Wales came up with his search engine Wikia? In any case, there’s some serious rummaging behind the scenes going on.

Google itself is of course infamously silent when it comes to PR. You can download the entire mathematical outline to it (forgot where, it’s on my del.icio.us somewhere) but they don’t have a simple FAQ about it. SEO sites are classically as confusing. So who knows?

Know what I did find out only recently though? PageRank ™ is named after Larry himself. Honestly, I never knew that.

I think as a historian Josh, you place importance on origin. Pratchett’s novels came before the wiki about them, therefore you judge that the works should supersede the commentary about them. (Can’t really be any other way as we haven’t invented time travel). The search results don’t bare this out and it annoys… me anyway.

At least that’s what gets me about this issue.

How would you display search results, if programming limitations weren’t an issue?

I’d like more flexibility in what is returned and how it’s shown. I can imagine lists being involved; but I could also imagine the dreamy scenario of telling a search engine in natural language that you need ‘Information about Discworld plots, including some reviews and fan-art’ and getting a results specifically tailored for you; in a a similar way a human would return it to you if you asked one to do research. Of course, that would require the comp. to be able to have more information on the context — just as a human would. But it wouldn’t have to be mindreading though

Ironically, poking around at both Wikipedia and Pratchett’s site, it seems that Wikipedia actually is more informative than Pratchett’s site.

With Google, knowledge reigns supreme when it comes to ranking! I haven’t read the Discworld novels, even though I’ve heard good things. Would you recommend them (for people over 20)?

Hey, Hrafn, that’s a great question: what would be better search, say for students, or people preparing an article? Google could then deliver you a “package” of relevant results and highlight the excerpts that work best for you. I see Ajax-y pop ups (don’t worry, I see those everywhere, even on the bus).

Oh, and Josh, I’m preparing a post about Nazis. About time I’d say. Anyway, so far, I’ve had Wikipedia pop up all over the place. In a way, I’d just have to collate.

People are afraid to search these days. Makes me wonder how people come up with these cool posts for their tumblelogs and all. That has to involve some deep and specific queries…