How Good Are You At Internet Search?

Image from Maximum PC

From The Wall Street Journal:

Microsoft’s efforts to catch Google in Internet search may not just hinge on its ability to build a better search engine. It may depend on how good people are at using search engines.

In an internal memo published on All Things D, a Microsoft search executive wrote that the company is ready to test a new search engine, codenamed “kumo.” He then outlined the problem that the new search engine is supposed to address:

“In spite of the progress made by search engines, 40% of queries go unanswered; half of queries are about searchers returning to previous tasks; and 46% of search sessions are longer than 20 minutes. These and many other learnings suggest that customers often don’t find what they need from search today.”

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Search Engine With Roots In Genomics Unlocks Deep Web

From Wired/Epicenter:

A research-focused search engine founded by Human Genome Project scientists is claiming to go where even Google doesn't tread: the deep web.

DeepDyve is designed to search the 99 percent (they say, citing a study from UC Berkeley) of hits not picked up by other search engines, which return pages based largely on interpretations of popularity and work only if a page is findable. Content hidden behind paywalls or that is not linked to enough sites to gain page rank remains obscure, but often contains the source material required for serious research.

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Google Continued To Gain U.S. Search Share In July

From Information Week:

Google increased its share by a small amount, while Yahoo and Microsoft had small decreases, according to ComScore.

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) continues to gain search market share in the United States at the expense of its rivals.

In July, according to Internet metrics firm ComScore, Americans conducted 11.8 billion searches at core search engines, a 2% increase from June.

Google sites accounted for 61.9% of July searches, an increase of 0.4 percentage points from the previous month. Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) sites accounted for 20.5%, a decrease of 0.4 percentage points. And Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) sites accounted for 8.9%, a decrease of 0.3 percentage points.

In numerical terms, Google handled almost 7.3 billion core searches (a 2% increase). Yahoo processed 2.4 billion, and Microsoft fielded 1 billion.

Ask Network and AOL saw search market share increases of 0.2 and 0.1 percentage points respectively, giving them 4.5% and 4.2% of U.S. searches for the month of July.

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