I do not know about you, but I have been a victim of search engine ambiguity. I have searched for certain things online and at times the results came up of something completely out of topic. Search engines tend to come up with results that are most popular searches, or with the most "hits". For example, if you search the word "twister", what comes up first is the 1999 movie and then the game! How would the search engine know what I am trying to search? The possibilities could be endless.
In the article "How Search Engines Might Interpret Ambiguous Queries Through Entity Tags" by Slawski states that whether you use a small amount of words or too many words when searching can be a problem for the engine to find the best results based on what you are trying to look for. He goes on to say that for the engine to understand best your "query" would be to be as specific as possible--I'm paraphrasing. For example, speech/language in general is ambiguous as we may have learned in several Linguistics and Speech courses. It is understandable, that a computer can misinterpret your "query" because words and phrases can mean so many things.
The solution to ambiguity? dis-am-big-uaty/ish? You know what I mean!
The more specific you are, the better your results would be (hopefully). The search engines uses these things called "tags" to try and identify your search. I have had experience using "tags" on Etsy.com where people buy and sell hand made products. I use to own a shop at Etsy and in order to get more views/results for your products, you would have to put as many tags as possible so that people will easily find your product. For example, If you are trying to sell a painting you would use tags that would describe your painting in any way shape or form. The purpose behind "tagging" or "tags" is to identify your query with as many things possible that might relate to it.
"Our Pattern-detecting Brain"
LLast, Lee writes in his article "SEO Ambiguity & Pattern Recognotion" that our brains searches for patterns, this is called "Paternicity". Consequently, Lee writes that our brains are hard wired for this and because of this we are prone to errors. There two types of errors he mentions, Type 1 and Type 2. Type 1 error is when our brain believes patterns that aren't really there and type 2 is when our brains do not believe patterns, when the are truly there. So how does that relate to technology today? Well, technology has "tremendous advances toward algorithms that use pattern recognition effectively". In other words, technology is wired to detect patterns more effectively than our brains are wired to do. Therefore, it responds to ambiguous situations better than out brains. That is my understanding. Have any thoughts, experiences or understanding on thee topics?
In terms of search engines, it’s always been suggested to be as specific as possible. That way, you won’t be inundated with so many results that have absolutely nothing in common with what you are searching for.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of “patternicity” seems is quite interesting. Type 2 (we don’t believe a pattern is real when it is), is similar to when we say that something sounds too good to be true. We automatically doubt its validity, even when it’s obvious.
In terms of tags, I use them a lot too (for one of my journalism classes, where we have to write small blog articles). The main thing that you have to be aware with tags is that you must use them in the correct way. I’ve noticed that some blogs/articles use tags from all over the place, a few having nothing in common with what they’re writing about. Of course, all they want is the most hits possible, which in turn makes their page more popular and perhaps even increases their chances of appearing higher in a search result.
When it comes to technology being able to respond to ambiguous situations better than our brains, I would’ve thought that technology would’ve been the exact opposite. Because there are many possible answers, technology would need more specifics in order to fully understand the situation/idea/etc. Maybe this just shows how much technology has improved/evolved?
For search engines, I agree with being very careful and to play close attention to writing exactly what you want to know. Include words and phrases that are included in your topic. For example, when I was using the google search engine today, I was looking for the phonology of lebanese Arabic, so I searched for dissertations, books, and articles on this topic. If I were to put my search just as "phonology of Lebanese Arabic," I would get results from all over the place. It makes sense to be very specific, that way you get what you want, not what a search engine thinks is most popular or convinient.
ReplyDeleteTagging is the best way for someone to promote their product, especially if it is meant to sell their product. I have seen tagging in hashtags as well as tagging people in a photo. Sometimes tagging someone is not ideal especially if they're being evaluated by people for a job or a description.
I believe that everyone has been a victim of search engine ambiguity. Technology has become a filter for everything. The fact that we have the ability to type "sex" on Google, and get 837,000,000 results in 0.22 seconds is actually pretty revolutionary.
ReplyDeleteSpeech/language (in general) is heavily context bound. Because of this, it gives us the ability to understand gestural ques, and others with thicker accents who may have pronounced a word incorrectly. In English (specifically), words have more than one meaning, and (some) are spelled differently than what they sound. Just this week I caught myself spelling "fault" as "faught", and totally Googled my made-up word when it didn't look right. Since search engines are forms of artificial intelligence, active users of engines like Yahoo, Bing, and Google unconsciously and automatically expect to find what they're looking for while searching for whatever. Nowadays, we're getting so accustomed to this lifestyle that we're loosing sense on what actual research is (without explanation or validity).
As for tags, I like them. Tags create a non-anonymous self that increases our self-esteem. Due to the fact that humans are VERY narcissistic, acknowledgement of something that is meant to be lost later becoming known by others is truly satisfying.
Doing search on the internet is not easy. When you type a word on the search engine, the result provides you everything that relates to the word or words you typed in. What you have to do is to go through all of them to find the one that matches what you are looking for. I think the search engine offers the result based on the popularity, like what people usually look for when they type in the word. After that, it will assume all or most of the users are looking for the same thing.
ReplyDeleteSearch results sometimes are generated based on the users' browsing history, According to Slawski's article. For example, if you use Google Chrome when surfing internet, Google actually records your browsing history. Then, when you perform searching on Google, it gives you the result based on your record. It guesses what your preference is.
Obviously, the more key words you provide, the more specific results will be given. If possible, we can perform an advanced search, in which give as much information as possible so the search engine has an idea what exactly you are looking for and you will be provided appropriate result.
"SEO ambiguity & Pattern Recognition" was an interesting article. It seems that our brains always wants to make patterns. To my understanding SEO is a technique for websites to improve their ranking in a google search. Lee mentions two types of errors, Type 1 and Type 2 in the article.This leads me to mention statistic correlation, when two set of data occur together in a way not expected on the basis of chance alone and causation there is a link but it's a cause and effect. He says "If you assume a home page title tag change will not impact rankings on other pages, the potential risk of this decision may result in a Type 2 error." One might think that if I edit my website site then it must go up on the rankings. However, there might be the Type 1 error where in fact maybe another website linked his website a reference.Maybe once people try to hack the google algorithm we won't have to wonder how can we make our website on top of the list.
ReplyDeleteWhen searching for something on google you might think of the "key words" (tags) of your search. The sites that will be pop up will be most likely relevant to your search. The tags are made to qualify a website but sometimes people put plenty of tags on their website and want their website to pop up anyway! So yes, I believe being very specific is key when searching on a search engine just to make sure it gets it right.
After reading the articles assigned this week, I can say I have a better understanding of how search engines works. I personally visit Google at least 5 times a day so I have alot of experience with google. I tend to type in teverything you can think of just to get the best meanings possible. I once had a teacher that said "when in doubt Google."
ReplyDeleteBut what this article How a Search Engine Might Interpret Ambiguous Queries through Entity Tags basically explained is to be a little more specific with search engines. We also need to remember many companies pay Google to be a top hit. I am pretty sure if someone even types in the slightest word into google that relates to or sound similar to a person, place or thing the top hit is going to come up.
Youtube's search engine also reminds me of google's search engine. For example I'll type in how to curl long hair and my results vary from how to curl tight or loose curls on long hair and the list goes no. Oh and lets not forget the top search which would be videos by the paid youtuber first. I may even find videos on washing hair if the owner decided to put a curly hair tag on the video.