Comments on: Wikia Evolution To Help Suck Search Data From Google, Yahoo

By: Jian

Jian — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:13:10 +0000

Sorry it doesn’t work for me. Wikia hasn’t really come up with a better query relevancy algorithm compared to google page rank.

So far, in the search space, other than page rank, there is no disruptive ranking algorithm/technology yet.

So, I am afraid that google will be around for a long time.

By: David Mackey

David Mackey — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:12:58 +0000

I want to believe in Wikia…I tried it and added some results. Its a cool concept…But for now I use Scour. Why? Because Scour has better results by mashing their results together from several engines….And even Scour I’m not using that much b/c it doesn’t remember my votes (visibly) the next time I search, it doesn’t remove sites I don’t like from my visible results, etc.

By: Adam Edwards

Adam Edwards — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:50:46 +0000

I doubt other engines flat out steal results like this as it doesn’t seem to be very efficient in the face of massive algorithms (regardless of the legality aspect). However, I would be equally surprised if search engineers didn’t compare results between different engines on occasion. It’s quality assurance.

By: Setfive - Talking to the World » Blog Archive » Launched Wikia Evolution!

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:30:44 +0000

[...] http://www.tech...m-google-yahoo/ [...]

By: Matt Johnson

Matt Johnson — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:28:34 +0000

Its definitely better, human-powered search really hasn't proven itself, yet but they keep going forward. As Calacanis said, "[Wikia Search] is a lot of talk. They have a grub crawler. It's nothing special really, it's just crawling the Web. But, it has potential. Open-source projects have potential." He then says that even Jimmy Wales would say their results are terrible. But Jason, what about Mahalo?

By: Markus

Markus — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 04:54:15 +0000

Am I the only one that sees this for what it is – results scraping?

By: Markus

Markus — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 04:49:37 +0000

Got any evidence to back up that wild assertion?

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 04:06:26 +0000

To Markus…it’s not lame seeding their database this way…I bet Google/Yahoo did similar stuff that was never public…

By: Omri Joram

Omri Joram — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 04:06:08 +0000

I installed it. It seems to tel Wikia about a page you like and inserts it into the search term you searched for in google. Doesn’t seem very evil, actually seems quite clever.

By: Markus

Markus — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:58:09 +0000

Yeah but using Google/Yahoo SERP’s to seed their database is pretty lame.

I think the important question here is, does the add-on send the actual ranking position and search keywords back to Wikia?

It’s one thing if the toolbar simply tells Wikia about a page you like. It’s quite another if Wikia also gets sent the terms you searched and what position the selected page(s) ranked within that search. That would be very, very evil.

Does anyone know more details about this?

By: TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » GoogleやYahooのデータ取り扱いを簡単にしたWikiaの進化

TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » GoogleやYahooのデータ取り扱いを簡単にしたWikiaの進化 — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:54:10 +0000

[...] ［原文へ］ [...]

By: Omri Joram

Omri Joram — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:52:12 +0000

I don’t think they want to bypass engineering. They just want people to add relevant sites for a search result, use that as a baseline and then edit, rate, and annotate.

By: SkipD

SkipD — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:16:02 +0000

So, Wikia wants to bypass engineering their own search tech by hijacking other companies’ results pages and having users tell them what’s valuable from those hijacked results? Thus Wikia becomes a “best of” site based on other companies’ results? Classy.

By: Malik Aleem Ahmed

Malik Aleem Ahmed — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:13:48 +0000

Yeah the best this about wikia is that you can instantly add / edit sites. I love this feature.

By: Luke Stanley

Luke Stanley — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:30:35 +0000

It’s not about if it’s ‘allowed’: it’s if it will be stopped or not. Client-side, baby.

By: COP

COP — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:26:32 +0000

Is it even LEGAL to annotate Google search results? i mean u r modifying their search results to “loook different”.. is it allowed by Google/Yahoo terms of use?

Seriously, if this is allowed it opens a whole lot of new possibilities.

By: Daniel CerVentus

Daniel CerVentus — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:14:44 +0000

This is way better. lowering the entry, but it is really nothing to shout about.

By: person2

person2 — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:07:49 +0000

“(and thankfully they’ve turned down the “This is a Google-killer” hype machine)…” so, is that why you’re not trashing them this time?