A 'New' Google Search - Are You a Simpleton?
From the G search blog, something new from the Labs - Google Accessible Search - or 'Finding easy-to-read web content'. Shame about the acronym.
Like most of you, when I search the web, I want to find relevant information with a minimal amount of distraction. But because I can't see and I use a device that converts web text to speech, I'm even more in tune with the distractions that can sometimes get in the way of finding the right results. If the information I'm after is on a visually busy page, I have to sort through that page to find the text I want--an extra step that can sometimes be very time-consuming.
So, time to find out if you have elegant, standard, well-constructed and efficient code (or could that just read 'old' code?):
That's why I've been passionate about a project I'm working on at Google called Google Accessible Search. Accessible Search adds a small twist to the familiar Google search: In addition to finding the most relevant results as measured by Google's search algorithms, it further sorts results based on the simplicity of their page layouts. (Simplicity, of course, is subjective in this context.) When users search from the http://labs.google.com/accessible site, they'll receive results that are prioritized based on their usability.
Sure brings up some very different results, and, at a quick glance, returns only 15-20% of the volume that a normal G search yields.
- 0 agreed / 0 disagreed
- Login to post comments
User login
Editors
*Active* Threadwatch Editors
Comments
Tool
And, quick as you like, a side-by-side comparison tool from Google Blogoscoped: Link.
Sight impaired are simpletons?
This is one area of the GoogleSphere I applaud. No evil in this effort.
side-by-side comparison tool doesn't work...
mat, I tried the side-by-side tool, and it doesn't give the same results as going direct to Google Accessible. I'm seeing sponsored links showing up via the tool.
Good idea, though...
And Ironically Enough...
Google Accessible search would not pass accessibility standards...
Sight impaired are simpletons?
Yes, that's absolutely what I meant. Shouldn't be allowed near a computer, let alone a browser.
I meant does Google see your site as 'simple'.
(Edit: I had that Nick Wilson bloke in the back of me cab once.)
Lest we come to blows..
..it might be help to point out what it is intended for.
ulterior motives?
Stepping aside from the visually impaired / accessibility debate, doesn't this add further highlight to Google's desire for web pages to be simple text-based html pages?
A picture is worth a thousand words. An interface can be worth more. But today's search engines depend on text. I say let them fail, so we can advance.
does Google see your site as 'simple'
Mat - I'm really not sure why you keep digging this hole.
Why shouldn't blind people, using standard assistive technology, have a search facility which eliminates all the inaccessible 'all the content is in pictures'/ flash/ web 2.0/ ajax stuff - all the things that they can't access anyway?
Why 'find' it if you can't access the content because the content is inaccessible?
Actually - I might start using it myself....
Oh Dear
Irony really doesn't work on screen, it's true.
Simple, as in KISS, as in what John meant above. Leave aside why they're doing it, I was pondering from a purely dispassionate POV what this new algo might make of your code, my code. Never mind.
I think that's why they invented smileys 24 years ago...
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/Orig-Smiley.htm
Smileys, the laugh-track of the internet
Kind of like the laugh-track to show people where the humor is, eh?
Or the weasel-way of the internet hardman to insult and then claim sympathy because they were "only joking" after all.
Smileys, multiple choice tests, brain-dead article bank users, a weekend bah humbug to all of you...
:-) ;-) :-D ;-P
Geddit? (c. 1965 Glenda Slagg)
Section 508?
I would have thought that "Google Search Accessible" would favor such sites that are compliant with the federal US guidelines section 508 for accessibility. However, they do not, as my quick test showed.
http://conficio.blogspot.com/2006/07/google-offers-search-for-blind.html
So who gets it right? The US government or Google? Should we test now for Google ranking instead?