SEL: Google Now Shooting Better Blanks

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Search marketing in the new media era.

August 10, 2005

Google Now Shooting Better Blanks

Google's Hiyan Alshawi posted word of wildcard operator search improvements on the Google blog.

OK I'm about to get Gary Price style geeky here:

The asterisk as a search operator requests that the search engine fill in the blank for your query.

Screw it - here's how the Google engineer described it: "So instead of asking [who invented the parachute?], you can enter the query [the parachute was invented by *]. (The blank, or wildcard, search is marked by * - an asterisk.)"

How are changes to operator search news?

Advanced search operators are kind of like a little programming language - they require that you communicate with the search engine with little bits of code. This manner of searching is light years from how the vast majority of people search.

Any alterations in how operators work are, to me, only news if they end up affecting how search engines deliver results for natural language queries.

My assumption is that changes in how this operator functions for Google WILL end up affecting how Google delivers results - specifically for natural language search queries that are clearly direct questions.

Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |

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