Fight for Search..(Microsoft/Google/Yahoo)

Microsoft is trying hard to get Yahoo. Even tried for $46 billion…Let’s forget that and talk about the technology search engines uses…

“Semantic Web” is the technology that brings up results based on an understanding of a word's meaning and the context of its use. That's in contrast to the method used by the major search engines, which work primarily by matching words in queries to those on Web pages. http://www.powerset.com/ is the company who works on Semantic Web technology and Microsoft has shown interest to go for it (as they didn’t get Yahoo or it’s still uncertain). The interesting thing is that several search engines have expressed interest in the powerset. If the deal were to go through, Microsoft could get a big leg up in efforts to catch Google.

Semantic search wouldn't be easy for Google to replicate. Large search engines, such as Google and Microsoft, have already scanned and indexed many of the pages on the Web. So their machines can concentrate efforts on analyzing the several million new Web sites created every year and adding them to their records. Adopting semantic search technology would require the big guys, in essence, to start from the beginning—rescanning every Web page according to the technology's fundamentally different method of analyzing and classifying Web pages.

http://www.hakia.com/
http://www.powerset.com/

Above 2 engines use Semantic Web search technologies. And reality is, Microsoft desperately wants to buy someone to fight with Google.

But anyone who fights with Google must know below 2 things minimum:

1. Even if someone place the infrastructure semantic search needs, it will still face two challenges it has been trying to surmount for years. One concerns multimedia. Semantic search does not offer a great solution for recognizing videos and images. It can scan the words people use to describe a video or an image. But it can't yet analyze the soundtrack or images in a video to determine whether those descriptions are accurate. Google is working on better technology.
2. Power of Google's brand. The company's name has become synonymous with search and its users are loyal. To take share, semantic search will need to develop a reputation for providing better, more relevant results than Google.

Technologies behind Google Ranking..

Source: Via Email