back to article Google mistakes search for teleportation

Google is now including search boxes in its search results. If you search the world's most popular search engine and your search turns up a site that Google believes eminently searchable - including Amazon.com, The New York Times, and Wikipedia - you get a second search box that does nothing but search that site. So, if you …

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  1. Chris Girocco

    Subtle Invasion

    The wiki example is an interesting 'invasion' of that Web property, in that it highlights the superiority of the Google search results in finding relevant information quickly, primarily due to format of abstracts and key word weighting, over the native Wiki search.

    Try "oil supply world war II" and note how much easier it is to find an article relevant to the subject via Google.

    On a side note: why doesn't a search for string 'wikipedia.com' invoke this 'teleportation' feature?

    Rocco

  2. b166er

    No eBay?

    Didn't try it couldn't be bothered!

    Could be a good thing if instead of 50 results for an item on eBay, I get one searchbar result for eBay and 49 results other than ones from eBay.

  3. Bob Jones
    IT Angle

    Virgin Holidays

    Virgin Holidays gets one for some reason ... ooh ahh!

  4. Nicholas Ettel
    Coat

    Googling Google to google Google

    If you search for Google in the search box, Google does not offer the same search box underneath the weblink. While, initially, this makes obvious sense as the Google search box is empirically and always at the top; but does it also NOT make sense provided the statement and logic derived therefrom? (obviously, again, Google has precluded themselves from their own algoRythm... but why?)

    Right... right... coat, door, exit stage left.

  5. communist

    Or use..

    "<search term> site:theregister.com" for example ;)

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    I see another inane patent being issued

    On this trivial & obvious "search". Google, like Amazon, think that by giving something a new name, its a new invention. And the USPTO is stupid enough to swallow it.

  7. Steven Knox

    @Chris

    "On a side note: why doesn't a search for string 'wikipedia.com' invoke this 'teleportation' feature?"

    Probably because Wikipedia's actual site is wikipedia.org (wikipedia.com is just a redirect). Obviously, Google feels that when you search for a site, you should know the address of the site you're searching for ; )

    No icon because I'd like an "evil google" icon, but they don't do evil, so there couldn't be such an icon...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    nothing new.....

    this really isn't anything new. in fact it's already ava. at http://google.search.a-remotehost.com/

    they (the folks at a-remotehost.com) also have a 'in a window' (at least that's what they cal it) version that opens a smaller browser google search window. they set it up so the user can keep a google window open, browse the web, then search any specific site they come across or search the web in general. sounds kinda like google saw something someone else was doing and decided to do the same.

  9. Matthew Glubb
    Coat

    Re: No Ebay?

    I am suprised that Google don't provide an Ebay search. Google could make a good living from Ebay by driving traffic to their site via searches. Oh, wait...

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    What do you think happens...

    ...if you google search for Yahoo?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    re: Googling Google to google Google

    Haven't you watched the IT crowd?.... it'll break the internet it will

    Mines the one with the gloves sewn to the sleeves

  12. tfewster
    Black Helicopters

    So ther

    > One of the trends we noticed while studying teleporting was that there were lots of searchers who would type the name of a specific website as if they wanted to teleport, but would then immediately issue another more refined search _within_this_ site. (_my_emphasis_)

    So how did they know, unless clicking on a link actually opened the new site in a frame with Google monitoring the traffic? I doubt that "lots of searchers" know the "site:blah" syntax.

    Or did the muppets just mean "Our engine returned so much crap, the user refined their search" ?

  13. skeptical i

    stuff Google already indexes?

    @tfewster: Some websites (municipal, educational) have a "search powered by Google" widget; I'm not sure how exactly this works, but they probably have a "harvest keyword search queries" subroutine that allows them to see if/how folks use these search widgets on the specific sites, and if it'd be more "productive" (however they define it) to cough up a search box within the results for www.somesite.com

  14. system

    RE: So ther(e)

    "So how did they know, unless clicking on a link actually opened the new site in a frame with Google monitoring the traffic?"

    Have you not visited a lot of websites recently? Seems half the world is using google analytics, and the other half is using google syndication, both of which require javascript (and blocked here by noscript). There's no need for frame trickery when your spying tools are installed on any site the user might choose to visit.

  15. tfewster

    RE: RE: So ther(e)

    @ system + skeptical i

    Neat - And it's probably even more underhand than that, as the example they gave "NASA", _doesn't_ say "powered by Google" and NoScript doesn't list google-analytics as one of the sites blocked

    Where's the tinfoil hat icon?

  16. Shakje

    Re: So ther (sic.)

    There's no indication that they mean searching using the site's searching tools at all. Within that site just means using Google to search for results within that site. Am I the only person who that seems obvious to?

  17. Avi

    RE: Re: So ther (sic.)

    No, I've done that a few times.

    Google for, say, hmso. See from the results that it's at hmso.gov.uk (IIRC), then google for `<crap I want to find> site:hmso.gov.uk

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Anything for a Buck

    Anything to know what you are doing..

  19. Prunus Persica

    Seems more preferential than algorithmic

    It's probably be a combination of the two. Though it's still just a search within a search, so there's no need for it to called teleportation. Stealing an old word for marketing fools no one.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    For Teleportation read Interception

    The prize here is simple. Keep the eyes of the masses on Google. If they are indexing Wiki then there is no need to use Wiki searching.. all fair, until the assisted advertising that will eventually come. If they have you reading wiki results from google they control the real estate, which means they can advertise more.

    Quite insideous really. Jolly Roger because this is piracy on a grand scale and everyone is blinking in the headlights.

    Register you need to add some Google CEO angel and devil, 'cos obviously they do no evil.

  21. Ron Luther
    Gates Horns

    Giveaway?

    Odd. They 'give' this feature to Amazon but not Barnes and Noble. Lawsuit anyone?

    I wonder how much they will charge the catalog sales folks; Eddie Bauer, L. L. Bean, etc. to add this to their records.

    Anyone else amused that they enabled this for Microsoft?

  22. Hayden Clark Silver badge

    It's a hack

    it doesn't even work for amazon.co.uk.

    I suspect a dose of:

    if $searchterm in (amazon,nasa,...) then $teleportSearchMode = true;

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Feedback

    I wonder if its a feature activated by the presence of a google search appliance reporting information back.

    http://www.google.com/enterprise/public_search.html

  24. Bruno Girin

    I for one...

    ...would welcome that feature for the IBM web site. It's impossible to find anything there by using their own search.

  25. Christos Georgiou
    Coat

    Re: I for one...

    IBM WEBSITE SEARCH RESULTS:

    This web page intentionally left blank.

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