Google is continuing its effort to bring relevant webpages to the Google searching community. Recently, they announced that its spiders will now be entering data into a small number of HTML forms that it comes accross while crawling the web. By doing this, they hope to find additional pages and URLs that are not currently available through normal text links and are part of the hidden web.
The Google spiders will only be querying forms that use the GET methond and will not be following those that use the POST method or have a password text box. They will not be entering into forms that seem to require personal information such as logon or user ids. Google says that the spider will enter a small number of queries into forms that it encounters while crawling among high-quality websites. They also state that only a small number of very useful sites will have their forms crawled and that their Googlebot will continue to adhere to nofollow and noindex tags as well as the robot.txt documents.
This new crawl should have very little, if any, impact on typical websites, however, will lead to an increase in quality search engine results.
Jayant Madhavan and Alon Halevy from Google’s Crawling and Indexing Team state on the Google Webmaster Central Blog:
“This experiment is part of Google’s broader effort to increase its coverage of the web. In fact, HTML forms have long been thought to be the gateway to large volumes of data beyond the normal scope of search engines. The terms Deep Web, Hidden Web, or Invisible Web have been used collectively to refer to such content that has so far been invisible to search engine users. By crawling using HTML forms (and abiding by robots.txt), we are able to lead search engine users to documents that would otherwise not be easily found in search engines, and provide webmasters and users alike with a better and more comprehensive search experience. “
Google labs continues to come out with new ways of searching the web. One of their most recent technologies is the ability to find what you are looking for when you’re away from the house and on the go. Simply text message your search query to Google by texting your query to 466453 (it spells GOOGLE on most phones that have the letters onthe dial pad)
I did some testing with this feature and found that although some results were quite accurate, others were quite off base and Google should keep working at refining results. I was, however, very impressed with the speed in which Google responded as I received a text from them with search results in less than 10 seconds each time.
Search Results on Google SMS:
You will not get the typical Google search page results when using Google SMS. Unlike the online Google results where you receive a long list of links to other websites, SMS results are strictly informational. You will receive actual information rather than links to pages that wil contain your information. For example, if you query ‘the Midtown Hotel in Boston’, you will receive the address and phone number of that particular hotel rather than receiving a list of websites that talk about the hotel. If you query ‘weather Boston’, you receive actual weather information rather than a list of weather websites.
What devices & what services do I need on my cell phone to use Google SMS?
Google’s Mobile Help Center states that their mobile search is available only in the United States, Canada, China, Japan and India and will work on all of the major US mobile providers including Alltel, AT&T, Centennial, Dobson, Nextel, Sprint PCS, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Verizon, and Virgin Mobile. The service is currently only available in English. Google does’t charge for this search capability, however, you should verify with your service provider as to the fees and costs associated with texting and make sure your text messaging sevice is enabled.
What about the search queries?
You can actully search for anything, as you would on Google, however, be very specific or you won’t get relevant results, or any search results at all in some cases. An example of a search that you text Google SMS could be the phrase ‘marathon’ which you get no results for. Rather than receiving a text message back about marathons, the message simply asks for you to be more specific by adding a location. If you text ‘Boston marathon’ you will receive local information about companies in Boston that have the phrase ‘marathon’ in it. If you text ‘define boston marathon’, you get a brief description of the race.
Google’s SMS help page offers some ways to bet more specific with your searches. Here are some that I found interesting and may be helpful when on the Go.
Weather: Add a zip code or city and state along with the phrase ‘weather’ in your Google SMS search query. Tests I ran showed the current weather as well as a very short description of the following three day forcast.
Local: Enter the type of business you are looking for along with either a zip code or town and state, such as ‘chinese restaurant 01803′ or ‘hotel in boston’ and you will typically receive 1-3 local business listings showing the business name, address and phone number. These results are drawn from the online Google Local listings. If you want your business found in these results, make sure you have registered at Google Local.
Sports: Enter ’score’ along with the name of a sports team from the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL or NCAA and you will get the current scores. I did some testing here as well and found that they did display most scores, however, some showed that the game was not yet complete even though it had been over for hours.
Flight Information: Enter the name of the airline, the flight number and the phrase ‘flight’ and you’ll know if the person you are picking up at the airport will be on time.
Other Google queries found on their help page includes stock information, movies, area codes, currency conversion, directions and more.
What will they think of next?
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