Internet UltraGeek » Search Engines

Think Twice About What You Search For

Raj Dash — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 19:53:52 +0000

Search engines offer all kinds of personalization features that make research easier, but they might also be exposing our privacy. A team of European and American researchers were able to reconstruct users Web browsing history by hijacking Google’s personalized search features. While Google has fixed some of the problems, they still exist on other sites.

President Obama Already Rippling Change

Raj Dash — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 02:25:34 +0000

New U.S. President Barack Obama – a historically significant President – took office today. While he might have to break some of his campaign promises, his administration is already enacting change. To wit, the Whitehouse.gov website previously had instructions for search engine spiders not to include many hundreds of pages of content on the site. Today, all those restrictions were removed.

In simple terms, what this means is that when you search for information from Google and other search engines, if it’s on the whitehouse.gov site, it’ll be easier to find now.

People Search for the Strangest Things

Raj Dash — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 14:42:31 +0000

As might become apparent to those of you that use Google Trends regularly, I check it every day. You find out the Google Search zeitgest for the time slot when you check. Some of the strangest searches come up amidst the more mundane stuff, and of course what’s popular (search-wise) changes through out the day. (Google never gives any indication of how many people have to search for something for that term to get on Google Trends. So it’s all relative.)

Some of the search terms that were popular when I wrote this include “real women have curves” (about the play), “deathbed the bed that eats people” (about the film), “fleet foxes” (the Seattle band) and “rosario dawson“, both of whom appeared on Saturday Night Live last night.

But none of that is all that weird. I don’t even want to get into some of the stuff I’ve seen on Google Trends. You’ll just have to “watch” for yourself. What is interesting, at least to me, is that people are searching for Dick Cavett and other weekend entertainment. How many of you remember this talk show host let alone watched him? And how many of you were searching for him this morning? What about “seven brides for seven brothers” (classic movie), “twisting the hellmouth” (vampire fan fiction) or “forbidden science” (new HBO series)?